School Committee: February 3, 2022

Transcript captured from YouTube auto-captioning. No speaker labels; proper names and dollar figures occasionally misheard. Click any timecode to jump to that moment in the source video.

0:35 all right welcome everyone um james mulroney is taping us for image tv and we are being live streamed so i will call us to order at 701 all right first up is commendations does anybody have any accommodations this evening

0:58 so tonight i’d like to um commend mandy murphy the village school principal on her or her response in action towards the incidents of aids that have happened over the last few weeks at the village school and i also want to commend dr bucky for his response as well it’s great that we have our m administration and leaders um doing something about what has happened but most importantly i want to recommend the students who um stood up to the hate and alerted adults about what happened because doing that takes a lot of courage in bravery and it’s so important that our students feel comfortable

1:44 comfortable comfortable um that they can do that and have people to go talk to so thank you to them and i just want to say as a community we have to come together and um stand up against all this hatred that’s happening and i think it’s important that every day that everyone students families teachers faculty admin anyone who’s in our buildings remind our students in each other that our mind is not a place for hate and we need to do better and we can do better um so yes thank you emily sarah did i see you put your hand up yes um thank you very much emily for what you said i think it’s safe to say we all

2:31 agree with everything you said um i wanted to commend um elizabeth peterson she is a woman in our community who came out on i believe it was monday night to help by shoveling the sidewalks and street around village she doesn’t even have a student there i later found out she just drove by that morning and saw there was a problem and wanted to be part of the solution um which i thought was really impressive there were you know she was joined by um other people out there but i specifically wanted to commend her because just that idea that i’m gonna help because i see a problem even though it doesn’t directly benefit me it’s just what we need to see more of

3:17 in our community i think and i just wanted to honor that thank you sarah any other commendations believe the time looked good to mrs hammond todd go ahead good evening everyone i’d like to commend my staff for the job that they did through this storm uh they began saturday morning at 3 a.m finished up around midnight saturday they were back sunday morning 8 a.m worked another 8 to 10 hours they were out three in the morning four in the morning through the week helping to clear up clean up wherever we’ve seen or been asked or you know they’ve just jumped right out there

4:05 uh especially uh one of my staff ramon rijos he was stationed at the veterans middle school throughout that entire blizzard to keep those sidewalks open in case the town needed it as a shelter and he spent 16 hours doing that along with everybody plowing and keeping it open and i also really really want to thank richard kelleher he made sure that all my staff had coffee and plenty of food to help them through so they’re very tired and i couldn’t be more proud of them they had a long long week and it’ll continue tomorrow um um todd thanks for that i think your team

4:51 has done a phenomenal job and it’s nice to hear the teamwork too with you know richard coming out and supporting supporting your team so thank you for letting us know about that as well yes absolutely todd i completely agree and thank you for coming and saying that this evening and i’ll i’ll take it a little bit a step further and thank the town for their efforts and particularly on the back side of all of this and removing the snow because it’s not easy as many of us know within the pickup and drop-off situations um and so you know i know that they’re still working even like on the back side of the high school where everybody drops and picks up over by the post office there were signs posted for snow removal today so i just i really appreciate the efforts at continuing to keep our students safe

5:42 so um in my former district the superintendent was a retired superintendent out of new hampshire and in our first leadership meeting together he said how do you call snow days and everyone kind of laughed because on the island they’re really hard many snow days and he was very hyper focused and when i got the superintendency in marblehead he said you’re gonna have to make your first snow day call and so membership has its privileges if you’re on the school committee meeting tonight you’re hearing it firsthand that we will have a snow day tomorrow the robocall and announcement will go out at 7 15. but um this is one of these storms where it’s going to be too close to call and

6:29 so we’re collaborating with swampscott and the haunt and beverly manchester essex essex tech to make the call this evening so we will indeed have a snow day all right well everybody heard it here first i actually just yelled to my husband as he went to go tell the children i was like don’t tell them

6:57 all right i think that wraps up commendations for this evening um yasen i will kick it over to you welcome thank you i know everybody at the high school was hoping for a snow day so it’s good news um speaking of snow days um a couple days ago when we had the big snowstorm our interact club which is the rotary club at marblehead high school they also helped shovel during the snowstorms and maybe they’ll help again this tomorrow um i wanted to give congratulations to tim clay on his acceptance and participation in the all-national mixed choir it’s a huge accomplishment um tim and other three other students were also accepted to the allstate chorus and they will perform at symphony hall in march

7:42 so super cool experience um on january 26th grade 10 had essex tech after dark presentations to offer them a dual enrollment choice with essex tech and marblehead high school on january 27th we had the grade 8 open house that was a great program um we are we collected food for the marblehead food pantry through january 28th and we also collected winter coats hats and gloves for miaa which is the sports league in massachusetts they donated that um currently the marblehead community outreach club at mhs is collecting food

8:29 and supplies for lifebridge uh team harmony gave presentations at village on february 2nd to all grades on discrimination and treating people well as you guys mentioned uh the freshmen are holding their valentine’s day fundraiser with stowaway suites until february 8th there is a chipotle fundraiser for the national honor society next wednesday uh there was a math meet today uh january 25th swimming had their senior night

9:08 juniors had college prep seminars this week and last week and junior parent night is currently ongoing i believe at mhs track had to meet january 26th girls and boys basketball won a couple days ago and indoor track is getting ready for the nec’s which are the i believe the playoffs so congrats to them wonderful thank you awesome sarah did you have something

9:37 um two things yes and while reviewing our minutes i i one of the minutes we reviewed was when um you were first introduced to us back i believe it was in june um and i just wanted to take the opportunity to tell you you’ve been doing a really great job thank you you had some pretty big shoes to fill and you’ve done a good job and i just wanted to to let you know that popped into my head when we were reviewing those um and then i also just i was remiss in my um accommodations i heard a lot of positive feedback about the eighth grade night and how the energy was just so wonderful and dan just was so welcoming and parents and children left there all feeling really great um so i just wanted to

10:26 justin now i always have to ask did principal bauer do a cartwheel for the eighth graders or they have to be at the high school for that i don’t know i wasn’t there i’ll have to ask my brother

10:41 for special occasions he loves the cartwheel he does he does them so well you jason yeah thank you guys so much um next up is public comment so if anyone would like to make public comment please use the raise hand function um i will ask that people keep their public comment to three minutes or less in length um as stipulated in our policy this will allow us to hear from anyone who wants to comment will also keep us moving forward with our meeting um and i will ask that emily help keep track of the time on public comment all right i have nicole cohen can you state your address for the uh where the record is

11:27 you’re you’re not you’re you’re muted nicole okay sorry okay sorry um yes i’m saying that you’re having public comment now and we’re not exactly sure um what we should be commenting on uh a couple of concerns um one with the team harmony presentation uh and the dei uh my understanding is that presentation that was presented to the kids spoke about something very specifically gender related um

12:13 i’m just wondering why team harmony and others are not addressing uh anti-semitism um i’m also curious for the the team harmony presentation does the school have to have a send home a need informed consent from parents if they’re talking about certain topics uh so that’s a concern obviously the other concern is masking um

12:49 so i don’t know if i’m at three minutes so that’s uh where i’m at i can let others speak also thank you thank you nicole catherine martin thank you sorry about that uh catherine martin 29 west shore drive and actually i wanted to speak a little bit about the budget process can you hear me oh sorry about that i want to speak a little bit about the budget process and how it’s going so i attended the budget subcommittee meeting on december 21st where a number was presented and the superintendent presented it to the fincom members of what we needed for an exemplary education and then at that time stated that there

13:36 wouldn’t be a lot of movement in that number

13:46 sorry but i think someone else is on muting but um i’ll continue so um so my question is as we went into the last liaison meeting we had lost quite a bit of money in the ask and i understand that some of the technology ass got rolled into other numbers and some things were moved to the capital ask and i understand that looking at leases rather than buying things you know you know i don’t have an issue with that but we were so substantially over kind of the level fund we’re looking at override type numbers so i’m wondering why we’re removing the curriculum coaches the fine arts coaches the professional development for steam various other professional development

14:34 if we’re going for the override and i haven’t heard anyone say it out loud but we’re so far over zero i have to assume that we’re at least tracking or at least starting the conversation um sorry about that the school department just called me to tell me we have no school um so i just i guess i kind of want an explanation as to are we looking at the override if they if we are why are we cutting why aren’t we keeping the number whole because you know it doesn’t make sense to go in for 2 million and change it makes sense to go in for the number you were looking for before and we’re all looking for that exemplary education that we talked about on december 21st and i remember sarah

15:19 gold saying it last year we all want it all is it okay to want it all and i want it all i think a lot of parents in this district want it all we’re ready to be your foot soldiers to get the word out but i think we have to make sure that our number encompasses everything we haven’t had an override in 17 years this is not something that happens every other year this is not an easy sell in this town parents are ready to mobilize so i guess i guess i’m just looking for an explanation and i’m guess i’m looking for that number to be put back where it was because we need these curriculum coaches we need that fine arts teacher we need steam we need professional development we need all of these things that were on that list and i’m happy to support it my

16:06 family’s happy to support it and we’ve been waiting for it thank you so much thank you katie uh luba luba grenadier yes hi um uh luba grenadier 27 where elaine um i just wanted to somebody mentioned the masks and i’m hoping certainly this is on the agenda because as a parent um i know we all have different opinions but i’m very much concerned and i’m just reading a lot of findings about the masks i’m also a professor at endicott and the masking mandate came down in beverly as of yesterday and i saw the students who were thrilled to take off the masks a completely different attitude towards education and participation in the classroom

16:53 that’s where i teach and i’m just very much concerned about all the findings about social experience that the children are having from young age to high schoolers and i certainly hope you will consider i’ve written some letters i have received some feedback from some of you is hoping to receive an acknowledgement from others which i haven’t unfortunately um and so please please consider this and i don’t want to take all the time and i’m happy to share more of what i know what i’ve researched and i’ve done quite a bit in terms of the harm that the masks are doing as opposed to having a positive effect on what’s happening and excuse me the lack of necessity at this point uh with

