##VIDEO ID:poDOCz0XKnM## [Music] good evening everyone today is Tuesday January 7th and the time is 6:29 p.m. and I'd like to call this meeting to order first up is our consent agenda and meeting um first is minutes from December 177 from 2024 has everyone had a chance to read them MH all right any questions comments Corrections Liz raised her hand okay go ahead Liz I'm sorry Jen um and I know I've made this a bit more complicated than you're used to but only because I'm here remote we do we need a roll call okay so can I have silly me sorry about that okay Jen what are we roll calling for just you have to roll call so folks know that somebody's okay so attending virtually it's um it's just one of the areas that I happen to train people in so I should be following the rules myself okay but I'm just I like usually just who's present then because usually when we do a roll call it's for a vote and there's there is no vote so yeah it's both to call both to let everyone in who might be watching uh know who's present so a roll call just to let everybody know who's there including me and roll call votes okay so we'll have a roll call for thank yep Jen here Mike present George present and here thank you back to minutes for December 17th any questions or comments no hearing none may I have a motion uh make a motion to accept minutes as written from December 17th 2024 can I have a second I'll second can I have a roll call vote Jen I Mike I George I Liz yes next we have three warrants 3840 and 41 which have gone around for signature for those that are present um any questions or comments on those warrants hearing none I'll take the motion I'll make a motion to approve warrants 3840 and 41 second um I need a roll call vote please Ben I Mike hi George hi Liz yes visitors com thank you for making those so clear and easy to understand sure thing visitors comments any citizen wishing to speak before the committee must sign in with the administrative assistant prior to the opening of the regular session of the school committee the visitor will identify themselves by name and address and shall speak for no longer than 3 minutes for anyone unable to sign in ahead of a time we ask that you clearly state your name and address so that this information can be included in the record for the meeting any visitors seeing none will move along student representative Cole you're up thank you Happy New Year yes and you as well I mean I'm sure your breaks were very different from mine I'm sure a lot of you s it to work um had a very good break appreciate that none of my teachers gave me any homew I got to spend of time um spending time with friends and family you know enjoying the holidays and working a little bit myself to make some money um but as for academic updates at the high school semester 1 closes on January 21st semester 2 begins on January 22nd the 2025 to 2026 school year was uh the schedule was created in and guidance will be entering course offerings and creating course selection sheets the John and Abigail recipients uh which I'm proud to be one of the Adam scholarship oh wait it says it will be announced Friday um that's all right there will be a white breakfast to celebrate our maybe it'll be announced publicly um to our students the following week you had to be invited in order to know that you're going so the I mean I got us to worship I'd have to look at it again I thought that's what it was thought said somewhere um you're awesome Co the project 351 Ambassador facilitated a toiletry Drive in collaboration with Grammy to go the student advisory Council reconvene today after school students will review programming for the remainder of the advisory lessons the PBIS program continues to be a hit for the junior high school students the parking spot giveaways continue to be for the upper classman I did not get that I would tell you um next attendance competition winners will win a pancake breakfast and I've seen The Bard outside my office my great is not doing too well so senioritis is kicking in yeah I mean I don't blame uh the fast for night which I mentioned previously will be held on January 30th at 6 p.m. in the cafe all families are welcome and for future plans and goals the quote unquote project selfie unquote is a presentation by the Hampshire Advocacy Center and will take place for students in grades N9 and 10 the lesson will be embedded in Wellness classes and I was told briefly about this it's basically just Online safety and know watching what we do online being conscious in your decisions stuff like that um and I was not able to get a hold of Mrs St Char so that is about it for me excellent any questions or comments for Cole well done thank you catian is uh not this week but next week next week the 18th y um Casino theme which there is no gambling at the casino it's more just for a Casino Royale Dice and all that excellent y thank you thanks very much cole appreciate it all right till next time I'll see you all right okay next we have reorganization of subcommittees with the departure of Jill and the addition of Liz um we need to um check in on our subcommittee so Liz Jill was on um the CES collaborative um subcommittee as well as policy and what was the other one that's evaluation an evaluation um do you have any interest in any of those I I could do policy and evaluation um I'm not sure that um I could try CES but that would just be adding another meeting to my already sort of meeting filled evening schedules okay if if nobody else is able to take it I would do my best but um they may be remote to C no she she usually goes um or she