This government meeting is brought to you by Eastworks and our local cable subscribers. >> Okay, we are going to call to order a regular session meeting of the East Hampton School Committee. I'm going to be unperturbed that the
screen looks a little different tonight. Good evening everyone and thank you for joining us. Okay. Uh we're going to take a 30 second segue just to say we know that these are crazy times with uh heightened feelings
and a lot of difficulties. We want to reassure our community and the public that our work centers around the support and administration of public education in our district. And we are um continuing in network
uh ever onward. And we do it with support and respect for one another and um while also respecting the constitution and the laws of the nation and the state. >> And with that, >> our oath,
>> we're going to roll call in uh Mayor Salem Derley Derby. Mayor Salem mayor Salem Derby. nicely, don't I? I'm here. >> Thank you. Uh Bonnie Atkins, >> present. >> Eric Aette >> here. >> Megan Harvey >> here. >> Sam Hunter >> here.
>> Linda Marquee is traveling abroad and we look forward to her rejoining our committee in February. Linda, best wishes. >> Uh we're going to move on to the uh we're we're restructuring things a little bit for those of you who are super nudes following super super nerds.
Super nerds following closely our procedures on the committee. Jesus. Um, we are structuring our action items um, under consent agendas. We'll have some that have to do with finances, which I will read aloud, and all other consent
agendas and motions will be handled by our secretary, Eric. Uh, so we're going to begin with the consent agenda for finance items. Um, I will entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda finance items as delineated in our
agenda for this January 27th meeting. A second. >> I'll take a so moved. >> Oh, sorry. So moved. >> Thank you, Sam. Can I get a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Megan. All those in favor? >> I opposed. Abstensions. >> Consent a No. Yep. Thank you. Thank you,
Eric. Consent agenda passes. Eric, why don't you take it? >> I entertain a motion to approve the accounts payable authorization. Nope. >> No. I did. They say I >> Oh, you would jump to that one and then go to the other one. >> Okay. No, I got you. Did you do both of them?
>> She did them all once. >> Do you just want to make a motion, Eric? >> Entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the January 13th, 2026 meeting. >> That was perfect. And next time, to save you trouble, if there's more than one item under here, you can just say, "Entertain a motion to approve this
consent agenda items." Other as listed. >> Doesn't matter tonight. And we get a uh a >> If he says entertain a motion, >> entertain a motion. We need a so move. >> So moved. Okay. So moved. >> Thank you, Sam. It's just so you don't have to repeat the language for >> seconded. Thank you, Megan. All those in favor? Opposed? Abstensions? Motion
carries. We're going to move on to announcements. Do we have any gifts to report? >> No, >> I do don't believe we do. Um, and we will we do not have the student representative update today for two reasons. First of all, this is our second meeting of January. And also, we
had no school today, so we are giving our students the day off uh dusk to dawn. So, they are their wheels to them in February. Walter Baker from the high school and Henry Lagana from Mountain View. Um, at this point we are going to open the floor to public comment. If there are any members or any members of
the public here in person or joining us remotely, uh, now is your opportunity to raise your hand or to step to the podium and share your thoughts. Going to give that just a minute. Seeing no interest, we are going to close public comment and move on to the superintendent update.
