Good evening and welcome. This is the August 18th, 2025 meeting of the school committee. Call the meeting to order 507. The meeting is being both audio and video recorded this evening. And I would ask that folks please rise for the pledge of allegiance.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you all and uh I would ask for a
roll call. Samantha, if you can start, please. Samantha, Pamela Blair, assistant superintendent for business. An Alarella Smith, superintendent of schools. Henry Thompson, William Strawther, Cara Javowski,
and would like Oh, yeah. Two of my two, Amy Denta, and Heather Brown, assistant superintendent for teaching and learning. Thank you, Amy and Heather. And, uh, special welcome um to Carrie today, our newest school committee member, recently
appointed. Thank you for joining us, Carrie. Look forward to uh meetings ahead. Mhm. Okay. Uh I have some meeting minutes for approval. I'd entertain a motion, please.
A motion to approve the June 23rd, 2025 executive session meeting minutes. Motion made by Antinoa. Second. Second by William. Discussion. Carrie, you can with u I was going to ask when you get the chance. Uh all in favor, please say I.
I. I. Those opposed, nay. Yeah. And one obstension. So 401. Next up, make a motion to approve the June 23rd, 2025 regular session meeting minutes. Made by Anthony. Second.
Second by William. Discussion. All in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed. And obstension. 401. like to make a move motion to approve the June 24th, 2025 regular
session meeting minutes. Motion made by Antinoa. Second, second by William. Discussion. All in favor say I. I. All right. Those opposed? Nay. And one obsession. 401. Again, Samantha. Thank you for those minutes.
Uh, committee and subcommittee communications. Santella, would you like to start? I don't have anything at this time. Easy enough. William, I have nothing at this time. Carrie, do you have anything you I do not have subcommittees at this time? Yeah, at any point. So, usually um we
will give an update on subcommittees that we've met since the last meeting or events that we've gone to or such. So, um Amy, anything? Nothing today. Thank you. Great. Okay. Opportunity for visitors to address the committee. Seeing none tonight, we will move right along
and we are into the presentations. We have information regarding the superintendent search and with us joining us tonight Tracy Novik from the MASC. Uh thank you for coming today. Sure. Thank you for having me. Um so
good good evening um to all of you both here and and online. My name is Tracy Novik and I am the field director from the Massachusetts Association of School Committees. I usually say central Massachusetts but you all should know that technically my realm goes as far as the river. Um and thus I am here with
you this evening. Um my presentation for you this evening is really in two parts. Um because the first thing as your field director that I think is most important is that you're really solidly grounded in sort of what does it mean to appoint a superintendent and what is the authority of the school committee in doing so. Um and then at the request
that you had made I have some information about about MASC conducting a superintendent search. So we'll do the first part first so that you get you know my primary responsibility to you as your field director is always to make sure that you have all the information you need to make good decisions. Um and then very much secondary is the question
of how you then end up deciding to conduct the search which is entirely under your purview. Um so if this seems like it's divided in half it really very much is and that's intentional. Um and by the way please interrupt me at any I want you to feel like solid in what we're talking about tonight so we can do
the next slide. Um, so most of you have probably seen this passage before. This is Mass General Law Chapter 71 section 37, which is, you know, what I speak of as the elevator speech version of what school committees in Massachusetts do. So, right there in bold, um, one of your primary responsibilities is to select
and terminate the superintendent. You know, that also includes evaluation. So, it's very much under your purview. Um, just to speak a little bit more about that. Next slide. Um really the two things that you absolutely have to do in appointing a superintendent in Massachusetts is you have to appoint
somebody who either already has lenture as a superintendent in Massachusetts or can attain lensure as a superintendent in Massachusetts. And then the second thing that you have to do is you have to appoint the superintendent in a properly posted public meeting by majority vote of the school committee. And that is it.
So that's really an important thing for you all to understand because obviously there are lots of other things you can choose to do. Um but it's important for you to know that that is those are choices that you as the school committee make. They're not things that you're required to do. Um as far as the law is
concerned, these two things are the things that you have to do. Next slide. So with the opening of a superintendency, there's really um there's sort of two paths and then one of the paths divides. So the first choice you have to make is that in many
cases in super in school districts in Massachusetts um there is a bench so to speak right there's somebody who has been um who has served in the district for a longer period of time who perhaps is interested in attaining the superintendency who has a great deal of trust in the school committee. Some
districts have multiple people like this depending on the size of the district. Um and then one of the questions we're asked is can we simply move to a point? And the answer to that is yes, you can as long as you do the other two things, right? Is that person someone who either has a license as superintendent, many
people who are in other positions um in school districts do and do it in a properly posted meeting by a majority vote of the school committee. So important thing to know is that that absolutely is an option that is before every school committee if that is something that you actually have available to you. And again, not every
committee does, not every district is of that size. there's administrative turnover. Um sometimes there are people who are perfectly happy in central leadership but don't actually really ever want to be superintendent and that's you know great too because there's lots of important jobs um that are in central administration that
aren't the superintendent too. Um the if however you choose not to do that you would be choosing to move forward with a search. Um and you can do that also even if you have a strong internal candidate. Sometimes districts say, "Yeah, but we really want to see who else is out there or we want to, you know, show that this
person really is that strong, that they're our best option." Those are options you have available. Again, entirely up to you as the school committee. Um, regardless, you can then move forward with a search. If you choose to move forward with a search, you then have this path to divide and you can choose to do one of two things.
School committees in Massachusetts can absolutely conduct their own search. um depending on the kinds of strengths you have on the committee, depending on what kinds of experiences you have in the committee. Um sometimes you feel comfortable doing it with the some of the capacities that are in the school district entirely something that's
available to you. And regardless of what choices you make, let me state at this point from here on out um one of the things that you have by virtue of being a member of the association is that we give technical assistance, which is you can call us up and say, you know, can you help us with raising? Can you help
us with putting a survey together? Um, can you tell us a little bit more about what the field looks like? Um, what are some good interview questions? All of those kinds of things. It's part of our job. We do it. You pay us dues already. That's part of what you get with membership. You absolutely can do that.
Um, so that's something that you can choose to do. You then also can choose to have contracted assistance. That's something that we do, but that's not we're not the only people who do. There are other groups in Massachusetts that um provide staffing for a search on behalf of the school committee. The
thing to remember is that if you contract with someone, it still is your decision. It's still your job to select the superintendent. The authority always stays with the school committee. Um and really it's about um things like capacity, about making sure that people
and times and meetings and paperwork and so forth and all of that get lined up as they should. Um, in some cases there's a question of level of experience with selection processes, what the field looks like, um, what kinds of things are best practices in terms of, um, things
like search committees and interview questions and all of that kind of stuff. Those are things that really any search um, comm any search organization should be bringing to the table. Okay, next slide. So, I want to stop there because that's the sort of as your field
director, here are the things you should know part. Any questions on that? You know how often school committees choose not to hire a consultant and just do it internally? Is that common or if they're going to do a s we used to say a third a third a third and I don't think that's actually true anymore. I've
been doing this for about 10 years. Um so I it's getting much more rare and I think some of it is that um maybe there's two things. I think we have fewer people on school committee who are
who aren't don't have a full-time professional job. So, I think that might have been easier if there were a couple people on school committee who were doing it um who were, you know, maybe they were raising families or maybe they were retired or maybe that like and they actually maybe had some time during the day to be able to manage things and that
sort of thing. We're seeing less of that. Um, and I think the other thing is that maybe more school committees are getting I think there's a greater um wish for
maybe professionalism in something that's really your most important appointment. Um, and so really I think that some committees are saying this is something where if there's people who do this as part of their job. Um, and we feel that we have the capacity to be
able to bring somebody on to assist us with that, we'd like to do that so that we're presenting the district in the best means as possible. Yeah. And we did use MASC last time when we hired Gordon. We had my friend Packer. Um, yes. Yeah. It was great. Yeah.