usually went um I know that I it's not not something that I can take on um we can table it until later and see if there's a way that's a um if there is any kind of remote aspect to it I might be able to do it that way but I can't get anywhere else with what I've got on my plate um do we know when they typically meet do they have a standard meeting I believe it's typically the last Wednesday of the month but there is some fluctuation depending upon holidays and different things that they have going on but I know it's typically always a Wednesday okay so let me take a look at my calendar and by the next meeting I will be able to have a better idea of what that looks like last Wednesday of the month okay excellent so we will table um CES um until the next meeting and then um for subcommittees does do either of you have any interest in changing um the commit subcommittees that you sit on um pretty comfortable okay great so um we will need to uh vote on adding Liz to policy and evaluation two separate subcommittees um so if there's no further discussion I'll take the motion to add Liz to those was it for policy and for the policy subcommittee and the evaluation subcomittee okay I'll make a motion to add Liz Le fond on to the policy and superintendent evaluation subcommittees can I have a second I second roll call Jen I Mike yes George yes Liz yes and thank you thank you um we're gonna skip the CES and as I stated and we'll push that to the next meeting you know what time of day that it's typically in the evening I can reach out to Jill and find out she probably has the schedule because she was on up until the end of December so she probably has the January um schedule so I'll send her out to the collaborative myself too oh sure Todd um but we'll uh we'll try to figure that out and we'll have we'll uh push that to the next time all right moving right along school choice um the enrollment dashboard you're holding steady at 678 uh I haven't had any change since October no moves in no moves out so good and bad I guess right yeah anything for they on the enrollment dashboard okay we're on to the school calendar you want to come through up here so do you want to talk about the feedback first from um sure so um thank you again for letting um The Association members give some feedback um it was good actually going through the questions with you Jen before we left and then making sure that we had them right so we could get them out as soon as we could and then we got it over to Jenny so um the questions are it looks like um hold on I have to look at this I have to look at it while I'm doing this so it looks like the majority of staff who participated with 54 responses wanted to start school on a Wednesday with no um half day on that Friday before Labor Day so that was their feedback um when it came to the other question about the half day of school on the 23rd versus a full day it looked like a half day was more favorable um when it came to the half day versus full day before Thanksgiving it appears that half day is what the majority of the members that participated in that question wanted and then the good I'm surprised at that one honestly yeah I don't know what to tell you and then and and what was interesting too is that um sometimes when we ask for feedback a lot of times we'll get personal emails and we didn't hear anything so I guess that was good you know it's clear we also made it very TR you know we let them know that this feedback is just feedback feedback and that it's not permanent as well all right and then the last question was about the Good Friday and it looked like um 60% of those that responded which was 55 wanted um Good Friday off now the only thing that I did not capture was if these were all teachers if they were Paras like I don't know where the heavy like where a majority of these votes are coming from but everybody was reached out to twice and um you know those that provided us information are the ones that are giving you the feedback so 55 responses out of a membership of I knew you were going to the 32 I think so so that's is that but is that the whole District though I don't know I don't I think our MTA I don't think we pay for that many with MTA do you know not the FP versus so so I can get that information I'm just curious did it go is it 55 out of you know 132 emails that got sent out or do we know can we tell how many people it got sent to so no the way that I unless Dave knows I don't know um the way that I sent it out was I sent it out like East um East Meadow teachers High School teachers just the teachers or to the east M school no I um sent it to the different address sections that you have and then you have Paras at East Meadow and you have Paras at the high school and then I did do the secretaries um or the administrative assistants I apologize I did them separate so I don't know if you know what the counts are for those some of people appear in both groups too so i' have break so the East metal group's 109 and 60 teachers so we're like 120 100 new Senior High School group is 92 but again there's a lot of overlap okay I can try to reach out to Becky I'm just curious because it you know we're trying to yeah be more inclusive trying to capture the feedback and I you know the number seems surprisingly low for something that there was very there was some um contention with last time so I'm just wondering where the driver is for that you know I don't want to yeah yep all right I'm actually reaching out to her right now to see if she might know because she's our Treasurer so she would have that up to excellent