>> Great. Um tonight we um I'm going to do first the um superintendent goals. Uh the first goal is around instructional practices and creating systems and action cycles in all of the schools. We're taking a look at data. We're doing that as a leadership team. Um tonight we
had scheduled a CKLA core knowledge language arts update. Um Jodi Alatalo was going to be presenting um a little bit more about our landscape analysis um the learning walks that we conducted and a little bit of data. So stay tuned for
that at the next meeting um because there was no school right um we we moved the presentation. Um so just around goal one on June uh January 20th and the 21st we did two days of learning walks. We got to see um CKLA implementation um
across Mountain View. It was a really amazing experience to see the teachers diving in and just seeing the growth from the beginning of the year to midyear and the familiarity with the curriculum and those intentional practices that are built into the
curriculum was really awesome to see. So, the teachers are working really hard lifting that curriculum and um we'll have some data um beginning of the year data happened and we're doing our midyear screening data now. So, we'll have some data to present at our next
meeting. >> Is this specific to any set of grade levels or is this kind of a K through 12 that you're talking about? >> So, the CKLA is prek to five. So, um we took a look at some classes. So, that's for ELA curriculum. Um and but the um
the star data, the midyear data is um prek to 8 data. Um sorry um it is 2 to 8 data and then we're looking at the early bird data for the upper grades. So, we'll have some of that data for um
for our review. Um go >> maybe we'll hear more about that Marchish or this >> we should have no we should have either at the first or second meeting all of the data compiled and presented. So stay tuned for February. >> Um
around um superintendent goal two um taking a look at my NISP entry. Um, I presented my entry findings last meeting. Um, that is now published on our website. You can find it on the superintendent school committee page.
Um, there on our website, the Gazette covered um the story and it it was a really nice article. Nice to see um East Hampton and the press twice. Mayor had a nice article too in there. Um, so good um getting the word out about our
schools and the work that's happening. Um our my next session is scheduled for February 3rd. Um my coach Kenny is coming out to visit me on Thursday and he's going to be joining our equity committee meeting. So um I really wanted
him to see some of the work that's happening during that equity committee. Um they're doing such a great job really helping us um talk about our communication protocols which is a really big step for us. how and when do we communicate and creating some really
concrete practices of when we should be communicating you know things that are happening in the schools and you know to build that trust with our community. So the equity team is is building that is leading that work. So we're really grateful for that. Um and then around
goal three um is around communication and today um and this week in in this past week in general has been a little bit challenging in terms of communication. Um I really appreciate everyone's patience as we worked through
sort of our issues with parent square and I I want to just kind of be clear is um we have two systems and they have to talk to each other. Parent Square is how we communicate with families and to and students and we have powers school which is sort of our information holder
system. So power school has to talk to parent square and what's happening right now is power the way we have the data mapped to one another it's pulling from the wrong data. So it is parent square
is grabbing um emergency contact information and that is why everybody's emergency contacts are being um being notified right now. So we have to remap the data and pull from the correct fields. We're looking from our guardian
fields um to to connect with parent square. So, our tech team has been working um very diligently to rectify um the issues and to try to get the system remapped. So, they're reconfiguring it.
We hope to have everything >> fingers crossed all of the things um up and running by probably mid uh by the end of the week. >> Okay. So, um, in in sort of as a patchwork quilt, uh, method of communicating, what we did is we
rebooted our old school messenger system. That's why some people got that second call at 8:00 today. Um, we'll be posting on Facebook. We'll be um, sending out that old sort of the old ROOC call style. We're going to do everything we can to make sure we're
communicating. Um but hopefully it'll be fixed. Um so we don't have to have this happen again. Um but it really, you know, speaks to the importance of contingency planning as well. So we learned that this morning. We have to have a backup to the backup to the
backup. So we're working on that now. But I really truly appreciate everyone's um patience as we work through that. >> Great explanation. Thank you. >> I think it also speaks to how well Parent Square is working. like we >> that we missed it when it was missed it.
So that's a good sign. I think Pauliana, but you know, >> that's a good point. >> No, I appreciate it. It's been, you know, the thing that we've been highlighting and it's been as far as implementation, it's been pretty seamless. This is like kind of our first real hiccup. You know, we've noticed
some other things that we've tweaked along the way, but um you know, things things happen. >> Happens. And I I have to say I'm um today I think today was kind of a learning experience for all of us. And one of the um things that I learned was who my children my child's emergency
contacts are. >> Um and they learned that they were my child's emergency contacts which they didn't realize was the case. So it's always good. It's a good reminder for all of us to like make sure we know who's going to be contacting >> opportunity to have a great early morning chat with your mom. >> I was um really glad to it was over
something like this and not over an actual emergency. um you know, it gave us all a chance to kind of update our records and uh make sure that we had the right people on there. >> And then um you know, I think it's this is it's it's part of it part of what we're doing is we're moving to a new
system and part of that is figuring out what to do when that system doesn't work. So I'm glad that we figured out what the problem is and I'm sure it'll be fine >> because hackers going to hack. There will be problems. >> Oh yeah, there's going to be all sorts, you know, things are going to go wrong and I thought your video was really good. So thank you.