17:39 all the coveted findings and what is happening um you know in terms of needing the masks and actual efficacy of the mask so i certainly excuse me hope you will consider and also my son who is a high school senior also wanted to share his um thoughts on that so here he is hi yeah my name is isaac i didn’t want to take too much time i just i wanted to share because i think that um students aren’t really being asked how they feel about masks and i’m a senior and i know that it’s not super important for me at this point but i can see that around me it’s the masks are having a big effect on social and mental health it’s very difficult to interact with people and i think that

18:25 especially kids in the early grades are unable to like develop social skills as they should in school which i think is really bad because we can’t really see each other’s faces the majority of the face and i think it also creates a lot of anxiety about just being in school wearing a mask and people constantly judging you if you’re wearing it correctly or whatever um and just being in the classroom where teachers are asking you to pull up your mask and it’s just totally a distraction um and obviously it’s very difficult to breathe and concentrate while wearing it so i just hope that people talk to students and ask them how they feel also thank you luba and thank you isaac i just want to quickly add of what isaac

19:10 i forgot to share and he shared with me that and i’ve seen it that during lunch time and outside of school kids are freely interacting and so the whole idea of you know being covered a certain part of the time and then not another i’m just not sure how it’s working anymore but thank you so much for giving us the time to speak thank you thank you um emily d

19:36 hi everyone thanks so much um that i’m so impressed whenever students speak so thank you to the senior that just um shared with everyone tonight so impressive and really it’s just a psa on my part rather than a comment just to encourage parents to attend uh the coffee and conversation with superintendent bucky i was able to go last week and dr bucky and sarah gold were in attendance and it is so much incredibly more satisfying to speak in person to somebody’s face and eyeballs and get feedback than these public comments so for any parents that are listening and participating in com public comment tonight i highly

20:22 encourage that if you have something to share we’re really lucky that um dr bucky and a member of the school committee is willing to show up and listen to us um it’s way better than this forum and we just really appreciate the time that you’re making to do that and we hope it continues so thank you so much thank you emily good day

20:47 hi there kim jay 18 liberty road um i didn’t hear emily and i apologize because i dialed in late to this meeting but if she didn’t mention the um the crossing guards i just wanted to shout out to them because it’s crazy the circumstances that they put their bodies in when we have storms like we did this week and i just want them to know that they’re really appreciated by a lot of parents in this community and the students as well so thank them for all that they do um i also wanted to echo what katie had to say um i i really think that it’s important for you to for the school committee and um dr bucky and everybody um um in central admin to really consider the budget this year and take a hard look and think about you know how long it’s taken us to get to a place where we are comfortable with our budget and

21:32 and and you know one of the things that was really eye opening to me was attending the meetings where the principals um presented their building level budgets um that was such a valuable meeting to attend because there’s so much that you learn from hearing them explain and the effort and the diligence that went into the budgets that they presented to um the school committee during those meetings and it’s a lot different to hear that background and that ask in that context versus you know seeing it as a line item on a spreadsheet and there are these principles have all been working in these buildings for years and in this district for years and when the ask was made i really feel like they took the time to like consider exactly what they need to have an exemplary um school for our students so

22:19 i think that ayako what katie said there’s support in the community we are ready to hit the ground if you decide to go for the override i i wish that marblehead was the town that we could go back and ask you know every year when when needs come up it i mean i i hope we get to that place at some point quite frankly because that seems to be a better way to go but we haven’t had an override in 17 years as katie said and i i just don’t want us to go in with half an ask or or not what we need right now so anyway consideration thank you thank you kim

23:01 all right um that is all that i have for people billy can you just knock it off thank you did you you had your hand back up no sorry i wasn’t i was trying to turn it put it down all right no worries do you have the capacity to now that we’ve moved away from public comment to mute people who aren’t part of the meeting everyone let me see if i can do that

23:50 i’m going to make you a co-host yeah david i want to get dangerous

23:57 this is why i prefer not to put these types of controls on because it’s a nuisance on the other side of it all right and i’m waiting that should allow everybody to unveil themselves um all right that moves us along two minutes uh we have three sets of minutes in the dropbox um did anybody have any uh additions to make for them sarah

24:29 um 617 just had a few typos if um lisa just looks those over and correct so that will be fine and then when i reread it i i um kind of lost track of this request there was a request in there for itemized invoices if um we can just review review that and then get those out to us um and then eight three which was our retreat there under the light department section can we just have it reflect in there that um during that discussion we had as a committee i think assigned the members of the facility subcommittee to be the liaison satellite department and that just wasn’t in the minutes yeah absolutely

25:13 uh sarah uh sarah sarah fox sarah i’m looking at the packet tonight michelle does attach all the individual invoices so is there something different no this was this was um a specific request for itemized invoices that we hadn’t gotten prior so when things were paid through um that first round of karezak money that flowed through the town if it was paid by the town portion we didn’t get an itemized invoice we only get to itemize invoices that come from our schedule of bills

25:52 so that would be something that michelle would be getting asked

26:06 and that was it the 7 8 meeting you said 6 17. great great all right um anybody else have any additions or anything um all right i will ask for a motion to approve the minutes from 6 17 20 21 7 8 20 21 and 8 3 20 21. so move sarah moved second night and second all right roll call vote sarah gold yes david harris yes sarah fox yes megan taylor yes and emily baron yes all right thanks everyone pass this fight to zero

26:52 all right um that brings us to principal bauer uh talking to us about approval for the deca overnight field trip have principal bauer with us um principal there you are all right you should be able to image yourself oh thank great thank you that’s a great feature to lock me out i appreciate that i’ll stop with that so i was just updating the sign to say no school tomorrow so uh anyway yes uh thank you for having uh having us on i don’t know if janet scaliban is on uh janice scaliban is our business teacher who runs our deca program here at the high school and our request and we’re happy to bring this request to

27:39 you is for the overnight field trip for the deca state competition that will take place in boston this will take place thursday march 10th through saturday march 12th we have 29 students who’ve qualified we had the districts at endicott and so proud of our students from escalaban and 29 qualify so they would be leaving the high school uh in the afternoon of march 10th what that means is we only miss one day of school but again as it being an overnight field trip we need to ask permission i guess i’m glad to bring this to you because it’s a sign of moving back to normalcy for our students uh and as ms caliban has communicated with the students we fall under whatever boston guidelines are for covet in terms of vaccination status and such so

28:25 there’s been fundraising that has been done there’s been some leftovers from the previous year as we were not able to do things in person uh so the cost was brought down to 345 dollars and as you know this program has been supported uh through a grant from the friends so again we’re so happy with the support and we’re just asking for permission for us to attend the overnight deca state championships in boston i’m sorry march 10th to march 12th and i don’t know if miss caliban has anything to add she is on great i i allowed you to unmute yourself miss gallivan so if you’d like to say anything feel free

29:05 yeah i just wanted to say that the students are very excited because they came in our first through fifth and placed in the district competition so they’re able to compete at the state level so everybody is uh hoping to go the they have to be have two shots two um vaccinations and be masked well thank you so much um so i will before we ask questions i’ll just ask for the motion and then we can kind of discuss it um so can i get a motion to approve the mhs overnight for the deca competition from march 10th through march 12th megan moves 31 seconds sure second

29:54 all right any questions or comments sarah um where this is the overnight is that if there was a student for whatever reason that wanted to participate but didn’t want to do it as an overnight more as like a day commuter if you will is that still an option or is the overnight a requirement that is an option this year and we are having i’m trying to figure out how many sophomores are actually going to the semi so we’ll have to get uh permission for parents to bring them back and forth but yes it is an option if somebody wants to have their parent bring them back and forth to compete and to

30:41 attend all the activities okay and and then um as far as them pairing up and sharing rooms like are there any precautions for for that if precautions were needed

30:58 as far as like um like you know like uh if if we were

31:05 if we first like came into another spike or some some such thing and they’re needed are are they doubling up i guess is what i’m asking or do students have an option i can help answer that question so one of the things that we do with all of our um we really haven’t taken many trips but we did have a music trip and anything else we run through deanna in the health office before we do anything and she’s consulted with myself and janice so if there’s anything locally that would have to be done we would follow those guidelines and janice miss caliban has been on top of communicating with the families and the students so they know all those pieces um and also too what we do is too for safety there are chaperones that are stationed uh throughout as well as ms scaliban and herself and chaperones will take care of that piece in terms of monitoring and we at the high school

31:51 have a place where the bags are stowed we check bags before students leave for safety as we always do um so we’ll follow those guidelines no i just know boston has much stricter rules i’d hate for these kids to work so hard and then all of a sudden for whatever they’re not be a match up to the the stricter rules that are in place you know in staying in boston and lodging and eating and things like that are using boxed lunches this year and or for all the meals instead of having buffets like they usually do but as far as the rooms go that the rooms are all triples or quads and you know even those are pretty expensive but that’s it because that’s how the rooms are

32:38 all right thank you anybody else with any questions i’m just glad we have the opportunity to do this it sounds um dan like you and ms scalaban have done a great job organizing and figuring out the logistics working with the families and i you know just hope it’s a great weekend for them congratulations to them for making it this far happening too being absolutely it’s very exciting for our students both but again we’re moving forward and that there are so many of them that have placed so highly in this competition and i know you know we often i think represent quite well in this deck of competition and i know that this is a class now for credit which is a great thing for everybody um so all kinds of exciting things all right so we’ll take the vote sarah gold yes david harris yes sarah fox

33:25 sarah fox sarah fox yes megan taylor yes and emily baron yes all right wonderful that passes five to zero thank you so much we appreciate that thank you very yes good much

33:41 thank you thank you all right uh dr bucky that moves us on to the superintendent’s report i will hand it over to you and i will hand it over to the director of technology stephen quiatek who is moving us further and further into the 21st century with an update to our registration process so stephen you should be able to unmute yourself thank you hopefully you can hear me i am been working on our registration process over the last two months we’ve started a online registration using our aspen uh student information system uh moving forward parents will be able to log on to our site create an account apply for a new registration for the students