Thought it was a preview process. We miss Pat. We miss him. Please reflects well when it was I mean we we unfortunat I missed Pat. We lost Pat a number of years ago but um you know when it when it reflects well that like this actually worked out really well last time. So maybe we should do that again.
And how many years Gordon? Seven. My 16th year. 16. It's remark. It's wonderful. Yeah. That's wonderful. It's a team effort if you don't have a good school committee. I was going to say it has to be challenging to stay in a superintendent's role. Yeah,
Williamson, couple questions. Well, one cost. Is there if we actually contract, is there a cost? So, why don't I can I hold that part until I do the next part? Absolutely. Okay. Any questions about sort of general process first because I'm happy to take that. So, the other part of the question was
more around um if you you know, we we witnessed um with Springfield um so we were you know, intently involved in that, you know, from the from a bar. Yes. Are you involved in every aspect of if if we would contract you are we are
you involved in every aspect of it from the interview process to the actual being in the room when the questions are being designed and and everything like that. The short answer is yes. The longer answer is that if I end up juggling a ton of searches, you may get one of my colleagues. Now looking at my fall so
far, that isn't the case. You would actually have me for for sure. Okay. Yes. Are we ahead of the schedule, per se, or um you're you're right on track. Um for my fall searches, I really like to
launch them at the beginning of the school. Um I sometimes have have school districts that come to me like at the end of the previous year. And my answer is, okay, but the first thing you're going to want to do is get a whole bunch of community feedback. And like I I think that schools are really important, but nobody is thinking about this in
July except for maybe the superintendent. So sending out like a parent survey in July is like a fool's errand, right? So um I really like to launch my fall searches. So the other search I'll just tell you that I already am contracted to do is Berlin Boilston
out on 495. Um and so part of what I'm doing is like their their opening day with their teachers. I'm actually going in and doing staff input right away. We're sending out the survey as part of all of the back to school material like hey it's back to school and the school committee is doing a search. Please fill out the survey. um trying to get in
front of things like their PTO's and um that sort of thing like at their first meeting and that means that then as you're getting into you know September you're starting to post October you're starting to get applications um and then
you're into doing um the semi-finalist and so forth section once you're getting into like November. What actually something I should pass around is I have two things for you in terms of that are specific to us. Um I'll just hand both of them to you. So you conduct you would do all the
surveys. Will we get to see any of the feedback? So yes. So when I walk you through this section and that will part of those questions will actually be answered. Um so because I admire people who want to talk money right away. The answer to how much does it cost to contract with MASC
is $1,500. Um that no longer includes expenses. The only thing that uh as a separate expense, the only thing that would be additional is if for some reason you decided you wanted to do um advertising in like education week or the Boston
Globe or something like that, that would be something where it would be an additional cost. Now, I will tell you right up front that we just don't actually recommend that because frankly nobody's but I, you know, it's your money. It's your decision. It's your search. If you want to do that, you could do that. It would be up to you. Does that ever plan
includes? It includes everything at this point. We used to pull we used to pull out um expenses which mostly was mileage. Um and we don't do that anymore. So, so why would you have a man do your search? If you hit the this is the one fancy slide.
Um so the answer to your question is that um as I said we already we work we're the Massachusetts Association for School Committees. The reason MASC exists is for school committees. We were actually created as an organization by school committees that wanted to have a statewide organization. Um the only
reason we do superintendent searches is because school committees hire superintendents. Um all of us who are who work for the association in the field have been on school committees. Um most of us have been through I think all of us have all of us been through superintendent searches. I think all of us have been through superintendent searches on our local school committees.
Um and as far as we're concerned, you are the hiring authority. So, we need to make sure that you have what you need to go do a thorough and legal and positive process all the way across. Um, that isn't the case of most organizations you would contract with. Um, you in some
cases it's kind of more that they're working for applicants. Um, and and in all other cases, they don't have the same breath of experience from the school committee side of the equation. So, next slide. Um, so we, as I said, um, the CER, when
it comes to the search, the field director, your local field director is really the one who is doing the who is doing the groundwork. Um, I don't want to say that we're the ones who are doing the search because it's really the school committees doing that. Um, but when it comes to gathering all of the information, putting the survey
together, um, doing, um, gathering input from staff, from central office, from parents, from students, usually I think that's really important. um then what I would do what I what we do with all that information to answer your question is that um I bring that back to you in a
composite report because at the same time the surveys in the field I'm also doing these public input sessions both online and in person if that's what you would prefer and I think it's really important to gather all of that information and present it to you in a in a complete report that says here is
what the district says about itself so to speak and here is what the district says that they would like to see in future leadership and then accompanying that I give to you um my recommendations for what how you should be describing the position. Now a superintendency on
one hand is a superintendency they all have the same checklist from the department right they all have the same description under Mass General law of what their job is by the same token what you're looking for is the superintendent for East Long Meadow for now as opposed to a different town for another time. Um
and those that's really the part that is specific to your search and what I offer you from the information that I have gathered is my recommendation to you as to how you should essentially describe that. Now that is a recommendation that's entirely up to you. Um you then
take that in a public meeting. You look through it. You discuss it. You deliberate it. You change it. You edit it. You add to it. You do whatever you want to. Um that goes together in a brochure. Um the other thing that I would would be asking for not only from you all but also from central office is
we look for a whole bunch of descriptions of the district. So it's everything from enrollment to demographics to budget to how many of which position you have. Um I ask for the most beautiful pictures you have of your buildings, grounds, town, everything else. Um and also a
description both of the town and of the school district. We put that all together. Used to be that we would mail it. again, not really what people are looking for anymore. So, it goes out to um a list that we um continue to compile and add to, which is essentially people
who are interested in superintendent positions in Massachusetts. Um there's over 600 people who are on that. It also goes on our website. It also goes on all of our social media. It goes on LinkedIn. Uh not all of our social media. People don't look for this on Facebook. It goes on LinkedIn. It goes
on uh the micro blogging sites. So threads um blue sky and um Twitter it uh will depending this is up to you. We can also share it with um NASS which is the national association of superintendent
searches. Um we are as superintendent searchers part of that national network and then it would go out to I think it's 43 states across the country. Um that part is up to you too. It doesn't cost more. It's just another email for me to send if it's something you're interested in. Um then to continue to answer your
question in terms of then what happens and what do I do? The applications actually come to us. Applications for a superintendent search are confidential. Um unless you decide otherwise and decide to do the whole thing in public. Our strong recommendation is always not
to do that. Um there is an exception in Mass General Law um chapter 3A which is the open meeting law which allows for the first round of a search like this to be conducted confidentially. The reason you do that is all of these people have jobs and if you do it in public, you
will not get the same quality and caliber of applicant. So applications that are confidential, they come to us in the office. We make sure they're complete. They have all the parts that you need. Um our recommendation usually is that you then have a search committee which does the first round. Um that can
include members of the committee if you wish. It would have to be a nonquorum member of the committee. Um does not have to. You can just simply have community members do it. um make recommendations in terms of there being people on central administration, teachers, parents, strongly recommend