information okay so any um oh Liz raised her hand oh go ahead Liz sorry I I forgot to um just just hear it yeah uh Bellow well you're muted were District administrators included in the email or is this we're talking about um other staff positions this was only um staff positions because we had a um last for the for this year's current school calendar we had some questions and answers and um about it we had some dialogue and then there was um from the teacher side there was some people that were unhappy so we decided to include the Union on this discussion make sure that we have um got some feedback making sure that it's understood as Kristen said that it's it is just feedback that we as a school committee are making the final decision but we want to make sure that we're not making the decision in a in a vacuum is that fair thank you um so we have the two two versions of the calendar and based on the feedback that we have it looks like the one um with the uh Wednesday start of School aligns with the um majority the majority of the the feedback with the exception of the um Wednesday before Thanksgiving we had that as an off day and then we had good FR Good Friday was also listed as off I know personally I like the Wednesday off for Thanksgiving I think they asked for Good Friday we did ask yeah but I was surprised they wanted they were saying the majority wanted a half day off before Thanksgiving um so we just need to calculate if if we were to incorporate those things are we still within our we are I did I worked with my biggest concern was the elementary school but I sat with Brad um early in the week we're fine absolutely fine sure um we don't have vote on the agenda so we can't um we can't vote on it uh this time does anyone have any questions or comments on the calendar dates as we have them incorporating the feedback or just taking one one of these versions and then by one yeah oh I think the uh starting on Wednesday is probably better for the little kids five days after summer might be tall order yeah and um I think a lot of people travel the day before Thanksgiving we'll have a high um absentee absentee rate if maybe we do the half day uh something to consider how and I know sometimes we look at surrounding calendars and that's typically a day vure town has so it would be a be a half day it would be a substitute situation potentially as well right um any other comments or thoughts no no we just have to be mindful when we do the calendar of the June 19th because that brings everybody into the following week well it as I'm reading this with the dates it doesn't appear that we would would we need no we'd probably be okay if we went the half day that's I just wanted to be aware of that if we went the half day before Thanksgiving we would be able to be the 18th would be our last day 18th would be our last day but we took the 23rd which is being proposed as a day off I know I know you guys did but as part of the feedback that we got then that would push us back to the 22nd right the 23d of December December 23rd is that that was in the that was in the survey results okay a half day school I thought we're looking at proposal one you're right Todd yep so all right so we would add in back half day on the 23rd right or no we have a full day of school the 23rd right now in our in our calendar so if we did a half day does that that would push us back no not no it was one of the pieces of feedback that's in the survey was to have the 23rd off right and then but majority said they would would prefer a half day yep I'm sorry we can do that so the half day you could so if we did the half day it still counts we're still we we wouldn't have it wouldn't touch the wouldn't touch the final day with the five snow days it wouldn't affect that day all right so Jenny could you make a version three of the calendar incorporating the feedback um dates and then we'll put it on the next meeting for a vote um and once we have it if you could send it out to us we can make sure it looks like the way we're thinking and then we can um have that for a vote for uh for next time is that possible to ask Jenny to send Michelle as well as myself a copy of that new sure created one okay that would be nice thank you I don't think we'll be going out for any additional uh feedback just Incorporated the feedback that we have but you can see what it looks like correct so so uh when you guys vote on it um at your next meeting would you be voting between um a calendar that incorporates the feedback that we have we'll have three total proposals proposal one proposal two and this proposal three which is incorporating feedback perfect for me I'm a visual person I'd like to see how how they all look I agree half days noted the days that we're you know just all said and done what proposal 3 looks like incorporating the feedback and then we can make a decision and it will be up to the four of us y between one two or three absolutely I just wanted to make sure I was clear on that so I could let membership know yep okay thank you I appreciate it any other comments or questions on um school calendar any additional any else that we want to make sure that is enclosed included in proposal three any um reasons that we'd like to strike either one of these from the voting process hearing none we will move along I just have one more thing to add because Rebecca just got back to me she says that when it comes to MTA it's plus or minus 10 when um out of 100 so we have about 100 so 110 90 fluctuate so 55 is about half yeah okay great okay thank you very much all right so um we'll add that to the agenda