34:26 any existing parents can log in with their account and create a registration for a new student coming in this is going to solve a lot of our issues with some of our paper process that we’ve had over the years um transferring information from one system into another it’s going to have a single source which will uh move the process along a lot faster for our parents as well as our staff we expect this process to really be up and running in the next couple weeks so i’ll be excited to have this open for our next registration round coming up wonderful i mean everybody hopefully saw the memo that stephen added into our dropbox tonight um thank you for joining us stephen

35:12 us stephen us stephen for him sarah um so does this get rid of some of the glitches that we’re in with the other system where the pre-k didn’t roll over to kindergarten enrollment and families had to re-enroll from being a pre-k family to okay family and also like another glitch i know that was a big one was um when you had a family account you still had to upload all those documents like your deed to prove you lived here for each child um part of the process is going to be the registration verification if you are already a registered parent you’ve probably already gone through that process so i think a lot of that will be

35:57 resolved as part of this uh any parents who have left the district and are returning will have to go through the process of verification um just because we need to verify but other than that it should resolve a lot of issues i wasn’t aware of the issue for rollovers from preschool into first grade any of that uh you know i’ll check on that that if they’re already in our aspen system it shouldn’t be uh too much of an issue for a rollover but uh now that i’m aware of it i’ll make sure that i no that will be huge because that made those kindergarten numbers hard to adjust because so many families who are in our k pre-k program assumed they were already enrolled so when we were doing our enrollment projections it kind of makes it hard because people didn’t realize until

36:42 placements happened and you know an educator will say oh no that i know that family was here and they’re still staying thank you and stephen just to sort of um come alongside that is was this going to help with some of the issues that we had with kids um matriculating from private schools into the district and sort of particularly at that high school jump where they sort of missed out on an email address and some of the different things that were going on and sort of kind of missing information missing schedules those types of things so it’s definitely a better uh process for us to collect all the information and it will automatically be moved right into our aspen system because it’s all going to be entered into the one single system so yes going forward

37:28 all the information we’re collecting automatically gets moved over when the child has been activated in the aspen system as being a registered student all of the account access will open up uh it really will resolve a lot of our issues wonderful it’s great thank you so much steven as always you’re finding problems and and fixing them thank you yeah i just have one question i don’t know if it’s for steven or john but just you know yes there are 90 something people on this call but how do we get this information out to families but especially new and incoming families how do they know about this so we’re definitely gonna have a rollout process once it’s ready uh again we’re we’re a couple weeks away from it we’ll be sending out

38:16 um you know the blackboard connect calls to the family so that they understand what’s going on uh we’ll be promoting it on our website as well

38:26 great okay all right thank you thank you anybody any other questions all right and this doesn’t require us to vote or anything this is just an update so we appreciate it thank you steven

38:42 so now we move to the budget and uh budget update this will be similar to what i gave to the joint uh group and everybody did that on the screen so i’ll just remind everyone that uh i think bill mcculloch used the word iterative to talk about the budget process and we began the budget process by asking directors and principals what do you need to effectively run your building or program in order to provide an exemplary education from experience last year i didn’t want them to leave anything off the table so they made presentations knowing that there would be things in the request that we would further need to vet based on school committee feedback

39:28 or the budget subcommittee feedback meetings with the joint income budget subcommittee and so what you see nothing has been cut nothing has been eliminated but there are opportunities to look at the requests and are there alternative ways to fund things or are there things that operationally we need need more time to vet and to figure out and so what i’ve given you this evening is the categories of the budget requests and so safety and if there are any notes if there’s an update on to the budget request there we also have the smart panels that was an original ask of 665 000 to purchase outright

40:14 purchase outright purchase outright one question that was presented through the process is is there an option to lease these so michelle and steven looked into it there is an opportunity to lease it that would be 235 a year over the next three years and not for nothing but leasing technology makes good sense in the rate at which technology changes and our ability to upgrade at the end of that lease makes good sense so that was an adjustment that you see on the original apps through that process in terms of personnel the mhs 0.8 visual performing arts that didn’t go away that can be funded through the existing

41:00 budget through existing staff and changes in enrollment and we wouldn’t have known that in december during the presentation but that was an ass that they have made it is still in the request but we don’t need additional funding to make that happen the same thing uh through the endicott fellows that can be funded through a grant the curriculum directors that is something that through our planning for success the development of the curriculum as you’ve heard dan say many times we are woefully under aligned in our curriculum some places it’s absent so teachers being part of that work developing the curriculum is the initial step

41:46 step step curriculum directors which i have heard since being here is missing in our budget so i wanted dan to include that as we go through the process we also have the stipend working group and they’re looking at all the stipends we pay we currently have team leaders across the district is there an opportunity to look do we need team leaders and curriculum directors and so in conversations with nan and with dan we’re not eliminating those but operationally it hasn’t been fleshed out yet and so we will put them forward as part of the fy24 and will it be two will it be one for

42:31 each content area will they be seven to twelve this was something that i talked about with the joint budget subgroup is that curriculum work in districts takes on a lot of forms and where we are right now we’re not ready to operationalize curriculum directors and so dan’s on board with that conversation nan’s on board with that conversation i get historically in marblehead that if you haven’t gone for an override that you may look at this that you have to do everything in this one year i would suggest that i think in working with town and working with the school committee that you can put this forward next year when it’s further developed you’ll see the dei position that was

43:17 added that was not discussed in the december meeting so things in the iterative budget process change the stipend increase is that working group that mea and administration has and looking at our coaching stipends and looking at our academic stipends co-curricular student council advisor musical director that’s big because those have not been reviewed in working with michelle we’re putting this 65 000 place holder in that we can make some movement uh through that working group uh in increasing uh stipends for the also mentioned team leaders if we maintain team leaders or if we’re able to look will those uh will that funding go to curriculum directors and will that be

44:04 k-12 will that be 7-12 a lot of conversations still to be had there student uh services the curriculum piece of this uh we’re able to do the extended year that’s not going away we’re just able to fund it through a grant uh central uh office contracted services we’re reducing this by 25 000 because it’s reflected in building level requests or department requests so we’re able to fund what we need to do with the reduced amount at the central office ask uh the cadence xpd for steam part of acquiring the parts will come with some built-in tv and again building level requests for increase in professional development

44:49 professional development professional development should account for the reduction here so you see there’s no change in the tuition for a pre-k out of district tuition there is conversation at the budget the joint budget about student services and out of district tuition and transportation so we will continue to look at that here is kind of the overview in each of the six priority areas and again in each of those priority areas that i just went over those were in priority order as uh reviewed by the administrative team and then to get to the 2941144 there are additional things in our operating costs that get us to our ask

45:35 our ask our ask and to our overall budget so i’m happy to take questions on budget can i just clarify on the least thing um because that that’s probably one of our biggest changes here and i think correctly from wrong john but originally we had that ask that 600 000 as a one-time cost so what leasing it does is a it spreads stat payment or that expense over a number of years but also putting it into the operating to the recurring costs then we’ve got that amount to to fund ongoing maintenance replacement etc so that’s kind of baked in then to the operating budget thanks for clarifying that because that was actually a question that i wrote down too because that and that honestly like some of the conversations that we had back in the budget um

46:21 budget um budget um presentations that was talked about of kind of you know is it wise to replace them all at once because then they’re going to need to replace all once again and those larger asks that could become problematic in the future so we can’t tell the future um so that’s i think that’s really that that’s that’s good from that’s good to know did you want to i kind of cut you off no that’s fine i mean i’ve been through this a number of times with john so i think maybe open it up to questions for

46:57 um i will say i have some various serious concerns about eliminating the curriculum coordinators as we went through the process of planning for success i know the groups i talked to it was every single group said you know since we got rid of curriculum director our curriculum coaches our curriculum coordinators um there’s been you know it it has it has negatively impacted us and this is why and they gave information and during when we all got together as that collective unit it was it was a strong scene that came out that people were missing those curriculum coordinators that a lot of what they did was above and beyond what the teacher leader position does um that they helped with

47:43 evaluations that there was there was a high impact of not that only on um our staff but also on outcomes for our students so i would i would plead that we keep that in there and that we make those people that we hire into those positions part of designing whatever curriculum that we’re going to design in and choose because that’s so important that that those people are choosing what they’re then going to implement later on um i think kind of picking something and then bringing them in after to me feels somewhat disjointed so i would just ask that we look at that again another piece of that being you know this i know a lot of towns do go for overrides every year marblehead isn’t

48:30 marblehead isn’t marblehead isn’t isn’t one of those um the idea that we may come back next year and be another 210 that we’re going into an overhead saying but we know we’re going to need at least another 210 next year um on top of anything else that new that pops in that’s gonna be a little bit harder i think for voters to realize okay we already know there’s more coming down the pike it doesn’t it doesn’t seem like the best plan for that um i know that at the sac that i sat on when budget was on the committee there were some additional items identified um there just you know as we get our communities together the way we do for an sac and

49:15 really that’s you know the whole point of these is to get that extra community feedback um so how have we implemented the the information that’s come back from those different sacs as was one of my questions and then ultimately i think you know i’m happy to hear that we’re going to be going this year for an override and i think it’s been long overdue but i i personally think i would like to have that whole district meeting again that we had back when this was presented so we could ask some more questions of our administrators and really you know understand these numbers in more so for the community to really understand them

50:00 because now that the community knows we’re doing this i think it will help us to have that level of clarity i mean it was so powerful to hear from all of our our administrators and um staff of why they needed this i know it was powerful to myself and i think i heard that from you guys as well um that i think for the community to know this is this is coming their way and to hear that same discussion and to give ourselves more time to kind of ask some clarification and dig into these numbers a little more i so i would ask that we’d be able to book that and put that online