students can be community members and so forth. They do a first look, they get all of the applications, they do a first review of the applications, decide who to bring in for first round interviews. Those are done in executive session. Um they're called semi-finalist interviews. uh they then
it's still an in executive session deliberate um those people and then they will make a recommendation to you as to your finalists and at that point everything then becomes public again. So their recommendations to you as to the finalists are public that is public information. Um those applicants have
agreed that this will that they will go public and become finalists. So they've already done the homework they need to in terms of that and then uh you will bring them in here for a visit to the district. also recommend that they have a meet and greet as part of that. Um, I
recommend that members of the school committee go and visit their home districts. That's again a non-quorum during the day kind of thing and I try to give you lots of lead time so that you can make what arrangements you need to and I know some people have various capacity for that. Tracy, you said nonquor, sorry to
interrupt, but you said non is there an opportunity for all school committee members to make that visit though or can it only be nonquorum? It should be nonquorum um because it's just way too easy to fall into deliberation in which case it would be an open meeting law violation. And I will say as somebody
who schedules these, I usually am scrambling enough to just actually have non-quorum. I would be surprised if I could actually get the full school committee together to go to a a site visit. Okay. Y the non-quum doesn't have to be the same people. It does not. And in fact, one of the
things I recommend if you can manage it is to sort of give everybody a chance to go somewhere and report back. Um I think that's really valuable to your deliberation. Final step to your deliberation is having public interviews. Um those are posted. They're in an open meeting. Anyone can attend. Um we I will work with you ahead of time
to um develop your interview questions just as I did with the search committee. Um and you then have your public interview. You deliberate in public session. You choose your superintendent. Um uh we our job is not done on our end until you have a signed contract with
the superintendent. So if there's information that you need from us or any support you need from us through negotiations, obviously you'll be working with your legal counsel on that. Um but we also are here for support on that. And I think I should probably do the next slide. So that's pretty much what I just talked through. You can't
really read that anyway, but that sort of gives a general idea of what the phases are. It's probably too small to see. Um but you also have that in front of you in terms of the two-pager um which talks through sort of what the steps are um in terms of the sort of
creating the profile um the actual posting and recruitment of candidates and then doing the first round screening um the sending things then forward to you and then you actually having the appointment. Next slide. Is there amount of finalists
that can get put through? Um, in terms of so on the high end, there is no limit. On the low end, what I always tell the search committee is this. Um, I'm going to require you to put forward at least three because if
you put forward two, the first question I ask them when I call them is, do you accept the position of finalist? And if they say no, you then have one and you have to restart the search because you can't select a superintendent in executive session, which essentially is what would have happened. So that is
that's my line to them to avoid that happening to you. That's not what the law says. That's my heading off like I I often think that part of my job is to sort of try to imagine worst case scenarios and avoid try to steer people to avoid them happening. And that would
be one of them. when you meet with the public to do surveys or or anything like that, are we able to attend that or is it just you? And I usually recommend you don't. And here is why. Um, if they wanted to tell you
something as their school committee, they already would have. And I find that it works better. I mean I will say for example the same thing to principles in central administration when I talk to the teachers of can I just have the teachers when I talk to central administration can I just have you know
because um I mean who am I I've come from out of town I don't live here I the joke that I make is I take um the what I'm doing with a big group I take input on sticky notes and I say look I don't recognize your handwriting um you know all of these notes are going home with me I don't know who wrote what please be
as honest as possible um so I find it's useful. You know, I work for you. It's your search. But I find it's useful if you cannot go to those only because you tend to put a certain cast on the um the input that's gotten.
All right. Yes. So again, as I'm say, as I said, while there's sort of a standard, you know, cycle that we go through in terms of how this works, um, everything from when do we start to when do we end to how long do we leave things open to what does the position profile
look like, um, to who's on your search committee, that's all up to you. Um, and that's entirely under your purview and for you to decide. So, um, you know, we have plenty of recommendations based on our experiences. Um, I'll always share
those with you as I have them. Um, but at the end of the day, it's your search and it's your district and it's your superintendent that you're going to end up with. So, we want to make sure that that is all, you know, hitting all of what you're looking for along the way. I think we were 10 or 12 on the first
committee last time. Does that sound about a right target? I start to get a little antsy when we start getting up around 13 14 just because it ends up being too many people in the room. Um, and it's it gets harder to manage. And by manage, I don't mean manage like
through the process. I mean manage through can we have a deliberation. That actually is a deliberation. Yes. That's for the first round. Correct. Yes. So based on your experience with uh with these 10 plus years of experience doing this on on a district like this, what's
the what's the number of candidates you generally get? I know only so many years people come into this. Yeah. And it it also varies by year. Um, and I would say that's the one disadvantage of the fall searches is we're doing a spring search. I can say, "Well, here's what we were seeing in the
fall." Um, so I mean what I will say to you is this and and this first part is not telling you anything that you don't already know. Um, yours is not a district that's in crisis. Yours is not a district that's, you know, like h making headlines in sort of, you know, scary ways. You're not in a, you know,
budget terri terrible circumstances. You've already got a building project well underway. It's already been accepted. Um, so those kinds of things are very attractive. Um, you're not going to be in competition with Eastern Massachusetts, right? You might have some people who are thinking that they
might want to when I I mean, it's always sounds a little bit like I'm sort of making a nice joke when I say lots of pretty pictures, but there are people who sort of think about what kind of town they want to be in, what kind of um, what kind of surroundings they want to be in. Um, I am an absolute, you
know, pro outside of 495 person myself. I grew up in central Massachusetts, lived there all my life. Actually spent my first four years in, uh, West Springfield and Agawam. So, I, you know, I'm always like, let's play up the like, you're not living in Metro Boston anymore kind of aspect. I think that matters a lot. I think, um, we are
seeing, and by the way, I'm not avoiding your question. I'm sort of thinking through what kinds of aspects there are. Um, we we did see kind of a a weird kind of almost freeze immediately coming out of the school closures of the pandemic where a lot of assistant superintendent
and so forth just kind of stayed put and didn't make the next jump. Understandable. We seem to be through that at this point. Um, so I would expect that you're going to to see at least 12 or 15 applicants. You may go as high as 20, although I don't want to
commit to to that for sure. Um and the other sort of um really random aspect is I mean first of all I don't need to tell you that you're really close to Connecticut. We are seeing more cross New England applications than we used to even some coming over from New York. Um,
and we we also still are seeing some um I don't know if you saw there was this phenomenon they talked about when sort of um you know people were kind of re-evaluating their lives during COVID of people talking about where do I want to actually really be and am I near family Massachusetts is a net exporter
of educators. We saw a number of superintendents come sort of back to Massachusetts um who either were from here or they had actually been educated here and were and as they sort of thought through things they said hey wait a minute you know I actually I really want to be working in Massachusetts and that's I mean that
makes for a lovely headline but it was something that kind of took us by surprise when we started getting these applications from like these other states in the country and wondered what happened but it does I mean they even then told us that in interviews of you know well my wife is from soand so or I went to in Fact, actually, you could argue that the the new commissioner of
education is one of those. His wife went to Williams. Um they had always come back and visited friends and he, you know, has an affinity for Massachusetts from that. So there there's always that question as to whether or not we're going to pick up some of that, too. Got it.