>> Thank you for that. Thanks. All right, those are my three those are my updates. >> Wonderful. We are going to move on to school committee discussion. Uh Sam, why don't we start with the policy subcommittee update? This is our meat on the bone tonight. >> Yes, we finally do have some meat on the
bone tonight. So, I um we had our policy uh subcommittee meeting last week. We set up a couple of meetings um for the near future which uh will help us with making sure that we've got time kind of already carved out to discuss things as they come up. Um the big thing that we
talked well we other than we elected myself as chair and then Eric is secretary. So Eric is just kind of the secretary generally. >> Um so um we are asking if the school committee would consider um approving
this um policy manual development um assistance from MASC. or M8. >> Let's pause for a second and talk about how right around that time we had a publicly scheduled work session on Saturday with all of the school committees where we
got to talk to our field reps from NASC directly about what this um policy project looks like, what it costs and just how you know and then you so you can take that little springboard into the work that you started over the past 2 years that really illustrates how we
need some backup. We're quite um our policies are um anybody from the public who's tried to access them will note that they are difficult to access. We do have hard copies available that people can look at and um we have ways of getting copies of policies to people but right now they're stored in a SharePoint
site um that is difficult for people outside of the school to access. Um >> and there are hundreds >> there are hundreds of policies uh they are organized um through this alphabetical system that takes a little bit of getting used to. Um, some of them are obsolete. There are definitely still
policies that mention school buildings that don't exist anymore or that in some cases mention specific people who no longer work for the district. Um, or uh prices for things that have gone way up uh since the policy was cost a lot more than >> some of the policies, the really old
ones on the uh in the system uh are missing all of their even pages because when somebody scanned them in, they didn't scan the other side. So, like there are just some very um and this is just because like this is, you know, school committee is is a pretty much an all volunteer group of folks. Like this
is not our full-time job. Um we're all just volunteers from the community. And I frankly in the, you know, decade or so that I've been involved in East Hampton Public Schools, we've never really had the time to like sit down and really go through and make sure all of our policies are updated and accurate. And a
lot of stuff has changed in public education um recently. and we've had to, you know, a lot of there's new things that we need to have policies around. >> Um I'd rather um not just kind of react to new things that are happening. I'd love to >> have and I was kind of hoping to do this on my own, but it it's too it takes too
much work. >> You did over the past two years. >> I did as much as I could. Ton of work, but it's a drop in the >> A ton of work. It has not amounted to much and uh I don't have the the time to do all of it. So, um, MASC, which is the
Mass Association of School Committees, offers a service where they will actually come. They'll look through all of our policies. They will figure out what we're missing. They will help us come up with a, um, a plan for how to address all of them and update all of them. >> Because the majority of our policies, initiate with their recommendations,
>> they're the ones who kind of tell us when we need new policies. And there are policies like our AI policy, for instance, we came up with before um before MASC. >> This is absolutely their Yeah. But but they have, you know, we'll get a bulletin from them and it'll just be very casually like here update these 20
policies and it just takes us a while to get through them. So um so there's a uh there's a service that they offer where they'll come and kind of help us devise a plan for fixing our policies, bringing them up to speed, and then what I think is the coolest part, they will host them
for us professionally on a website that's accessible to the public. And the thing that I really enjoy about this website, and maybe I'm the only one who can say that this I really enjoy this website that hosts policies, um, is that you can look at other school districts, too. So, uh, when we're looking to
update our policies, I will go on that site, uh, frequently, and I'll look at other school districts and see what they've done. And the cool thing is like it's all sorted by, uh, you know, every policy has a letter of the alphabet that it, um, corresponds to, and, um, you can kind of look them all up together. So, it's um it's neat to see kind of how
different communities have um addressed the same issues. So, I would love for us to be up there because then other folks, other communities will be able to look at our policies and um see what we're doing here. Um so, it kind of fosters more collaboration. >> We're also coming off of a really
beneficial mutual relationship with NASC when we embarked on our superintendent search. Uh we hired them to consult and advise us throughout that process. um their work and support was invaluable. Yes. In not only having a really smooth, clean, satisfactory process, but a
terrific end result as well. So, we have a lot of trust and faith. We know these people. We work with them regularly and they really have an excellent track record. >> Yes. And I, you know, I I really I really trust our field reps. I like, you know, we've worked with them before, as you said. We just had an amazing um
retreat uh >> right in the back room. basically just them um answering all of our questions specific to our community which was wonderful >> and their level of commitment was such that one of them got snowed in and had to stay the night in Northampton uh to host us for that workshop.