50:41 is that something that we can have the have the administrators come and just make sure i know many of them are probably here this evening um but i you know i want them to be prepared to sort of be on on that and we at either the next meeting and we won’t be here so maybe that’s not our best meeting to choose but maybe that first meeting in march to be able to do that um we can certainly do anything but i think that that’s why you hire a superintendent to be the voice of the administrative team and we meet weekly and people over budget and we review these ask if the curriculum directors is uh the elephant in the room so to speak i know nan and dan are prepared to speak to that yeah yeah

51:28 i know that i just know that to be able to just to get the town behind us i think it would be really helpful to kind of go through what we went through once more and i see no negative and i only see a positive with bringing the community further along i know when we sold the school we did multiple forums of questions and and this is why we need it not just one so i think it would be helpful for the way we do business here to kind of give the community that um picture of why we need this

52:07 yeah so i don’t even really know where to start um sarah i appreciate your comments that there was a lot of things there that you brought in in the last five minutes but i’ll just start by saying you know in the seven years i’ve been on the committee i’m proud to say that um there have never been um staff reductions across our district and if you look at the various communities around us and what’s happened um you know we we are talking about this 2.9 million dollar number but we’re also i think sometimes we lose sight of the fact that we have 1.4 million dollars in steps and lane changes that we have um collectively bargained and faithfully bargained with our teachers

52:55 and reached agreements on and um you know we’re very fortunate as a district and we’re far from a sinking ship where we have been able to maintain the staffing throughout and i think um even during the pandemic when there were additional funds and monies to help with um keeping people on staff that may not necessarily have been at school every day um providing meals to people’s and students that that needed meals and so i think you know we’re very very fortunate district and so and then there were earlier comments that it was like two million dollars in change and i don’t like to hear two

53:40 million dollars talked about as change it’s two million nine hundred and forty one thousand dollars we’re almost at three million dollars of an ask in addition to the one point four million and you know i don’t take that lightly and i was a member of the finance committee in 2005 when that last override came through the town and i i don’t disagree with with the sentiment and comments of people that maybe that’s not the right approach to take maybe it hasn’t been the right approach that it’s been 17 years but it’s the past it’s what has happened and so um i want to thank dr bucky and this committee and all of his staff as

54:26 sarah mentioned and as other people have said it was very powerful to hear the principals and their staff make their presentations and we’ve been out ahead of this as the finance committee tried to accelerate the schedule as best they could and you know get into this process a little bit earlier so i think we you know starting before christmas we we came with the first as you said dr bucky iterative process of outlining you know what is needed for an exemplary education um unfortunately there there’s been some changes in town and so but i think um we’re still on schedule we’ll delay some of our um presentations to the finance

55:13 committee for a couple more weeks uh maybe into early march but i i think that will be fine and i think it’s um prudent that we take those steps and allow john mcginn to reacquaint himself with where we’re at as a town and i also think steve did an excellent job presenting the the state of the town you know additionally i think there are some things there sarah you know you’re right and you know curriculum directors you know i if dan and nan do want to speak to those things but we do have some one-time asks in our budget and so i would fully expect that those would be one-time asks and you know next year when we came forward that might free up some money

56:00 that could be used for future asks and and wouldn’t require an override so i think in the previous slide i saw we’re somewhere at about 240 000 of of one time so that would be um unused monies against the levy that certainly could be spread across the town but if the schools did have an ask or a new ask next year we might be able to come forward with that um i think it’s also i just want to talk about the economy i mean we’re we’re in a challenging time right now we are experiencing inflation um costs are going up uh utility costs will be going up um we’ve heard about um you know costs across the board but and we also saw during the presentation that there were some revenues that had suffered a little bit

56:46 in town so i think next year will also be another year where the finance director in the town will need to evaluate our revenues hopefully excise tax will come back if things stay strong um other areas like that where we might be able to get revenue i’m hopeful that the state budget might not be a two and a half percent increase in chapter 70 funding when you know we’re experiencing the inflation that we are right now and um

57:19 my last comment is well at least for this period of time i want to thank michelle cresta because um i think michelle said it at a previous meeting we were at but part of our role is what we’re doing what we’ve been doing we’re we’re presenting a budget to the town that will provide an exemplary education um what we don’t do is tell the town how to fund it so now that john has been here a week and as we heard steve talk about that there’s a lot of different ways you know whether we increase our revenue projections whether we look at different forecasts whether we look at different ways to use free cash

58:06 yes we more than likely would end up with an override or could end up with an override at this position but i think we’re doing our job to present what our ask is and then the board of selectmen finance committee and the finance director will you know decide the best means to fund it and you know one of the other examples is you know historically the town has always funded things like fire trucks through you know debt exclusion overrides whereas other towns might look to you know use free cash at one point in time to purchase that fire truck or fund it through monies but that’s not really our role so it’ll be interesting to see as we get this number

58:55 closer to what our ask is and how the town will look at that number and when we meet with the finance committee how the finance committee will view the ask of the school committee and and the school department so um i think that it’s to be determined at least as to what direction that will go and uh i’m hopeful that you know with john’s experience as having been finance director and uh town administrator before he retired that you know we’ll get some further clarity in the next uh three or four weeks and in the middle of february so i’ll i’ll stop there did you have any questions in the comments yeah um so i think um what

59:41 what what sarah’s saying and what some of the public is saying is that we want to ask for what is exemplary right and that is important and we’re lucky to have a community that is dedicated to education but i think um when we when this paper the tracking sheet was put into the public it was shocking to see that some of these big things were taken off and i can say that i was and i contacted you and was very taken aback but i think once you’ve gone through it and explained where everything went and like how you know i think it helps but i think not as a way to be disrespectful but if

1:00:28 dan does want to speak to the curriculum directors just so that the public can hear why right now it doesn’t work for today but hopefully it’ll work for tomorrow and yes we are in this new way of thinking that we are going to fund our schools to exemplary standards all the time like i think we just need to get our public on board because it is a large number and make sure everyone knows all the information and i think that’s the best way we can go about presenting this book

1:01:03 i i think i will i will upgrade on that because that has been something that has been going through my head a lot um is that yeah it’s been i think david said 17 years um and that’s just not how education runs anymore and so you know a few budget cycles ago when things were not in great shape you know i said i knew we needed money but i couldn’t tell you how what we needed and why and so like i needed to be able to do that and we’ve worked really really hard over the last few years to build an administration and task them with telling us what this district needs and why and utilizing the talent that’s already there

1:01:48 and and really putting it forward so that we can explain everything and we can explain all of this and for me the fact that we’re taking the curriculum directors and putting them on next year is an example of why all of the rest of this is so important because we can explain it we will continue to explain it and next year we will be back news flash already for the curriculum directors as long as we can explain it and that’s how educational systems that are really high achieving and that marblehead

1:02:27 puts itself out there and i think is that’s how that’s how these districts are funded and that’s how they they go and so i think you know there’s there’s been a lot of like being tasked as an agent of change and and i think that’s where we’re at we cannot go another 17 years can’t go another 10 years without some kinds of asks and we have people in place who want to stay we have the plan with planning for success that is directing that for the next five years and we have a committee that’s committed to doing this as well and plenty of people in the public who agree and we

1:03:14 saw that even within a crisis situation that they turned out and they funded a school because we could explain it and this to me is is exactly that and so i’m hopeful that like david said you know at this point in time we aren’t tasked with knowing exactly how this is going to be funded but that this is our ask and again i’m sure things are going to change a little bit i have a question again about the communications of communications person i’m gonna keep being that drum but i think you know that’s what’s been going through my head for quite some time right now um and i i need to kind of get that out that that when we can be above board and transparent

1:04:00 and when we know what we’re talking about i think the community backs us and i i hope that they continue to do the community and the town access and i hope that they continue to do that um that being said i do have a couple of questions one about communications any further thoughts on on the need for that where that sort of fits do we need someone full time i mean tonight’s a pretty private example yeah there’s a communications person to communicate out the snow day stuff once that call is made and make sure we’re fortunate to have uh people that assist uh with that that you know uh once they see that the school has made

1:04:45 they push it out on other uh social media channels our principals uh are on twitter and so i’m sure that that was tweeted out uh this evening but yes there’s a case to be made but i want to make sure that it is thoughtfully vetted and i want to make sure that the things that are student-facing right now are immediately attended to in this ask and i want the community to see that we’re deliberate and thoughtful in this process and i think i also said in december this isn’t a christmas wishlist this is not a holiday wish list for that we’re just going to ask for everything over the last 17 years this has been a bare bones budget community

1:05:31 community community we are starting to put some muscle on the bone or fat on the bone at this point to because it has been bare bones and we can’t do it all in one year and i do want to be able to make the case to the community that this has been a thoughtful deliberate iterative process and i you know i’m happy to have nan and dan speak to these but we wouldn’t cut anything we wouldn’t remove anything we wouldn’t ask remove and ask if we thought we needed it immediately for next year and you know nan has worked at the department of ed she’s worked in urban

1:06:17 districts she’s seen various uh directors or curriculum and how districts approach this we’re just not at the place to operationalize that and so to stand before the community and say we’re going to add this 200 000 ask not sure what we’re gonna do with it yet i don’t think is the place that we want to be but i’m very happy to bring the administrative team to talk to the committee at any time because we do need weekly and we vet these things and we have collaborative conversations around these topics um and i think i think for me in the town sort of needing to pause a little bit i think you know as sarah had said like we want people to be out in front of this and we want to be communicating this to the community and so there i do get a little anxious at

1:07:04 sort of when our breaks are pumped because we’ve really had our act together in an amazing way this year um so i think conversations like this for me are really helpful because it gets it out and i and i really hope that we continue to have these types of conversations in our of our meetings move forward so that we really are continuing to say like yeah hey you know oh we tweaked this we added this you know we are you know up to this um so that we keep everybody informed so that no one is surprised when we get to our hearing and we’re somewhere in give or take this 2.9 um space um yeah