for next time and make sure it's noted as a vote are the colors okay I change the colors a little y I think that that's fine um anybody have any questions or uh I was the one that made us think about the colors so I was using my old uh old ones yeah that looks better to me I appreciate that thanks so much no problem um so we'll um revisit this next time and we'll make sure it's noted for a vote okay um superintendent search for the brochure and just superintendent search in general uh someone bring me I I'm I've kind of lost where where we're at here sure okay has this changed any from the last time that we um do we have any changes from last time for their brochure uh the only thing was is adjusting what's the last part of it with a contact information and everything was the main part that we had to iron out before posting okay great and does anyone have any other questions thanks for that yeah um questions or thoughts on the brochure Liz yeah um I have a couple um and again because I do this all the time um I under qualifications the minimum of 10 years in education including teaching central office and or administrative experience I'm wondering if the committee intends that teaching experience some amount of time of teaching experience would be required or is the committee of a mind that if someone with only administrative experience applied that that would be a viable candidate I think that's how we've had it um that's how I was reading it and I know that the um we'll have a um sort of like a group that looks at the resumés and do that initial vetting so um well there are candidates out there um you know not knowing who would apply but I know there are candidates interested in becoming superintendent that do not have teaching you know classroom teaching experience um I tend to not be a big fan of that right um because well teaching and learning is what schools are about um and I will certainly go with the will of the committee here but um if when the time comes to look seriously at voting on candidates I would we exper give someone with experience in the classroom a a closer look than I would somebody who had not had classroom experience and I I think that that's fair but I also want to make sure that we don't um cut our nose to spite our face sort of thing like I want to make sure that we get uh get candidates um in and you know so I um we haven't necessarily tweaked the qualifications necessarily and this will be our third time I'm using this brochure in the last five years so I feel like we're probably okay any thoughts one way or the other I mean addition I think it's a fair point and uh it definitely can be considered while we're screening that that would be a strong indicator of um you know future success I kind of agree you should have some classroom experience and I feel like a lot of that will come out when we're having like screens screen interviews and Fin interviews um we can have that be a weighted thing that we consider when we're when we have the final interviews no okay yeah we could yeah we could do you think we will get the wrong kind of candidates with this well it depends you know some school committees um go with exactly this wording um and having uh done the work that I've done over the years and and um um hired some four superintendant in Hatfield and seen you know countless numbers of them employed other places I think you're going to get um um someone who's better suited to the job if they've been in a classroom and in particular in my humble opinion a public education setting um but classroom experience I think is invaluable for someone who wants to to lead a public school district and particularly a small District like crany where the interaction with teachers um and and Par Educators is so close on a daily basis um but again if you all are up the mind that we should um I don't want to make waves but I think if you're all of a mind that we would look at that um in terms of the candidates that we're talking about I think that's fair enough that's sort of um my take on it um but I'm voiced yeah I think casing a wi n's Not a Bad Thing uh I also agree with your train of thought and I think that we can screen in uh the use of a grading rubric and that can be one of the criteria that we can wait against and that is clearly something we should take into consideration for sure fair enough thank you thank you um I have another just one or two very quick um and it's about the contact information um Jen I had sent you a pretty lengthy text message I'm sure you read it um I don't want to uh again I'm not trying to push this or not but there is something masc offers free of charge uh to districts and that's something called technical assistance um and what that involves is um em will uh the brochure looks great by the way the brochure doesn't need any work at all uh very nice job Jenny um masc would collect applications for you would ensure to follow up with candidates to be sure that the application packets were complete they would then turn over uh at the cutoff time the complete e file of the completed applications um and provide any assistance in terms of well I'm going to be there but meeting law and um a number of other technical things that you might want some assistance with you might want to make a call to somebody too um again no charge at all um many of those things um I have a deep understanding of and and as I'm participating with the board I could certainly follow through on that um I'm not the actual field rep for gry Trac my colleague Tracy novic is is technically your field representative um so if