What else? So, the one thing I want to say about the paperwork that I gave you, the timeline is is very sort of general. Um, I will say that the my question, if I came back to you with a timeline, one of my questions for you would be whether or not you wanted to try to land the plane
before winter break. Um, sometimes we can manage to do that. Um, particularly since our, well, I shouldn't say because our winters are milder because that's just setting myself up. Um, uh, we do I I'm enough of a New Englander where we always try to leave a little bit of a leeway on on some of the
stuff, particularly as we're getting into the later part of the year. Um, but that it is certainly possible to do a search where you've completed it by the holiday break. Um, if you want to sort of get to the finalists and then come back and do that last part in January,
that's also entirely doable. Um, the one of the first things that I work through when I'm putting a timeline together specific to a district, of course, your own school calendar, you know, when are you starting, when are the students back, when are the teachers back, what breaks do you have along the way. Um,
and that gives me a little bit of a better idea of and also when are your school committee meetings already? Because if I can just sort of fit my reports back to you into meetings you already have, that makes it more simple for everyone. Um, so don't don't think there's a reason why that's all highlighted. um that's absolutely not
written in stone. Um but it does give you an idea of sort of how I think about um the a search in terms of time. So do you meet when it says school committee meets with consultant? Do you meet with the whole committee? In a public session, I would ask to be
on your agenda. You um only when we there only place at which I essentially need a whole meeting from you is once we get into interviews. Um otherwise I can be added to a regular agenda um of you know I'm presenting my report to you. I'm presenting the timeline to you. I'm
presenting the report of the of the um the information gathering to you when the finalists are announced. Um when you come up with questions for your interviews that all I can do with that and I mean all of the the scheduling in terms of finalists visiting and you
going to them that's all email. Do you come here in person? Um I prefer to if if you all would rather that I'm you know I'm online that's fine but I find that it um first of all one of the you know people want to know what you're
paying for. Secondly I find it's useful to read rooms. Um I was a teacher before I did this and I do have the teachers habit of of sort of you know who haven't we heard from lately and what does that body language actually say kind of thing. Um, and of course, if you have other members of the public in the room,
it's not just that I'm looking at responding to all of you, it's that I'm responding to your public. Um, so yes, I prefer to I I also find that it is useful. Um, one of the things I really think is important when I'm doing the information gathering. So I will ask if
I could give be given time on faculty meetings at each of the schools if I can meet directly with central administration at each you know um and if I can do in-person you know evenings because I want to I want to know your
town and your district from all of those perspectives. Um because one of the things I'm doing on kind of the other side is as it goes out that you know okay so East Lombed is looking for a superintendent. One of the things that I'm going to get kind of on the other side to your question is people calling
me and saying, "Oh, so tell me about East Long Meadow who are thinking of applying." Um, and I want to be um, well informed from my perspective as to, you know, here's a lot of what I'm hearing. Here's the good things that are going on. Um, you know, what are the sort of
rumblings you're going to be dealing with as the next superintendent? It's good to know that too because part of what we're trying to do there too is match um skill sets and experiences to what you have coming up, right? So um that's part of what I'm also thinking
when I'm having those conversations too. Besides, it's a pretty ride. Do you meet with um anyone from the town side? It's that's entirely up to you all. I'm always happy to um I certainly have experiences with doing that. meeting
with um select board or town administrator have to meet with fin sometimes I meet with um public safety um but that's up to the school committee committee thank you any other questions for Tracy Amy you good out there
I am thank you Amy you're the only one who didn't get my contact information but it is on the screen so um you know make a note of it so the one thing I'll leave you with um whatever you decide on this. Remember that I am your field director. I'm always happy to take your questions on this or on anything. Um Samantha knows I
try to be really good about answering both my email and my phone. If I can't get to my phone, I'll answer it via email. Um so that is something that you absolutely should sort of take away from this regardless of what you decide to do next. Great. One last question. I'm just curious. I know you said that you that there's
another district that you're already committed to working with. Do you feel that you would be able to be the one that would work with us? Yes, two is fine. Once we start getting into three and four, then we start having to sort of have the field directors all compare their schedules to figure out who already has what what night. And honestly, that really only starts to
become complicated if we're running, say, for example, the semi-finalist interviews happen to be overlapping in terms of their day. So, that's another reason why I try to run out the timelines like this. So, like I can tell you like this is the timeline for Berlin Boilston, right? The first thing I'm going to do when I write up a write up a
schedule for you are is just see if I can manually just avoid that, you know. So, if I'm doing screening one week and screening the next for you all. The other thing, of course, is you also will probably not run into this with them. Um, you may find it a little bit more. I
know there's something like eight districts west of the river who are looking for superintendents this fall. um is that you know as we start to get to the end sometimes there are finalists who are finalists in more than one district and like the last thing we want to do is be doing sort of this race to
the finish of who can appoint first. Um that's not the best way of making a decision. I understand the temptation but try to avoid that too. Set the schedule and set to set with the schedule is what you're saying. Yes. So, by the way, the the timeline will actually go into the brochure. So, the
the people who are applying have it, too, of oh, they're going to be making this part of the decision at this time. Um, and by the way, the other thing that we do as your field as your um search consultant is we take all of those phone calls and emails. We tell them, don't contact the school committee. So, if they have like a did they choose this yet or when are they doing it or am I
ever going to like that's all my problem, not yours. Good to know. Yeah. Great. It's good working. I know. Super. Excellent. Thank you, Tracy. Any of you have any questions, let me know. Awesome. Thank you so much for coming tonight and the information.
Trace, are you okay with finding your way back? Um, no. I, like I said, I taught high school before I did this, but it's always it's always funny where, you know, it feels like a geography lesson or something. A new building will be easier to maneuver. Yes. Hopefully. No, you have yourselves an authentic
historical like artifact. There is that what you call it? building that that was built in about the same time period. Sure. They're all the same, right? Thank you, Tracy. Have a good night. Thank you.
Uh any further discussion on the topic? I mean, we can go ahead. So, well, my only question would be is hearing that knowing what I saw before. Yeah. Um, is it appropriate to make a decision on or make a motion to to bring
her in or bring them in? I think it's appropriate. I mean, I going through the process once already, I would recommend it. Um, especially taking the burden off all of us and to have someone who does it on a professional basis do it, help us with
it. And Masc uh has been a great resource all the way through. So, it would be them or I think there's one or two other private entities out there. That was going to be my question like how many districts use MASC
and if they don't you know who are the other private uh entities and and I guess you know you do have to look at rates. The two that I see the most of are Masc Nasdaq. Um,
we don't have a a price quote from NASDAQ, but I do think and we can certainly find this out for you. Um, that they generally will run higher. That's because we also pay a membership into we pay a membership into this for
this very very purpose. Where does the money come out of the budget assistant superintendent for business? We were just reviewing there there is one line item um which is totally escaping my mind. Gordon, do you remember what we were talking about 22
but that's where yeah that from there the the alternative is would be the school choice revolving account but what's that Gordon? I thought it was the savings with the data dashboard but I could be wrong on that. Okay. I'll have to but there there is
one and I as soon as I saw it I said that's perfect because we need uh funds for it. Yes. Exactly. And they certainly seem extremely organized. Um but as you said, I mean, do you want to see the other um I mean I I don't my experience obviously
is in the higher ed realm where there's like a handful of the same sort of search firms that people and there is price differentials and certain firms that tend to be used for presidential and executive searches and others might be used for director level type
searches. Um, and much like I think she referred to is that some of those private search firms have a pool of candidates that they're, you know, that they have a relationship with as well. But I was just curious in terms of like what it looks like on the landscape and
then, you know, in terms of uh reach, you know, if if there are multiple searches happening in this region, like would there be some benefit of looking at I don't know. Yeah. in terms of advertising reaching
candidates from different places. Yeah. I mean I Yeah, I don't know that they would differ from NZDAC per se. I mean I I just thought the process went well last time and uh have a relationship with them already. Uh and we're voting on this tonight. You don't have to.