1:07:50 do you further question sorry um i i do have a couple and maybe this is the time to bring nan and dan in um because i know i you and i talked a little bit about this the other day but so the question that i had was with the curriculum directors and the teachers creating the curriculum and and sort of putting that out there as what how they wanted is that kind of how that’s usually done because in my head curriculum directors might be able to help with that or do that in a top-down fashion um so that was sort of a question that i think might be worthwhile to answer for the public as well sure i’ll let you know all right dan you should be able to meet okay great so sarah the answer to that is um

1:08:36 marblehead does not even have a scope and sequence at this point so um and the answers aren’t going to be built by somebody new to the district it has to be the internal people who are currently in those classrooms collaboratively developing that scope and sequence and that work has started we every principal is using um their internal staff and team to build scope and sequence and then we’re going to put it together and it will be a comprehensive pre-k through 12 scoping sequence we’ll then use that guide to look at curriculum and once we get to that point we’ll be

1:09:22 when we’re ready to talk about purchases of new curriculum supplementing curriculum and bringing on curriculum coaches but i think john you know summarized our conversation so well in that more people at this point it it it’s not going to translate into what it sounds like they could do it we’re just not in that place um and we we are talking about what it takes to create an exemplary education but i want to remind everybody marblehead is an extremely proficient district kids are receiving an exemplary education at this time john and i are in classrooms all the

1:10:09 time it’s phenomenal we’re at the high school with dan we’re we’re at the middle school everywhere the curriculum coaches are there to support teachers with the materials that they use and we just don’t have those yet we really need to gather that thoughtfully and make those investments in partnership with the coaches if i could just interject that is an important piece of this budget for me is getting the supplies materials equipment resources technology into teachers hands so that in the science classrooms and labs at the high school and middle school they have what they need and so you see those requests reflected in this budget

1:10:55 attending to the staff that is here right now getting them what they need as opposed to just adding more staff

1:11:08 so did i just hear you correctly that we cur i have heard you say that you when you came here you didn’t find a scope and sequence at the elementary level but are you saying we don’t have a scope and sequence currently at our high school either correct how is that an example but you said we’re providing an exemplary education but you’re saying we have no scope and sequence well the scope and sequence is the map so teachers right now are diligently looking at the state frameworks and aligning their curriculum to the standards that are assigned by the state in the framework what we need to do is paste that out over the course of a year the 180 days

1:11:53 and map it out for teachers so it’s a very thoughtful approach of when instruction is happening um that’s exactly what a curriculum coach would do or coordinator would do yes but ideally the curriculum coaches would be working with staff and with the curriculum and we don’t have the curriculum right now so out of high school well we have but it’s not unified so to bring somebody in and kind of have these different approaches to curriculum happening for example at the middle school at the elementary school we’re just working now to align curriculum resources so we have teachers meeting the standards using different materials so a curriculum coach

1:12:39 will come in and work with teachers on implementing the materials but we don’t have the materials yet so we’re going to i understand that at the elementary level but this ask was only for high school this was dan’s this this was only an ask at the high school right and if we don’t have what they need to work with already at the high school we have a much bigger problem like if we don’t have scope and sequence and curriculum chosen at our high school yet which i i believe we do like that that is what this asked us for it was to work with the high school which already has that i mean that the other grades are down the line but this was for the high school right but i i think dan i’ll let dan address that but i think what we’re finding through our plan for success

1:13:25 work is that some of those materials need to be revised and uh and updated but i’ll i’ll let dan chime in and if he has more thoughts on that sorry about that okay um i mean through the whole process um you know the scope and sequence curriculum and such it’s just a matter of getting things organized and lined up we’ve been working on this um and looking to finalize and get it moving made a lot of strides but certainly too you know the broader picture as well um you know across where this should go um so certainly some work that needs to

1:14:10 be done on this um i wanted to get this moving in the conversation we’ve had we’ve had conversations on this so it’s something that you know we’ll be coming and want to get this happening but i want to be very thoughtful on how this is done because there’s certainly a lot of internal pieces that need to fit with curriculum directors too making sure it’s the right fit making sure that it matches up and also too that transitional piece although for the high school there is always that outlook to the transitional coming from eight to nine and all that other things a lot of pieces have to be put together so we’ll make sure we do this right

1:14:50 and and i and i have tremendo i i’m very happy that there’s thought in in doing this right in in everything my concern is that i don’t know what changed in a month that we needed them a month ago and and we don’t now i look at that that’s where my loss is because i’ve just seen this i’ve seen this movie before where we start to do well what can we get by with and if you if you need these and needed them a month ago for example i want to give you everything you need like i don’t mind asking for anything you need if you really don’t need them then you don’t need them but you gave a very moving well i’m not gonna back down from from that piece like yes but i’ve been here six years

1:15:35 um i i feel very good about the exemplary piece that we’ve done here at the high school we always are looking to improve so we’ve made it this far working with this and i know you know before me as well again i think it all making sure that everything aligns and works into it and certainly knowing that you know we’ll get this done um i just want to make sure it aligns well and we we were able to be very thoughtful and mindfulness piece too because i don’t want to recreate anything as well um you know the discussions have been very positive here at the high school about that because it is a change but ultimately you know you’re changing it could be a change in structure and and how things work and i would welcome that too for sure but again maybe being very mindful with this because there’s still some internal work

1:16:21 that needs to be done um and i just want to get it right again been here six years and i think we’ve done well i’m very happy and very proud of our teachers and and our families and students and the support so dan i’ve never heard a negative word about you well but but again i know you know and i wasn’t prepared to really come on and go through and i’m passionate about this piece but i’m also wise enough to know the big picture has to work well um and certainly seeing how things are moving forward um and seeing how the planning for success has worked and getting to a position where you know we’re able to to have these conversations and talk about this piece um this is evolving so i mean that’s this is so it is this you can make it another year

1:17:07 without this we’ll make it work you don’t need it you can make it another year make it work we’ve made it work you know we’re already working with our english department on some work we haven’t done a program of studies and i’ve been working with mike charity in the math department there are lots of things and dave with with so uh science and bob colfer with uh social studies and world languages we’re doing the work you know and but i want to make sure we get this this right because don’t want to come back and make tweaks and adjustments too because there is a broader picture it’s easy for me in my my world here at the high school but understanding you know the the piece across the board that is really really critical so um you know again that’s that’s about like an offer on that piece and i feel you know we’re going to make it work thank you dan um

1:17:57 i just i also want to add that part of the planning for success team and dan can validate this is there were a lot of teachers voicing that they want a role in informing curriculum and the direction that we go and that this has been something that the district has tried to engage teachers in and then they put their their heart and soul into developing these curriculum maps and then no one ever follows through so we really want to honor what teachers are telling us and that is that they want a voice in this process and to take their good work forward to bring it forward to us for consideration and to be embedded into these maps and then

1:18:43 once we have all of that work it makes sense to bring somebody else in to support teachers and delivery i was not planning for success too so i heard all the same things yeah i just i just our goal is to stop asking our administrators to make it work and i i worry we’re still doing that partially

1:19:07 i can’t say something yeah um i really appreciate this conversation and you know especially getting some more feedback and nan and dan thanks for um clarifying on the curriculum directors and adding some more um description around that i appreciate that um from my standpoint i i feel like getting to this point has been kind of a long road um but i honestly feel like we said we have done what we set out to do right so we cleaned up the budget we brought in staff who were knowledgeable and experienced and that we chose for that reason we’ve gone through the planning for success process and come up with a

1:19:53 five-year plan and then we’ve we’ve had our experienced staff here now for 18 months looking at what we need to support that planning for success and they’re in there every single day our building leaders our administrators our teachers they’re in there every single day they know what we need and what we’ve you know said tell us and this is what they’ve come up with and i do think this process as john and bill have continued to say is iterative and they’ve done in my opinion the right thing and saying here’s our ass now let’s look at it here’s our individual ass but now let’s look at it as a group and from a district perspective and what does that look like and can we

1:20:39 change our thinking a little bit modify that and go through that process that we would expect them to go through and this is where we are and so for me like i said we’ve got the expertise and the experience who’ve got us to this point and i think they’ve gone they’re going through the right process and i just have to advocate for them like that’s what i think our role is this is what they’re saying they need and so we need to advocate we need to help get the community informed so i absolutely agree with your comments emily but we have to advocate for what they need and personally not second guess what they’re saying can we add to the conversation absolutely and i think that’s what we’re doing here but we also have to have a little bit of faith as well

1:21:26 um um can that’s one more quick question um i think it’s quick uh the stipend adjustments um you mentioned that you and michelle have placed the sit like a 65 000 mark in there

1:21:41 i know that work is ongoing will that work be completed before our budget vote or is that gonna are we are we kind of gonna work with a moving chart a little bit of a moving target i think you’re gonna work with a moving target we met last week we met this week um we’re going to not meet next week but the thursday before we leave for the february vacation with some different scenarios similar to curriculum how people’s stipend positions is all over the map they have incremental raises year by year they have tiers which we currently have and so each person on that working group is

1:22:26 going out looking at different uh scenarios to bring back on how we might structure things uh in terms of our stipend positions okay that’s good to know i just you know so if that number fluctuates that’s that’s why okay uh sarah um um one thing i’d ask you also to look at and consider i i ask for it every year we’ll see if this is here um is a grant writer um it they pay for themselves um very quickly yvette it’s working or it’s not it’s paid for itself and brought in additional revenue or it hasn’t it’s very data driven it’s very easily trackable um and especially in education where education is ever evolving there’s always new trends that are coming out

1:23:12 there’s always new new um things we can and should be doing for professional development or curriculum or all these things i would um argue that a grant writer would be a great thing in our district um we can even ask them to have you know focuses on certain areas if that’s what we’re looking for but for things like steam sustainability dei like all these things we’re leaving money on the table um that we could through a grant writer be getting getting um paid for essentially so i would put a plug in again for getting a grant writer all right all right i think that’s it on this piece