>> Yeah. So it was um it was it was great. I I um I would love to work with them on this project. It is uh there is a fee involved in the the the what's included in your packet tonight is kind of an example of a contract and the total cost
in this example is $10,500. That's actually for two years worth of work including the hosting. The hosting fee is um I think $3,000 a year after that which is not no much less $900 there. Um, so $900 a year to host the policies,
which if you think about the um this the salary that we have to pay for people to look up the policies and send them to the people who need them, um, definitely worth it. Um, so I think that this is the sort I would I would like to um have a make a motion, I guess, to uh kind of
begin the process of reaching out to MASC and asking them to um our own contract. >> Negotiate our own contract. Yeah. This is not an expensive service for what it is and I think it's worth doing. Yeah, mayor. >> Just a couple thoughts, I guess. Um, so
it sounds like we're at a point where our policies are not serving us super effectively. So, I guess I guess that begs the question, does it make sense to take a look at other districts policies and start fresh?
>> That's what I've been doing for the last two years, >> right? And so and and if that's the case then you know >> because it requires an audit, right? You can't just say we're going to go for the next six months with no policies and add them as we need.
>> So so that audit process is what Sam started at the beginning of last term spent two and we had how many how did we have three policy puzzas? >> Yeah. Where we spent the whole day doing this. >> Yeah. It was >> I loved it. >> Um >> we tried to do it by
>> did not make it down. did not make it. >> Fair enough. Fair enough. Uh I guess the second part of that question is >> grants. Are there do they know if there's any grants available that can help? >> That's a great question. My conversation with Liz was this that not MASC offers this service alongside other
professional education advocacy groups. So their cost like if you were to hire this is similar to the conversations we had when we were hiring a consultant for a superintendent search. You can hire outside private sector companies. It's roughly three times the cost. >> Yeah. So there is a school of thought
because Liz has told me we don't have access to grant funding for this specifically. We could access it perhaps from something else particularly for that recurring cost of >> but that >> the the face value of being 60% less expensive than private sector
competitors is in itself the savings. I don't sneeze at 10 grand. But also, we haven't negotiated this yet, and we could negotiate for something less >> as we did. You know, when we did the superintendent search, typically that goes for $10,000. Uh, with the amount of work that we did ourselves in
conjunction with them, they cut that fee in half. So, we ended up paying $5,000 for what was typically a $10,000 service. We intend to approach it similarly, but I can't >> We've already done a lot more work, I think, than most districts have. Um, when when Yeah. And also like I'll say,
you know, I I've done the best I can on this. I uh if I wasn't working full-time, >> even then, >> this would have been >> even then because the amount of time it takes to pass them through. I mean, like it is >> um Yeah, cuz you've got to do the readings and the >> and then you alone are vouching for the
recommended language. >> Yeah. >> I I think it's also about like the searchability of the files, right? Since they're scanned, you cannot search them. We cannot easily edit them. we have to retype all of the policies if we >> Yeah, that's true. We do have to retype
them all. So I I just and from the superintendent perspective, you know, when we have solid, accurate policies that are current and reflect the the legal requirements, it not only makes my job easier, but it also is uh it
protects the district when, you know, we have um policies that align not only with our values, but with the law and um with expectations. >> Yeah. And then the more and more. >> What I think would be great, what I'm looking forward to is kind of having
having a plan for that so that we don't have to focus on that stuff. We can focus on the new stuff. Like when we were talking about the middle school um career exploration, you know, policy like I, you know, you did a great job with that. I mean, basically, you wrote the whole thing. Um but that's the sort
of thing that like I want to be able to spend more time on as a group, you know, because that's the sort of stuff that really affects our district. um you know our all of our like very very intense personnel policies we don't need to spend as much time discussing discussing you know I would just love to have MASC
help us um update the language and uh the other thing that they'll do is and this is very nerdy they'll update all the cross references so like each policy is linked to state law uh where that applies and then it's also linked to other policies and so you have to go through and make sure that those links are accurate
>> and I had to do that for a situation that we had last year and it took me weeks They'll actually go through and make sure that they're properly linked to the right law. And I'm not a lawyer and um yet. >> No, I'm not going I'm not going to become a lawyer. >> So, I think what we're looking at now >> I know, right?