Oh, I didn't know. Well, what is our time frame as to when we should I think we should get going as soon as possible. I think so, too. I mean I mean she's proposing soon. Yeah. I think this is uh Boilston.
I would be supportive of moving forward with MASC. It seems like in the past from what Greg is saying obviously we had a very successful search previous to this with um bringing in Gordon. Um it seems like MASC is the gold standard for
um supporting superintendent searches in Massachusetts. So, I'm if others are are feeling like we want to move forward on the sooner end, I I would be in favor of moving forward with Tracy. And and I will only add, you know, again, participating or at least
watching what we did in Springfield, um it was a rough it was a rough goal. Um but I will say that uh MSC was very straightforward. They, you know, they kept the ship moving and they kept the ship moving um when it could have fallen
apart at any given point. If if we were doing, if they were doing it themselves, it would have been it would have been very rough. But they the ship moving. So they used MAS. Yes. Yeah. So I mean she's collecting all this data
in the community and the schools. What is she doing with that data? Is it more of um and I probably should have asked her this, sorry. Um but is any of those whatever data she finds going in
the posting? Like how is that? I thought she said she was going to bring the data to the school committee in a report. You look at her at the timeline did say that that it was she was going to give us like a some kind of report. Correct. So then
do we use that information for the posting? Like I think she said she would be using the information she gathered from the community, from other stakeholders to create the profile for our town that would ultimately be what
attracts or doesn't attract any given candidate. Yeah, she did say like the posting is the posting that Yeah. And then I think it's also input for us to get from the community stakeholders in terms of what they are all looking
for. So we're getting input from the community and so we can make our decision based partially on that as well and we still make the decision on what's in the post. We still are the ones that make the final decision before that post goes out. Yes. Um we'll approve the post. We approve the post. Yeah. Right.
So in the proposed timeline that I I think this is for the group that is um she's already committed to but in October she'll have done it looks like all I think yeah I think this is what she's proposing for this okay all right I thought I thought she
had committed to these dates for the other one but either way um so she'd be reporting back on what the focus group and survey responses were then you would look at your qualifications and selection criteria and then you'd be looking at um
materials for advertising. I think that all leads into that other discussion folks want to wait. Would we like to proceed? So I make a motion that we actually um
contract with MASSE our super new superintendent. Sorry. Motion made by William. Second. Second by Antella. Any other discussion? Okay. All in favor of the motion say I. I. Those.
And that carries. I said I. Yeah. Five to zero. Great. You will reach out and contact them. process parking lot. No, we'll contact you tomorrow. Okay, awesome. Thank you. Good
discussion. Great. How you doing? Yeah, we're on our way. No, still in that brand new office that nobody else is ever going to be. He designed it, too. Is gonna miss this office. I am gonna miss this office from the
beach. He'll miss it. Okay, moving right along. Thank you all on that. We have an update on the East Lo High School building project. Yay. Okay. Um hopefully you all had a chance to see it live. They're coming through the building. You see how it continues
to change and the parking lot uh that they're currently paving, student parking lot is going to continue to change between now and Friday. Um but this is obviously where we began. That's a picture of our current building. And this is where we're going.
And by this time next year, you at least will have that building and all the parking and different access loops coming up to the building in place. That's going to be a challenging schedule to get that second part to happen. And then the fields will
continue. the grass fields that you see on the right side of the picture, that's going to happen over the next year, 26 to 27. So, this current building, it's in that parking lot right now. Yeah. You'll you'll take
parking lot. Yep. Yeah. The building's here. Yeah. I think we have a picture there. Oh, yeah. So, this is the back side. So, looking north. Okay. Okay. So, as though you were behind the new building, you see the new building going up and you see where our current building
stands and the dirt area to the right there as of July 17th. So, you can see how far they've come already with the asphalt. Um, that's what they were doing in the student what was the student parking lot, but it's also construction of tennis courts, new tennis courts. It's
um you can see the pool over there in the right corner. So exciting. Um, where is it? That that's the pool. That's the pool. Yeah. There'll be slides. Clean water. It's not real. And so by this time next year, this part
of the building from the auditorium over will be knocked down. Here's the front door of the new building. So this part will still be here next year. It'll take another year to knock that down. This through next summer by the end of after the last day of school and before we open up, this whole part will
be gone. This will be paved and then this leaves. If you can go on the next slide, you see that all that new parking lot goes away. Wow. This parking lot's going to go away and that becomes the entrance and then there'll be a parking lot here for the new building closer. So, you can see where they've been
working. This is back on July 17th. Creating those new tennis courts over by St. Michael's. That parking lot all down in the left corner is St. Michael's parking lot and they're expanding that entrance off Maple down where students enter the parking lot.
Um, and starting to create that bus loop. There'll be three lanes in that two coming out, one coming in on this exit which will improve it. It's already built. Yeah. And it comes right in here. So the the tennis courts are here. They're actually
leveled off today and the lights are in for the tennis courts. And they striped the field. They striped the lines for the um parking lot today. Oh, parking lot. And then the um concession stand bathrooms building is up. That's my building. Concession stand bathroom.
I've been fighting for that 15 years. I know. Big deal. That one is a big deal. Okay. Um, so this gives you just glimpses of what they're doing with the different sections of the building in terms of adding the vapor barrier and starting to mobilize masonry.
Um, more of that happening on A-wing, adding plumbing underneath the slab. This is in the kitchen area. It's important. Yeah, it's to have that. Um, this is now starting to construct that main stairway
in that uh central spine. Mhm. Uh, looking up. Uh, this is now the mason uh, starting to set up his staging. Interior framing. More interior framing plus electrical
HVAC. So, this is the pool. A closeup of the pool. So big. Yeah. It's going to be 12 and a half ft deep from the deck. It's uh it's um three and a half uh 3 ft wider than a
normal pool. The pool committee decided to make it a little bit wider. So it's going to be the nicest pool around. Going to be awesome. Oh, nice. And that allows for that diving area, right? because they've made the lanes so that they can separate it out if I remember correctly because you have more
space if they well the diving area you got to take the lanes out anyway right but those two outer lanes oh you can keep them right yeah and because of the size they're able to conduct like meets and things it's going to be the nicest pool in western mass former swimmers
nice you went I think the captain of his swim team you was just part part of the swim tested the water. The water. Um, this this gives you a look at the
Mason contractor starting to uh work on the concessions building. Now, the tough part with the concessions building is it's going to be up as we get finished with this school year, but until this building is
demolished, they can't connect the sewer. So, we won't be using it until the fall of 26. So, two years. Fall 26. Not a year from now. Year. But it'll be up all this year. You'll see it. You'll you'll see it Thanksgiving Day. It'll be there.
They'll see it. people bathrooms. Nope. Because it won't be connected to sewer. I know. Can't tell. We tried so hard to get it open. So, you know, one more year a reminder of just look forward. Make sure that we're letting folks know that sign up coming soon.