1:24:00 okay um moving on the other thing is face coverings update um i am pleased to announce uh this evening that um desi has updated their guidance on january 10th that went from us needing to police mass wearing if we took advantage of their waiver system to back to the original language which was highly recommend so uh the board of health has said that we operate as an entity governed by desi and that we are free to make decisions from the public schools that are not under the umbrella of the marblehead mask mandate so this evening my

1:24:46 recommendation will be that the high school the middle school and the village school take advantage of the 80 mask waiver and go mask optional on monday february 7th now i want to clarify a few things mask optional does not mean mask prohibited so we will still strongly encourage mask wearing our leaders will model mass squaring there will be students and staff who will elect to continue and uh principals are already working on messaging to make sure that people that there’s no asking well why are you still wearing a

1:25:32 mask uh matt fox gave a great example today like a blue shirt you wouldn’t ask somebody why are you wearing a blue shirt you want to have that same around max but for individuals we are well over the 80 percent at the high school i think we’re at over 90 percent the middle school we’re under 90 percent uh the village school we’ve been granted waivers that’s at five o’clock this afternoon the village school waiver uh went through brown and glover are not there yet uh brown is at 64.5 and glover is at 66.5 uh so as soon as those i have the waiver sitting on my desk to submit but for the high school the middle school in the village school we will go

1:26:20 to mask optional on monday february 7th i will cover this in my weekly update i know mea is on board i have met with them we have their support they will be uh pushing out messaging to their list this evening i know the high school middle school and village are working on that but all right my recommendation to the committee is that we go mass option with those three billions all right um and our policy has stated that for a while we voted on those changes to allow um once the waiver went through for those buildings that dr bucky could come to us and and let us know when that makes sense operationally um so um you know if anybody wants to [Music] you know take a vote on this um we can i

1:27:06 don’t we need to because the policy is already set and we directed dr bucky to handle this operationally a few months ago

1:27:16 seems like a long time ago um david’s got his hand up so i will uh i’ll call him first

1:27:26 uh thank you dr bucky and uh i just want to thank the administrators i i think it’s really awesome that we’re going to have them um be modeling wearing masks we want people to feel comfortable that if it is mask optional and i think that’s a that’s a really unique approach i hadn’t thought about that but you know i i can i can see it now you know when when dan does his meet and greet at the school like he always does and has done for the last six years and and he’s out there with a mask he’s going to be telling students that hey if you want to wear a mask it’s okay and i think that’s the way we all feel so i really appreciate that part of it and any other

1:28:12 any other any other administrators or teachers that that take that approach to help um support those students that that feel uncomfortable so i just wanted to make that one comment on um your recommendation and how that will go forward i really appreciate that

1:28:35 um i agree thank you dr bucky and to the administrators um for getting us to this point and for continuing to model the message that’s an important piece of this because it is um relaxing the mandate okay but still um recommending masking if um if appropriate um i kind of see this as a first step to starting to roll back restrictions um i do think we have to acknowledge that there are still two of our school buildings that are still gonna have the candy and um you know that will be an issue for some families where they can have one or more students who are masculine or not mandated and then maybe a student or multiple students that that are have you know that can could potentially be a challenging

1:29:21 conversation for those families so i like i said i’d like to see this as a first step and i’d like to really see us to think about how we get um those elementary schools to the same point um i believe if i’m not mistaken that jesse’s mandate expires on february 28th so obviously there’s an option for them to extend that but i think that will be kind of our leading into that our next next check-in point um unfortunately there is a mandy and as regardless of how we might feel about that mandate there are repercussions for us not adhering to it um so we’ve got to kind of work around the obstacles that are that are in our way there but i do think this is a great

1:30:07 first step i’m happy that we can move forward with high school and vets and village um and i just encourage uh dr bucky for your new team to do what we need to do to get those elementary schools up to the same point i totally forgot in the announcement that um this may change people’s uh but i will recommend that returning from february vacation that we do a week of masking because we have seen in coming back from thanksgiving coming back from the holiday vacation travel congregate things that happen that numbers increase and so i will say that you know going

1:30:53 into the february vacation those three schools would be mass optional but for the first week we are back that we would do masking i think desi is uh steering districts in this direction with the take-home tests and so the bonus is really moving from the schools policing this to families managing that you have a test if you test positive you stay home for five days and then you’re required to wear a mask for five days and this is where we have to count on our families to support in-person education and doing the right thing in that if you have a positive test you’re going to call your school nurse

1:31:39 with that information she’s going to give you the dates when your student returns that’s why i appreciate the fact that we’re still going to model that swearing because there will be a necessity for some students and faculty over the course that as they’re coming out of isolation but the schools aren’t going to police this anymore and i think that’s the offering right you’re you’re saying sorry only you can hear that john um i just i take your point about february vacation i i do just want us to encourage us not to be doing this flip-flop right like i think that’s hard hard for students and for families to

1:32:26 manage and wrap their heads around um that’s what i’m announcing tonight right so that it isn’t two weeks and then during the february vacation surprise we’re going back but i do think it is proven on the district to follow that course

1:32:41 can i just add one little comment to the female vacation can we provide masks that week so because people are going to forget absolutely we have plenty of them so that’s not an issue that is not an issue um sarah i know you’ve got your hand up i think the two weeks off and then the one we like and then coming back from february i’m just i think we just created a gigantic nightmare for our staff and our teachers because that week after february when the kids have been the two the two weeks off i think that’s going to be very very hard i think for them and then i want to make sure too that we’re putting out in the community what the mechanism i know when we were in the lunchroom um anybody any family that had specific medical needs or or anything

1:33:27 that couldn’t do that because um i think we all forget that we in our spirit to be um you know part of di is also people with medical needs and people with disabilities that there are people that simply just can’t at this point be in that situation and we have a legal obligation to meet their educational needs so what is the path for meeting those children’s educational needs moving forward who cannot be in that environment um and how are we going to do that and what is the path that families will need to do to make that documentation i just think where we have a snow day tomorrow and then all of a sudden monday morning we don’t have that it makes it a little bit hard for families that do have that requirement um and we have that need to get that met you know

1:34:13 you know you know i don’t know how you would do that our off our principals on site tomorrow i mean how what what is a family’s mechanism that has this you know that has a parent going through chemo or a sibling going through that or a organ transplant or immune compromise that would have we would have a legal obligation to me also a lot of our students are suffer from anxiety from the masking and that will help those but there are a lot of students i’m sure sarah knows this that will have an increase in anxiety when the masks suddenly come off they went home from school today their first time back suddenly come come off without kind of the education piece ahead of time and and having our um social

1:35:00 emotional staff kind of prep them ahead of time so this plan seems to be lacking a plan if you will um to making all of our students ready on monday i mean it helps one demographic but in some ways inflicts great harm on another demographic right away and what is our plan for mitigating that while still meeting our legal obligations and what is the avenue for parents to contact you to do this

1:35:33 it’s not mask like you can still wear a mask if you if you need to wear a mask no but but for some kids being in like they there is there is um things like i said the anxiety piece of all of a sudden being in like some of our students don’t go eat in the lunchroom because being in large groups of unmasked people still is creating anxiety it may be a small group but it’s a very real group and i don’t know if you deal with that at a tower but i know that it’s a very real thing in some of our schools i know you know there are families that have medical conditions and those children eat separately because again they can’t be in large groups even with just them with

1:36:19 their mask on without other so while it’s a small group i i fully aware it’s a small group it speaks to the fact that we owe all of our students to have a plan and my question is what is the plan to accommodate everyone’s need and how would we convey that before we open school on monday yeah i can speak to that because as we were planning this with principles today and having conversations that we’re not changing operationally how the schools are like mapped as lunch periods and that isn’t impacted by being mass optional if there are particular situations with families and individuals they can reach out to the director of

1:37:04 student services to the building principal and talk about what this change will mean for their student but it is not going to impact how we’re educating students if we need to increase distancing for some or again masking is it’s not mass prohibitive and so we’ll work with any individual student in their family to accommodate the needs as documented um um yeah i think you know i absolutely take with sarah saying that there’s going to be an increase in anxiety from for some for some i think that that number as i’ve been watching kind of paying attention

1:37:50 to this for the last few weeks i think that number is getting fewer and fewer um and i think you know that speaks to why you’re how you’re asking that the building leaders continue to model masking that you know we do want this you know again it works both ways we didn’t want to do this a while back because we didn’t want to have to police it and point out students who did not have the approval of their parents to that that needed to um wear masks and so you know i but i also think that this has been a while and coming um and i will go so far as to say it shouldn’t be a surprise to most um and i think for myself you know i

1:38:35 i don’t have a problem with the masks um never have um i’m but i’m also really excited to see us take these steps forward because to me you know yes i i absolutely think that there’s some you know there’s definitely the communication pieces and facial expressions and everything with the masks

1:38:55 allowing them to be taken off is a huge step towards normalcy as well and i think for most of us that’s what we need right now and that is a for myself as i think about this and my own excitement about this is is that is that this is a step towards towards normalcy towards the endemic phase of this you know i’ve been barking at you since august about endemic and off-ramps and and how we do this um so like this is really i’m excited i’m excited that village sort of was able to we were able to get this through with village as well um and you know i think i think

1:39:41 our town has done a good job in getting its kids vaccinated and you know i hope that we continue to do that and so that we can continue to move forward and i think that this for me this 80 off ramp has always been a really important piece of like that’s a that’s a really conservative number when we think about 70 being heard immunity and everything and i think with how many people have had it recently and that 80 aspect to it that there are a lot of other layers of mitigation other than that on masks as well and masks like these are seventy at least seventy percent effective one way and it’s not as though we’re turning off our 13 filters and our hepa filters and and

1:40:26 buttoning up our windows you know the windows are still going to be cracked the air filtration is a huge aspect of all of this and when we’re talking about an aerosolized virus it’s exactly the long term solution to it within this endemic piece as we as we head in that direction and i absolutely agree with you john um that the at-home testing aspect of this like it is 100 moving from a top-down oversight institutionalized management to home management people people needing to stay home when they are sick that’s another huge aspect to this that if you are symptomatic that you stay home even if it’s symptomatic