>> I think what we're looking at now, mayor, is permission to like enter into something. I'm thinking let's jump in at around 3500. I believe that's what our finance director of business has already found in our existing like we've eliminated some things and we're going to try to keep the overall cost as low
as possible. And as I said, we have a history of >> That's right. >> We have a history of talking MASC down >> or just by taking on more work ourselves when needed. Um but doing it alone isn't serving us and it's not serving the district. >> Yeah. Perfect. >> Yeah. Anybody else have? >> I'm sure. Yeah.
>> Um so I just wanted to clarify for the record. I think this is what I understood, but so they're going to go through do this sort of audit. They flag things that need to be updated. We would still be doing the approving of the new language >> and we got their guidance on the way we have been approving it is a bit is a a
thousandfold more meticulous than is required or what the public needs. So they are also going to help us streamline the process to explain the policy work that we're doing to the public and have it passed. >> I just wanted to clarify for the public that it's not that they're going to come in and rewrite our policy. right? >> They will flag things and bring to the
attention of this committee and then this committee will do it >> and also answer questions for us about why we're doing this, what the change means and we can then communicate that to the public. >> Um the other thing I wanted to just say is even with all of this like work that you've been doing over the past two and a half years or or whatever it's been.
Um I think there's something really useful to and just to be said about the oversight from a agency that does this that this is their job. >> Um and >> get the professionals in. They're the professionals. So, >> I, you know, I, even if you were a lawyer and you were amazing at this, I
would still feel more comfortable saying like, let's get the professionals to like review and make sure it's too important, our policies are too important to just kind of >> um, take it on your own. So, I I'm fully in support of this. I'm happy to. >> Bonnie, you had a hand up. >> Yeah. Um,
first of all, the presentation on Saturday was amazing. like what they're capable of doing is tremendous and the oversight is important and I honestly think it really reinforces part of our values around transparency
and communication. If people can access accurate policies and then communicate directly with what they found >> versus us digging deep trying to find them then sharing them. that that lag in
time builds distrust. >> It did. >> Yeah, >> it did. Yeah, we saw an example of it. Multiple. >> Yep. >> Yeah. So, I I wholeheartedly support this because it's this other layer of
truly making us accountable to the public. >> Yeah. >> Cool, Eric. >> All right. I just I'll just keep it simple. Transparency, accessibility, those are two things we need. So, that's going to be huge. and then just just saying everybody knows, not reinventing the wheel. So, we're giving it to a an
organization that looks at policy over and over. So, when they see stuff that we would miss, they're going to say, "Well, this is how this district does it. This district is similar to yours." It's just a hands-on very beneficial approach. >> Yeah. >> Great. Um,
>> do we have a motion? >> We don't have a motion on the floor yet. Uh yeah, let me get to that because we helpfully and I like this about the new agenda. >> If we could say um instead of >> down to if we could say to enter into
negotiations for a contract >> um uh I make a motion to enter into negotiations for a contract with MASC for policy review services to be paid for from the school committee contract services account line. >> We have a second. >> Second. >> Thank you, Eric. Are there any questions, comments, or further
discussion with a motion on the floor? >> No. Seeing none, uh, we're going to vote. All those in favor? >> I >> opposed. Extensions. Motion carries. >> Great. >> Very exciting. Um, so I will reach out to them tomorrow. >> Okay, cool.