Yeah. Coming. They're going to walk by it and they're going to say, "Why are we still using portaotties?" Yeah. You know, um Yeah. We're not going to do that. No. Here's the bathroom. It's not going anywhere because sewer won't be connected until this building gets dropped.
This whole conversation is going down the drain. Yes, it is. That's cool. Um, so that gives you uh obviously this has been updated as of today because there's striping out there and so forth, but you can see now uh this actually it's now it has islands
and parking spots and so forth that happened between this picture being taken at the beginning of last week and now. So that's the bus loop, right? That's the bus. So the new school Yeah. will be there. There's three lanes coming in there. Coming in here.
Yeah. Yeah. Two going out, one coming in. So, they can go left and right. It just alleviates stress. Have we communicated this to LPC? I was just gonna I'm just I'm thinking about we have to, but first we have to finalize this and then get that information out. I don't know if they're
using this bus lane this year. I don't think they are. I think it's going to stay the same because this unit is still here. That's what I thought. I just sudden that loop's not going to change. They just needed to get this in so that they stay on schedule. I just know students will park over in the new lot. Okay.
But buses are not going to be operational over there. And student information is forthcoming. I think I did I see that? Yeah. So, the high school is awaiting um final information from Fontaine so they can get it out to um all the high school community
and the design is intentional on the parking lot. As you remember before, it used to be a wide open like racetrack and so all these islands are intentional to slow it all down. someone who's done parking lot duty. You think looks like there's less parking. Yeah. Same amount of parking. Oh,
yep. Same amount. It's going to be a little harder to plow. It'll be a little tighter and it'll be harder to plow. It it won't be tight like the shops parking over in Long Meadow when they redid that. But it'll be it won't be as
wide open as it is right now. Now it's just open. Correct. or was not which has lent itself over the years for people picking up speed as they're coming through the park. Yeah. No, it was it was dangerous before and yeah and I'm sure communication they'll have folks that will help
students get acclimated. Sure. Park. Absolutely. First thing they'll get acclimated is they're going to be walking a little bit further. Not that much. Helps with the wellness. That's right. The staff got acclimated to that past
year. Right. Um, so this is hard to see, but I did want you to kind of see the what we're starting to this year think about really um, specifically. So the pink areas are
areas that Fontaine would like to start abatement earlier than the end of the school year. And that area at the bottom is central office and LCAT. So, if all things go well and we're trying to put those
things into um place now, we're planning with them. We're we're doing uh we started today an inventory of all materials in the school, desks and chairs and furniture and whatever else. um because
we have to do some things um to stay within town policy and mass general law in terms of advertising things that we feel can be salvaged. Um and uh first area of that would be any
desks and tables that the district can use we will do so. Mhm. Um then it was suggested today that we advertise to other school districts. So if you know if another district is interested in I don't know how many would be interested in our student desks
but if they are they're here and they pay you for it. Uh I think it would probably be more of a donation because it we have to move that out quickly. Yeah. like um so anyway, the getting back to um the pink area,
if possible, we're hoping to possibly move LCAT central office and student support services April break. We're just not sure where we're going. Sure. Yeah. Like where would you guys go? Well, we're investigating we're
investigating Yeah. So, there's a few things that we have to answer, but we're investigating spaces over at Birland. we'd be separated out. Um it would be probably much more of a bullpen type setting where you have multiple desks um because Bertin will be an operation
and so they can't just give up all their spaces. But there is um one larger classroom that has been used as a maker space um and it's um was originally set up as a computer room. They still have a
computer room set up. So now they use it in a variety of ways. Um we are looking for other town spaces. Uh little red schoolhouse. Little red schoolhouse if that's a possibility. I do know that they use it for other things.
No one's using it. I mean the after school program. Yeah, I think it I mean you could probably adjust it. There might be a little bit of overlap but not right. So we would have to look into that and see. It is hopefully enough notice that maybe if people haven't reserved it through the entire year that
maybe we could block out April on. So these are all things that been in this there's options. Yeah. The issue Frank doesn't believe in give up the gym in April. So this gym is not a possibility. So it's whether or not what we can give up for abatement because once they start abatement it's
offline. They'll actually put a wall in between the people and the bait baited spot. So the uh Fontaine has to decide if we can give them enough space to actually start that abatement in April. If it's worth bringing in the abador or if it's worth waiting till the last day and just bringing in a huge crew. As you
can see this is their timeline this comes in four days or four um four days later than this. I mean so they're going to abate pretty quickly. But if we wait till June just so everybody it's very transparent. There's a huge undertaking that has to happen very quickly.
Yeah. Well, so this year that parking lot that we were just talking about that took from the last day of school and they're just finishing this week before school starts. Next year they're have to do the same thing with that parking where this building is with the loop and
knock down half this building within the summer before the first. They have to create those two loops. They have one created uh they have to create the other loop and they have to finish all parking for staff. This is where the parking lot is now. That temporary one is out here, right?
And that So now we have the horseshoe that comes out in two, one entrance, one exit. It'll be centralized in the middle directly across from what's that street? Uh Brook? No. Uh Melwood. Melwood. So it'll be exit entrance and then it'll split.
So how is this impacting sports this year? We're looking Yeah, we're Mr. McGee, the athletic director for the high school, is constantly working to schedule, coordinate, and work with neighboring um towns to
because none of these will be online until 27. This is where the existing building is. We do have the one field, this soccer field out here. We have the baseball field out back and we have the turf. So, we have just the three now, right? So, and we can't do the gym in April,
right? the big gym. They may take the small gym. We have to see if we can reschedu programming there. And then uh the pool generally were finished with it in April. However, the town has been using it. So, we have
to coordinate that too. So, there are a few things going on that need to be determined. All right. Jamie's been unbelievable. She volunteered to float. I don't know what that looks like for the LCAT offices, but uh and speaking of Jamie, she has our LCAT
video up online if any wants to check out a tour of the building. Uh we did it a few months ago. Definitely worth checking out. Doesn't even look like that now. So, we're gonna we're gonna do another one next month. So, it's coming. We'll put this um up. I can put this up
in in the news on the web page. It looks so nice. even like done yet, but it's hard to believe that in a year. Yeah. Yeah. Even harder to believe what they're
asking us to do this year because that's going to be Thank you. Um but I have I can't say enough about uh our partners in this and terms of our own project manager Scansa. They're really helping us. You know, they kicked us off today with the inventory. were
basically going roomto room um after a bunch of um work this summer with our custodial staff and IT department to recycle a bunch of electronics that are not being used and been in store rooms for a long time and
um recycling other things that we've been pulling out of closets. But now we're down to items that are being used and so we have to inventory that and uh make sure that we're going through the proper channels.