1:41:13 with a stomach flu or you know there’s just so much we we need to learn things from this experience and if we learned one thing it’s hopeful that you know stay home when you’re not feeling well um i struggle with that lesson as much as anybody else so but it’s really important particularly as we move forward um and i think you know i’m always bolstered by the fact that we haven’t you know massachusetts has really had a lot of masking but many other states haven’t and yes those states operate differently and and have different virus rates and everything but you know we haven’t seen massive implosions of systems this year um when they’re not masked and so that is encouraging to me you know and

1:42:00 one of the things that i think about within this is that i would never want to make a decision that would put kids and teachers in harm’s way and so i’ve needed to feel confident in this piece um and i do right now um you know i do so can i just speak to that um i have i don’t think this will come as a surprise to anyone done my due diligence and i’ve reached out to districts who have done this hopkinton is meeting tonight their school committee to go back to mass optional they have been masked they were mask optional and then coming back from the holidays when it was just everything was so askew uh and so opacity both

1:42:46 the districts who have taken the off ramp have said the fear of what would happen was more than the reality of what happened when they did this and i i just want to recognize that coming back to school in the fall or our families that have been fully remote there was a lot of trepidation in that and i just want to reiterate we will work with families to make sure that people feel safe and are accommodated and their needs attended to as we you know for some this will be easier than others i have great confidence in our building leaders to attend those said this the other day you know about a year ago we were sitting in a very similar feeling as we started to look

1:43:33 and make plans to push out a hybrid and to push into full days of school and that was really scary as well and there was a lot of moving parts to it that were that needed to be figured out and it worked because there was a great plan and there was good thought behind it and we prioritized the addition excuse me the additional mechanisms of mitigation and you know i i feel confident that we’re doing the same thing here none of these decisions are being taken lightly

1:44:11 um i will also reframe the the week after february vacation because i understand your concerns completely um and i’ve gone back and forth in my own head a little bit about sort of on on off stuff if there could be social emotional benefits seen from that because of the need to mask when you come back from quarantine and if we’ve got people traveling and we know we’re going to hit a bit of a hurdle or bump after february vacation or the likelihood of it is high that having masks on everybody is going to help kids sort of transition back in without being like oh i’m the only one wearing a mask now or you know barely anybody’s wearing a mask now as kids are want to look at you know the the only

1:44:57 people that that aren’t and that that may make them feel a little bit more comfortable sort of coming back into school if they have had the virus i’m usually good for a positive reframe anyways

1:45:15 um just with the february thing i think um i informed having mass that week after because we have seen the rise in cases and yes it’s going to be annoying kids are going to be mad or frustrated by it but if we provide the mass for those kids who like oh i forgot my mask and just have them there and make it as easy as we can for them i think it’s going to be okay it’s like just and then for april vacation once we see how this goes we probably won’t do it right because if we’re fine and everything like i think it’s kind of like a compromise like we’re doing this huge thing let’s make everyone feel good about it and then just keep it going yeah that’s why april vacation i think is a different animal too it’s april not february

1:46:03 yep yeah so i just i don’t think anyone’s gonna be annoyed at least by tuesday and then it’s gonna be a celebration again on monday uh they’re all fair points um i mean you can go anywhere i really appreciate this conversation it’s not a positive conversation um i i almost don’t want to ask it but i have to so and i know we’ve had other parents ask the same question so you know we’re following the desi mandate um and again whether you agree or disagree there’s a mandate but can we just talk about why it’s in our best interest to adhere to mandates can we just get that out

1:46:49 out out why is it in our best interest to follow the same mandate

1:47:02 okay what happens if we don’t follow the mandate exactly so so a superintendent may or may not have spoken with the department today to ask that very question and the contact at the department was clear that in-person learning in the state of massachusetts right now is mandated to be masked they have provided a waiver system for districts to go mask optional if you are operating a school that does not meet the waiver criteria but are not enforcing the in-person task mandate they will not count those as days of instruction and so if someone were to

1:47:47 use an old phrase drop a dime and call the department and say the brown school they’re unmasked and they haven’t met the waiver or the glover school is unmasked and they haven’t met the waiver the department would say the days that you were in person without masks were not in-person construction days to be counted toward your 180 and you will therefore need to make those up so i’m not a superintendent i don’t want to look at a family and say well our students will not get a april vacation because we did one day two days three days uh outside of the mask thank you for that explanation sarah i think you’ve been trying to say something yeah so i i just want to be clear that my questions before

1:48:33 questions before questions before are to put i want the people who need this information to have this information um i’m not saying that we i’m just saying there is a demographic that will need this information and i wanted to make sure they had it um and then in that vein um could you clarify so are we when kids come back for that second five days that will we how do we we won’t be policing that you know we won’t say okay you’re still under that you’re still technically supposed to be masked because you’re in your second day of your period i don’t know what they’re calling it now contagious period or whatever it is so that’s tha that’s the honor system

1:49:19 i’m assuming because the whole point of this is we didn’t want to police that is absolutely correct sarah and that is a very legitimate concern because we ask families not to send students to school when they’re sick if they have a fever if they have a rash if they have strep throat and we want to make sure with covenant that if they’ve been out in isolation for five days that they’re reinforcing with students that and again working with school nurses but classroom teachers are not going to be provided a list and nurses will work with families and that’s where i say the family piece of this is critical and what gets impacted

1:50:06 is our ability to maintain in-person instruction so if people ignore and we start to see widespread as a result that could first force us back to masking or worse shut us down yeah it’s terrifying like that’s my biggest fear that’s it you know like that my highest priority is in person learning um as far as i see it and and that’s that that will always be my biggest anxiety is that something could tip us um out of that well there’s no other option we’re in person learning where your kids aren’t learning like there’s no other there’s no gray um it’s we’re in person or we’re in school till july

1:50:51 um or lose april break or whatever it is we there is no other option um before gold gone um pool testing as well in any of our schools we i’m sorry would you repeat the question have we stopped pool testing in any of our school schools or where we continue to do pool testing we are continuing to do pool testing at glover and brown my guess is we will continue at village for a couple weeks i think the law diminishing returns at the middle school in the high school in terms of vaccinated people should not participate in pool testing and people that have had covid within the last 90 days should not participate in pool testing and so you know i was vaccinated boosted and i

1:51:37 unfortunately got hope um pool testing i think the department is saying we’re going to do the at-home test provide these to staff and families to monitor this outside of schools okay so at least at vets in the high school in soon to be village we will rip the bandit off for masks and pool testing so we’re kind of adopting a don’t ask don’t tell policy at the same time that we’re ripping the like it just seems like a lot at once well i think the village is staying put for very important for a couple weeks you said until the at home testing program gets up as we know the shipment was supposed to be

1:52:24 distributed tomorrow when we don’t have school and so i can see us continuing with pool testing for next week and the week after until the actual testing program gets up and stabilized and the high school did test this week i can i could say that personally um i know that that pool testing didn’t go off this past week right so just on that piece just so i’m clear too like i said with the making the masks not mandatory at those three buildings for me this is like the first step as we start to roll back some of these restrictions in our schools and the pool testing especially at the high school wasn’t all that well utilized to begin with and now we’ve also had to take a number of those students out of the pool because they’ve

1:53:09 had covey or for whatever reason so it’s not actually an effective mechanism at this point and we’re in exchange we’re providing those at-home tests which is giving you the test please use it and if you’re positive then absolutely tell us right so we’re just kind of putting in place a different mechanism for that testing and taking it off of our school nurses to manage engineering force right but we still are having those mitigation processes in place or just a different mitigation processes right am i understanding that correctly yeah yeah and our high school students aren’t stupid either the one of the reasons that we have such poor attendance for it is that

1:53:55 kids have figured out that that if they’re not symptomatic then and they except they test positive in a pool then they just stay home and if they’re not symptomatic they want to stay home right so you know again they’re not they’re not stupid they’re they’re they figured out the end arounds and utilize them and that feeds or you know contributes to the lack of commitment with pool testing at the high school level and i don’t think we’ve had a lot of positive goals just to you know what is being tested is not coming back i think i think i heard there was one positive pool at the high school it’s not this would just happen but last week so could i

1:54:42 where masks are optional we’ve adopted the mass optional program and pool testing has always been optional i mean can we continue to leave that option for people who want to utilize that until the state takes that option away it’s free it’s paid for by the state they give us cic there’s it there’s no impact financially to our district um you know we’ve included the the covet the nurse nurse uh joe is is included in our budget specifically to handle this program um so we have that funding and like i said it’s optional any family that doesn’t want to partake in it doesn’t have to but um for families that do it’s it’s essentially it’s it’s a good litmus test you know what a pcr each week for

1:55:29 those families that that want to be part of it in in and that gives them um information that they need to have further conversation with people about that and i don’t just hear this here what about sports sports yeah i asked that question um this afternoon because districts are varying some i have mass optional some aren’t that they should go with masks if you’re playing a school that is that has not taken advantage of the waiver and for spectators and visitors to the school as well because we’re under a town

1:56:17 mask mandate and this applies to staff and students in the context of an 80 vaccination rate and you can’t employ that for a gymnasium full of spectators that you maintain masks or spectators at events correctly if i’m wrong i also thought miaa stipulated masks benefits at any indoor

1:56:43 maybe event master practice now if the because that is a school event with that 80 yes what about the like marblehead youth basketball who use the school buildings no okay

1:57:02 and also when we rent another venue like we had received as a school committee an email from salem state that if we didn’t adhere to their mass policy they would essentially sever our contract unless i read that wrong um so certain sports like hockey will still will still need so i think it’s very sports specific and if families have specific conversation questions they should probably reach out to tomorrow i guess i don’t i don’t know if our staff works um on the snow day or how that work or you know if he’ll if if i know some does and some doesn’t i guess is what i’m saying so um if you have questions i guess reach out there’ll be communication coming out from me tomorrow and from building principles as well