>> And have a report back by February. >> Sounds good. >> Great. Uh, finance subcommittee update. >> I don't have an update. Tick tick. No, I don't have another uh update other than I was just going to look to see what our upcoming meeting is. It is Monday,
February 9th at 3:30 right here. It'll be hybrid. Um so on Google Meet and in person and then um I believe those I haven't actually checked. >> You put all the agendas up. I believe they're all the agendas are up uh with all of the dates and all of the Google
Meet links and what we're covering at that meeting. and we look forward to your input. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Heading right into that budget season. $900 an hour. It's >> going to be fun. >> All right. Uh CES update, Sam. >> Um so CES, the Collaborative for
Educational Services, which we're a member of. Um they are in the process of hiring a new executive director and that um the person who was chosen for that is um Dr. Porsche Bonner who's currently the superintendent at in Northampton. Um and so they are uh working on uh
contract negotiations right now. So nothing is um set in stone at the moment. But that is the person uh who they are >> out of how many negotiating? >> Um out of we had five finalist we had five um >> yeah we had I'm trying to remember exactly how many
>> because I think it was like 30 applicants. >> Well so it was 44 initially but about half of them had been submitted by AI and the people didn't realize that they had applied for the job. >> Fantastic. Yeah. So that's that. So just for people who are like have not done hiring recently like this is a major
problem and uh in in hiring at the moment where like you put you put your um your job description on these websites and then it's people have like AI bots that apply them to jobs and a lot of times the people don't even realize that that's happening. So about half of the applicants were didn't were
not aware that they were applying for the job. >> Cool. >> Um and so out of the remaining applicants it was somewhere around 20 something. We kind of narrowed that down I think to about five for the um for the uh search committee and then out of those there were three that were went to the finalist round. So but they were all
um the of the finalists they were all very qualified um and I'm I'm feeling good about how things are going and uh it was a unanimous vote um for Dr. Bonner. So um we are uh looking forward to getting >> unanimous vote out of the full board. >> Yes. Um
>> that's what 36 37 members. It's it is 36 member districts, but there are only currently 27 that have active members attending. >> That was 27 unanimous votes. >> Uh something like that. Yeah, something close to that. Yes. Wow. >> So, it was it was um it was good. Um and
looking forward to uh next steps. The idea is that uh Linda Marque is going to be taking over this role for me um just so that I can focus more on the policy stuff. >> Yeah, you shephered it through this. It was a lot more work than I expected it to be and I realized it's going to continue to be a lot more work unless I
stop doing it. So, I'm going to let somebody else do it for for a little while and focus more on the policy side. >> Linda's very excited. Linda Linda will enjoy this. >> Last term was her first term and now she is really ready to like dig in and >> so I'm ready to share uh uh my you know
share with some other people. So, >> great. >> But I uh I've enjoyed my time. So, uh when she gets back, I think that's when she and I are going to meet and just talk. >> Yeah. You may have like one more update or something in there. >> They're meeting tomorrow night. I actually have a work commitment and won't be able to attend >> and Linda's out of the country, but by
February, we'll be back on country. >> Yeah, we'll be good. >> Okay. Well, everyone, that's it for us tonight. Our next meetings, uh, we're going to be meeting on February 10th. March 10th. March 24th is the big one. That is our budget hearing. Um,
I think with that, I would entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> Motion to adjurnn. >> Thank you, Sam. Can I get a second? >> Second. Thank you, Eric. We're going to roll call out. Uh, Mayor Salem Derby, >> yes. >> Bonnie Atkins, >> good night. Eric Ayat, >> good night.
>> Megan Harvey, >> good night. >> Sam Hunter, >> good night. >> Linda, he is not with us. And chair Laura Scott, good night. East Hampton. >> Thank you everybody. >> Thank you.