And we want to float the uh schedule idea yet or no? Um that's I I did alert uh both union co-presidents. You know, they're certainly willing to discuss. Uh that's up to you. You know,
they're they know that it's going to be a discussion and it would have to be an Right. So, so as we spoke, the timeline is super close for next summer. Um, Fontaine and others had asked if we could make it as early as possible. So, we talked about the snow days and
potentially putting any snow days that we had to take into the April break to make them up so that that June 12th dates just for the high school. Just for the high school. That that part didn't go over too well. Right. So now
we're the idea has come that perhaps we push the first day of school till after Labor Day and get the week on that end so we can give them one more week on Taine and do that districtwide so that everybody's on the same schedule just
for one year and um and then next year go back. So nothing to decide today but just kind of want to float that idea. we would have to talk to um the teachers unit A because in their contract has a lot of those dates uh set already. So it would have to be anou memorandum of
understanding um to do that. So just a thought because as we said that that timeline's so tight and and one of the things that um was important in my discussions with the the co-presidents today um this uh kitchen
sets up every building. So if if that's not functioning to the utmost of its capability, you're impacting lunch in every building. So that's something that we have to Yeah. And so we had part of discussion on that because the kitchen we may try
to close early because if we can sell the kitchen equipment, which we have to legally put out for, you know, certain processes to get rid of it. Um again, they would want it gone literally the day school ends. Um, so we'd have to
auction it, get it ready to go, and we may coordinate cold lunch that last day of school, that full day or something. We'll set the world, right? So, we have some planning to do with food services to make sure that they're Yeah. Right. Because these are just brand new discussions that
just Yeah, that discussion literally happened this afternoon. Like Lori Paul doesn't even know yet the food service. I'm sorrying meeting. Well, the break is difficult to do late like that. have already planned. Well, yeah. Contracted to teach and they have something else going on. And I think
lots of folks might like school starting after Labor Day. Labor Day might be hard to make sure why we always go back, I'm sure you know, is that it gets super hot in June. And so if we don't go back before Labor Day, we're stuck here till mid June and that's when Yeah. it can be.
And for instance, AWAM contractually always starts after Labor Day. I was going to say other district last Yeah. last day of school this year where Labor Day is early is June 18th. Yeah. So, you know, depending on what that
discussion looks like, next year, Labor Day falls on the 7th, I believe. Oh, it's late. So, but what you could do is you could discuss and think about bringing teachers back and get your professional development in prior to Labor Day,
right? go through the Labor Day um holiday and weekend and then maybe come back on the 8th. So, so you lose, you know, roughly three school days from where you used to begin for students, but it's not putting you
out at like June 25th necessarily. So, we'll check with all the stakeholders on the feasibility of all those things and then we will bring that back for discussion of this committee as a possibility. And I think they're going to discuss it in their executive with your executive
board, but there are districts across the Commonwealth that start still start after lunch. Absolutely. So we wouldn't be an outlier there. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Excellent. Thank you, Gordon, for
the update on that. Moving along, assistant superintendent for business report, we have the FY25 end ofear transfers. So thank you. So in your packet you'll see the end ofear transfers. Uh just as a reminder this year uh we did midyear
transfers uh due to the challenges that we were having mid year. We wanted to make sure that we had uh you know salaries covered etc. So um now this is the end of the year and you'll see uh we have um transfer from legal services uh the unit which is the teachers medical
therapeutic uh copers general supplies and the custodial supplies. I think those were all lines that we talked about throughout the year. That total was $158,78 collectively and the funds went to the substitute line of $13,61
and out of district out of district tuition of $145,647 which again we've talked about throughout the year. Um special ed uh we made some uh revisions for this current budget that we're in uh to increase the special ed uh operating budget line. So,
uh, we are in definitely a better place, uh, this year. Um, so I just need the school committee to officially, uh, approve the end ofear transfers here. And at the next meeting, I will have the, um, fourth quarter, uh, financial report for you. We're ending the the
fiscal year. The town just closed the year like two two weeks ago officially. This is a They turned back $2.5 million. Well, I think we turned back $17.91. I know, but I'm telling you what we did
as a but I'll have that official number. Don't. Yeah. Two weeks from now, I'll have the end of year I made the financial report for you. You should be sitting here answering. Yes, I should. Amy Amy will um I'd like to approve the fiscal year
25 end of year transfers as presented. Motion made by Infel, second by William. Discussion. All in favor say I. I I nay motion carries five to zero. Okay, let's see. We have the e leave
grant. Good news here. Acceptance of the 2526 grant recipient check. Exciting to bring forward and we always want to thank uh ELA. That's the East Lime Meadow Educational Endowment Fund. um the amount that they uh gave this
year in grants is total of 50,137.49. So I always need the school committee to officially accept that. But I always like to list out grants that folks did get because I think it's very important they take the time to do that and that elaf does go through these um along with
the administration at the schools uh to do some great things out there for the school. So, Alex Lennon, um, which is at Mountain View, a teacher whiteboard, tables and supplies, and that's $1,234.90. Christopher Tyler, um, 85 in active
panel, 10 Prometheian boards and supplies, that's at Mountain View, $4,68. The next one, uh, Christy Parziali, I hope I'm pronouncing correctly. If I don't, I apologize. Thank you, Pariel. Laptop charging carts, uh, Mountain View
School, $5,97. Daniel Lin, uh, JBL Microphone and System, that's at Maple Shade School, $389.90. Aaron Tai, Musical Instruments and Supplies, and that's for Maple Shade School. She did let me know that it wasn't both schools this year. Somehow,
that's a typo. It is just Maple Shade and that's uh in the the last year I believe she did it for both schools, but this year it was just for uh Maple Shade. That's $1,500. Uh Gary Wright uh slim sublimation printer and heat press for the high
school. That's $4,300. Hillary Coughlin 86 in active panel 10 Prometheian uh Mountain View School, $12,24. Uh McKenzie Palini adaptive tricycles for all the schools and that's $5,65069.
Peter Van Beern uh drone and robotics kits with equipment for the high school $8,218. Suzanne Collins uh microbit 10pack uh Burchland Park uh $1,200. Suzanne Collins Deco Digital Drawing
Tablets Burchland Park $2,400. Suzanne Thomas, Scholastic News subscription at Metobrook, $3,875. And that's the final one again for the grand total of $50,13749 to accept the 2526
check from ELA in the amount of 50,13749. Motion made by Antella, second by William. discussion. All in favor say I. I. I. I. Those opposed? Nay. That carries five to zero. Great. Thank you.
Thank you. Yes. Our community too. Community needs to attend these events and so good stuff. Okay. Up next in new business waiver for
policy GCGA substitute teacher information. In your packets you have um the GCGA-R substitute teacher information which sets the parameters both for daily pay
for substitutes but also if a school is a longterm substitute for a series of um weeks or months. uh it indicates how that um progresses from a daily wage to
um eventually becoming bachelor's step one. The high school has a long-term sub position in um chemistry and uh they would they are asking and requesting a waiver of the uh 30-day consecutive day
um daily rate before moving into bachelor's. Historically, uh I think at least in my tenure, this has come up uh a handful of times, specifically with science positions where it's more challenging to get
licensed candidates and um maybe one time in math. Okay. Questions? Motion. Make a motion to approve the waiver of policy CGA
our substitute teacher information as presented. Sure. Right. I'll take it. Motion made by Anilla. Second. Second by William. Any other discussion? All in favor say I. I. Those opposed? Nay. Five to zero.