1:57:49 right right the other thing on my update was the town report and so we’ve gotten all the submissions for that and that will be compiled and i will get that to the committee before it goes uh for publication on in the town report in the glover school principal search we have named the faculty and the parent representatives and we’ll have our first meeting of that birth next week great

1:58:23 all right um i think we need a uh um executive session yes um there is uh the mea has filed agreements uh and so we need to hear that as the school committee and so i reached out to colby and uh worked with mea today so tuesday or wednesday but next week i think that could be zoom i don’t think that has to be in person so but it does need to be in the executive section okay so i’ll i’ll um to the video text and please let me know whether tuesday or wednesday works better um i’ll put that out after the meeting all right fantastic that’s the end of john’s um that brings us to our

1:59:09 schedules of bills uh those were all in the dropbox um so can i get a motion to approve the identified schedules of bill’s total willing two million three hundred thirty three thousand six hundred and twelve dollars and twelve cents megan moved emily second any questions on any of those

1:59:41 um i don’t know if michelle’s with us and i can certainly follow up with her after but i was just seeing in the utility bills you know water and sewer gas electric for coffin and evoluth and i just wanted to make sure that we were trying to minimize the cost of these utilities and that we’re doing the bare minimum of what is needed to i mean we talked about this a couple weeks ago i guess keep these facilities from either freezing up or you know having other problems because some of some of these utility bills if you just look at the schedule bills add up

2:00:27 certainly and just setting a couple of questions like why we also had water usage when we’re not in the schools not really sure how you know the water bills would be like they are so that was the one question and then also valley valley communications i was just wondering if that valley communications is related to the the new digital sign that’s at the front of the high school and that’s the monies that are being um reimbursed from the donation take those take those oh sorry i need to allow you to unmute

2:01:12 all right you should be good to go sorry okay great um i do believe the valley communications is related to the sign i would have to go back and look at it there were a bunch of invoices that i have looked at over the past week but i do believe that was related in terms of the utilities we do have those um at minimum levels but obviously at a level to make sure that our pipes do not freeze we also um have building checks of both the coffin and envelope school every single day so we have a staff member popping by to make sure that there is nothing um you know going on there and that everything is safe but i will certainly look at the water bills i’ll actually ask todd um to look at those and make sure that there doesn’t seem to be something going on i noticed that a lot

2:01:59 of our water bills were having some type of adjustment so i think they’re actually getting up to actual readings so that why you might see a larger bill right now where some of them may have been estimated in the past so it’s probably just a catch-up of that but we’ll take a look at that all right thanks michelle and one last question who is direct energy direct energy is our gas so we have a gas supplier and a gas per uh provider so we have two different bills for the gas

2:02:33 so it’s not all national grid correct only the only we use national grids lines to get the gas to us but the actual gas is purchased through direct energy

2:02:46 interesting so that’s an uh must be a an option that is afforded to um municipalities and schools outside of national grid or yes and it’s actually part of the contract where we lock in our rates we’re part of a collaborative agreement um with many other communities throughout across the state so yeah we’re in a three-year contract with that that i believe is up in about another year and a half

2:03:15 thank you you’re welcome all right any other questions all right we’ll paul vote sarah gold yes david harris yes emily baron yes and megan taylor yes all right passes five to zero thank you everyone that leads us to our sub community sub committee and liaison updates um i can kick that off since we have a policy meeting in between the last meeting correct um we are in the process of finishing up reviewing the i policies so we hit the last two with no changes um and we’re going to circle back because over the past

2:04:01 oh yeah last year as well this year we’ve we’ve tabled a few of them um to to bring in some of our district professionals um to just weigh in on the technology ones and some of the um curriculum ones with nan and so um we’re looking back through that i went back the other day and printed off all of our old minutes so that i could be sure to pull all those up and then we’ll um bring in the professionals we need and hopefully wrap things up anybody else can we yeah okay first for sure yeah um so this is for makko um so i read in millie’s update that um they’re now putting best practices at the bottom of her weekly newsletters and

2:04:46 one of them is from the bedford school committee who is piloting a program to have a medco representative on their school committee and i want to put that out there to us as maybe something that we could possibly look into doing um other schools do it they are facing theirs off what um lincoln the lincoln school committee has done um i think it would be a great way to get our boston community involved in what we do in the district um and have a voice and feel like they are represented so i’m just putting that out there one quick question are they a voting member it’s a

2:05:31 non-voting number okay um i agree i’m so glad you brought that up because i saw it too i think i may afford it i think so on to um i think we should absolutely look at you know how we could facilitate that i think it’s been something that’s kind of you know we’ve floated back and forth probably not in the recent you know the last year or a little bit but definitely before um i think it’s a great way to get that group you know those families and the students more more engaged and you know you know help you know also help facilitate information sharing right because i think that is a perspective that we don’t care from enough um i think it’s a great idea i absolutely support it we do want to grow the program so that i know we can get more students in so um as much as we can do to make i know

2:06:16 it’s a lottery but just to make us look like a district that you know people are going to want not that they don’t want to come to but you know just one more thing that we can highlight sarah sarah is that more of a liaison position or it can’t be an elected position because by law you can’t run in our town like you can’t run for an elected seat in our town unless you’re so that must be a liaison position right the way i understood it it’s kind of similar to those two representatives it’s the same as that okay i think you could probably be more involved right right i think they would stay for a whole you know whole conversation and offer their perspective but non-voting so yeah john did you have something to add to that i know the superintendent inventor phil conrad so

2:07:02 i’m happy to reach out to you guys to see how that’s working um um i i had the um brown school s.a.c um and we uh the biggest item on that like i said was um the budget discussion and we talked about that and some some feedback came out about how having um having

2:07:32 allied arts for the pre-k community was um something that everyone felt would make that community feel more part of the whole the school as a whole but but one of the budget drivers to that would be a 0.5 position person um there’s a lot of talk about the wind block and in how that could be more successful if they had access to more tutors i think right now they said they all get um i think a tutor once a week for that um that if they could have tutors more often they felt that that they could really be much um that they were enjoying the wind block that they are getting that they’re getting used to it and feel that feeling of it but they felt it could be even more impactful that they had um tutors to help them more often

2:08:18 um and just discussions around that in general um and that’s that’s my update

2:08:30 um i had the high school sac today and we started to do a dive into the handbook um that dan had sort of prefaced that at our last meeting um i know this is something that i’ve talked a bit with lisa about as well as she looks at the various handbooks and the concern over policies that are mislabeled and and um we’ve moved our our handbooks online and so being able to provide hot links on those things and so um it was it’s you know it’s gonna be ongoing um but we we sort of started in groups to take a dive into it and trying to mark language um and and mark where things get needed to be linked instead of explained because the current handbook is i think like 96 pages

2:09:17 um so how do we shorten it and and make it more accessible um talk of of putting a table of contents that will hot link straight to that section um so just a lot more user friendly so that when someone does have a question or an issue they can know where to access it know how to find what they need and um and utilize the handbook as a resource instead of just sort of this nebulous thing that we pass every year and have no idea what is really going on with it um so that was that’s good work

2:09:51 um i just have a question for sleep pack um in the last meeting that we had i think i mentioned that cpac had put out a survey to parents so they have gotten the results back from that i don’t want to steer their thunder on kind of presenting what those results are but um it kind of spurred me to think that it’d be great to find you know have cpac common present to us um i haven’t talked to them about the details of it so this is which is done too but you know we’ve talked about it before we’ve talked you know we’ve talked about it here so i just want to kind of put that little plug in to maybe reach out to them and see what makes what kind of time frame makes sense um you know especially in like having some feedback some of it’s very specific to see back how do you want to communicate etc but there’s information in there in terms of

2:10:37 what are some of the topics that parents are you know are on their mind they want to learn more information about and technically be useful for this committee um i think it was a pretty even split across the various grade levels too so i think it’s representative of of our families so just a little look in there all right all right um i think that’s it so that leads us to sarah i think it’s like new business yes that leaves us a new business um this actually i guess it’s a new question that hasn’t come up um i i got i didn’t read something off my notes before if you don’t mind if i return really quick just for clarification on the pink sheets in the budget book where it goes through

2:11:22 all the different um staff some staff is listed twice i i know that i did the math the number isn’t carried twice so don’t worry about that but all of our counseling staff is listed on both special education and what looks like general education so if we could just at some point get clarification whose umbrella does that fall under or do it’s like our guidance that i’m sorry guidance counselor isn’t actually a term anymore um our our adjustment counselors or school counselors where do they fall under special education or do they fall under like the building principles budget if and i don’t need that answer tonight but if if just maybe for the next meeting if we could get that update

2:12:12 um so our next meeting um i should have had this in the other area but our next meeting is in two weeks obviously right before the break um dr bucky is not going to be here but we do have others already sort of lined up nan is going to come and present and uh as well as principal bower um so we absolutely can have a meeting um and then have plenty to discuss i just want to make sure that we have a committee that we have a quorum um before before lisa and i get to uh planning and everything so um it’s the i believe that’s the 17th is the date as of right now i’m not available i can change but right now okay so everybody else is good okay um i also just for again transparency’s sake i want to have a

2:12:58 conversation next time around about pulling in person um and i didn’t get that on the agenda today but i do think you know for new business um and again just so that it doesn’t come as a shock to anybody that you know we’ve sort of talked about this on and off those numbers have been flowed all year and so i would love to talk about returning to the high school and um you know returning to in full in-person meetings and uh and utilizing the um the youtube uh live stream and everything i actually i attended the board of health um discussion on suicide last week and or at the beginning of this week and mhtv was there and they actually are we’re live streaming it as well so i have not had a chance to reach out to anybody there um so i will do that because i think that

2:13:46 just gives us sort of hopefully another option an additional option um on on how people can access meetings um because i think you know that’s something that we absolutely want to carry forward so i’ll put that on the the uh agenda next for next time to sort of officially have that conversation and make make those choices so just a preview um i don’t have any correspondence so that leads us to adjournment at officially address at 9 14 pm and everybody have a safe and snuggly snow day tomorrow thank you everyone