Okay. Very much. I will let the high school know. Up next, we have a a revision in the wellness policy. Okay. Also in your packets, you have two copies of the wellness policy, the original wellness policy and now a
revised wellness policy. Um the originally health advisory committee started working a year ago um actually a year and a half ago with a consultant from DESIE um to revise
our wellness policy and make sure that we were up to date with current regulation and current law. Um, one of the things that as the health advisory council uh became the wellness committee, which is one of the big
changes, um, that was nice to see that our policy was pretty thorough and, uh, the Desi consultant was impressed and, um, you can see in the highlighted areas where we've made changes. Um, but it's
it's really around things such as making the name change. um making sure that our areas where we're in compliance with national guidelines if those have been revised that we've made the updates there and um
know what the new superintendent or how the the person will feel but all of a sudden I became co-chair so it used to be the chair the co-chairs of the health advisory council um were the health
administrator which is still true uh and the department chair for the health department. But in this case uh if you notice that uh the superintendent is co-chairing this 20 minutes a day 20 minutes a day for
month. Uh they actually uh receive 25 in most cases and maybe a few minutes more. The elementary school I believe is 25 and then they will have the recess from there. Uh generally they're because they
know they're going out to recess, they might be finished in 15. The longest part of uh I think those 15 minutes is just getting the lunch. Consuming it goes rather rapidly. It did see daily recess elementary students have at least 12 minutes of re
recess. We have more than that, don't we? We do. Yeah. Yeah. We're we're generally 15 to 20 minutes. Yeah. uh if not more. Having had recess duty in winter, it felt like Yeah. No, like more than 12 minutes. 12 minutes was generally intelling. They
they've um lunch because of the contractual lunch time frame and also preparation time. So, they've at least gotten a portion of preparation time backed up to lunch, which allows at the elementary school for lunch and uh
recess. Yeah. I mean not to belver the discussion but I think particularly in K through two like 12 minutes of recess I know that that's the state standard seems like not enough time. Yes I think yeah no I think uh most staff in the
building would agree with you. Yeah that's why the one thing that we are looking at more is uh you know how many double recess or second recesses are being taken. So that is something that the wellness committee will talk about a little bit
um as we totally agree with the um longer recess but second recess you know is that something that's really needed given day possibly every day not so much.
Okay any questions discussion on the I would take the motion please. I'd like to make a motion to approve the revised will made by Anton second by William. Any discussion? All
in favor say I. I. I. I. Oppose. Nay. That carries five to zero. Thank you very much. You wellness committee. Thanks you. And finally for this evening, we have a
reorganization of school committee roles. You'll all see that in um one thing that I would add, we do on here have um two committees that really no longer meet. Um let's see one, two,
three, four, five, six down. the health protection and service advisory that really was a committee that was established prior to us going into that year um that we had remote learning and then hybrid
learning and then inerson learning during COVID. Um the committee worked uh incredibly hard to put together different things during that year and then for the subsequent years at least uh two more years as if you
remember we weren't out of it fully probably for three school years in terms of just different things we were doing. However, since then, that committee has not met. And then, um, we've kept transportation on there, but we haven't,
um, run our buses and employed bus drivers now since 2017. So, we could probably now, great. Um, the other one that Pam found out about is, uh, the LPBEC
for the board of directors and for the corporation. Uh we cannot have the same representative for both. Yeah, you can't. So, uh William, would you like to move over to the board of directors? Is that your hope?
Yeah, my hope was to to fill your role. So, the happy to give it to you. Yep. Okay. So, we'll keep you on the board of directors. So, then we will need someone to do corporations and that meets every three months. William, is that was their Yeah, it was every Yeah. and versus the
uh board of directors which every month, right? And you have a meeting uh coming up and they do them in person. I don't believe that they're Yeah. Yeah. Wednesday, right? So that one and then I don't think I saw I only saw like two on the schedule for the for the um
corporation. For the corporation. Yeah. So it's You probably aren't getting these from Phyllis yet for She sent me a I'm going off the calendar she sent me. She sent, but she just sent out the agenda for August 20th. You haven't gotten that, but I'll I'll forward this to you and
then can you get back to her whether you can make it or not because she likes to know if there's a quorum. What's the date? Uh, it's Wednesday the 20th. Oh, yeah. I was I was planning on doing that one cuz I saw that on my catalog. Great. Great. I'll send it to you. It's at uh 6 o'clock. Yep.
Okay. So, that being said, uh we have spots to fill for my friend Sarah, who's no longer on our with us on our committee at least. Um Sarah's out there, I believe. Hi, Sarah. I think I see your name. Is that Sarah's
name, Jamie? Thank you. Hi, Sarah. She can't answer back. Uh so, we have to fill uh warrant review. We have to fill corporation for LPBEC. We have to fill unit A rep which
won't meet again for another year plus. Uh we have to school fill safe schools ELA uh the collaborative uh committee and the diversity equity steering. So with that said, are there any other
committees that I know we reorganized not long ago. Are there any other committees, and I'm not trying to open a can of worms here, that anybody wants to give up or potentially slide into before we throw them all on our new friend,
Carrie, I can go back on the warrant. I don't think I'm on that. Okay. Yeah. And that tends to float anyway, I think, anyone who comes. But that's fine. Thank you, Amy. I can get I can make sure I'm more consistent for sure with that.
He's like I can do the Warren last week anyway. Oh, come on. I know. Hey, you're not here. We can pick on you. You totally can. Um, okay. So, Amy's on for that one. Uh, how about the corporation? Same thing on the corporation. Amy, put you down.
Um, how about I'll do the collaborative. No, wait. What's the one? The other one that Oh, come on. I can't. No, I'm so I'm afraid that if I overcommit to things, especially that take me out of town during the weekday evenings. I'm I just don't want to let the rest of this
committee down. I don't want to overcommit. I'm so sorry. Is any chance you want to commit to that or it's once every three months in Westfield? I'm happy to do it. Oh, wow. Great. I know. That is great. Thank you. There'll be another time where I won't
be happy to do so, but it's not today. Um, okay. Moving right along. We have unit A rep. Like I said, this will not probably meet uh for at least another year. Sounds perfect for me. All right.
Carries on it then. Uh, safe schools. I could do it. Okay. And that one doesn't meet often. Um that's really if if we're making a significant change in our um safety and crisis plans um or if there's a new
regulation that comes down obviously it makes sense to have school committee members review it before bringing it to the full committee. Okay there uh here is uh the collaborative committee that meets at 7 in the morning. Mhm. Is there a day of
the week specifically it sounds? Um, it has been falling on Wednesdays, but we're not necessarily set on that. I can do it. I was waiting for you, Amy. Yeah, I can do it. Everybody's good with that. All right, you got it, Amy. I can't We can't do that.
Yeah, you can't do it. Yeah. And the diversity in equity would be the final one. Amy's on already. And that's been right. Yeah, have it. Yep. Okay, perfect. That's been meeting um generally we'll start up somewhere in November and we've
been trying to keep it as monthly as possible. Um and that usually is at night. We've been starting around six and we try to keep it between say an hour and an hour and a half. And new committee I'll get looped into
when these meetings are. Yes. Ever. Okay. She will. Um, we'll let uh a fiber mill of PVC. Yes. Yeah, we have to let Phyllis know. Both Carrie and William Samantha. Yeah, William's already to tell her that.
Yes. Well, William was on the switch and then Yeah. Yep. Okay. If there's no other discussion, I would entertain a motion to approve new reorganization of this school. Motion made by second.
Second by William. Discussion. All in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed? Nay. That carries 5 to zero. And with that, we have come to the conclusion of our meeting. If there's no other business in front of us, I would
entertain a motion to adjurnn. Come on. I'm sorry. Oh, so moved. Motion made by Harry. Yes. Second seal. Maybe now you're a motion maker. Harry, seconded by Antella. Any other
discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed. Nay. That carries. Five to zero. Thank you Amy and Heather for zooming in tonight. Thank you Jamie. Running the show. And uh All right.