you wanted to um have masc just receive the applications it also takes um surprisingly a burden off of District staff um and I think everybody's well intentioned and nobody's trying to get anyone in a district to compromise themselves but um in the case of hiring a superintendent right particularly when you have an interim um in the mix people are very curious about who's applied um and they will um often times just as a matter of rtin say gee do you know who's applied I'm not trying again to to Really insert themselves in the process but it takes the burden off of someone in the district who might be collecting those applications and know uh who's applied to be that individual's next boss so to speak so if that's something that the committee you don't have to consider it tonight but think about it I could send you the list of uh details involved in this free of cost technical service um unless you're looking to get the posting out tonight I I actually recommended to a number of the districts I work with that I know that are low on funding and can't afford a full search but it still gives them access to somebody who can talk them through things um answer questions kind I think that that's what we were intending which is why we have Tracy's name and email listed in the brochure okay um and that's how we've done it the last couple of times we've reached out to Tracy asked questions we ran our own search but we reached out if we had questions about um fundamentals along the way and I believe that they um typically would they were sented um Tracy I thought we also had someone send them here had some Mar it would be anarie Martin um is the person in the the office who does that initial um compiling of applications and ensuring that people complete the application process fully all right because last time we were told to use Tracy's email so what we can uh we can take that part offline and make sure that we have all of that um information correct yeah absolutely I'm happy to to provide that um and we would be looking to make the appointment um on or about that last weekend sorry my dogs are trying to play at my feet because you know I'm on I'm talking to somebody that's not them them um honor before April 18th that's correct okay thank you we're you we're modeling after um our last full search um which is why we're um using the dates sort of structured as as you see them um so um that's what we we're trying trying to accomplish brochure looks good to me again thank you Jenny for your work I I love brochures with bright colorful photos of students okay um anything else for for this so we can revisit this before uh at our next meeting again but um make sure that everything is finalized and they're happy with it before we hit hit um post for the 20th cuz our next meeting is before that so would it be a vot um probably I don't know if we voted on it last time but yeah probably should be yeah can't hurt it can't hurt right yep can't hurt our next meeting is the 21st so it'll be the day after thought it was the 17th we must have the date wrong in my calendar all right so we have to make our decision now but we can't vote on it because we don't have you can just you can change the date um we wanted to get it out though so um we we could have it go out on the 22nd the day after the meeting okay we'll do that so we'll have it um big imp we'll have that on for the 21st days yeah so posting it just changed to the 22 yes that's not so contact would be Tracy novic um we're going to finalize that um between uh us and Liz and I don't know if we just reach out to Tracy directly as well just to uh did you raise your hand again Liz yeah so just one final comment um masc would also be happy to put something up on their websited any like tomorrow morning for example um coming soon gr public school okay great so that's just a phone call all right great so we'll um we'll maybe you can reach out for that then tomorrow and just have coming soon and that would be great okay anything um anything else on the superintendent search Okay hearing nothing we will move on superintendent update okay um every three years the Office of Public management do you want me to read this since you have it typed that be great um Mary Jane's fighting a cold so superintendent report every three three years the Office of Public School monitoring PSM conducts a review in the areas of special education and civil rights through a process called integrated monitoring review IMR you may be more familiar with the term TFM tiered Focus monitoring this year PSM will conduct approximately 124 reviews this year gramby is scheduled for an IMR Group B review during the 2025 2026 school year all districts scheduled for a TFM Group B review during the 2025 2026 school year will conduct a civil rights self- assessment through the web-based monitoring system wbms Nicole Haru our director of student services and myself will and well not my myself and Mary Jane will be attending a virtual training session via zoom on January 30th Mary Jane will be attending a seminar tomorrow January 8th sponsored by the Massachusetts Partnerships for youth mpy this seminar will focus on leveraging mental health and resources and legal issues impacting School District this seminar is titled building capacity and resources in public schools and will be held at the hoyo police academy from 8:30 to 12 Mary Jane will update the committee on a seminar seminar at the meeting on the 14th which we actually know is now the 21st the town uh town website school committee page has been updated to reflect the changes in the committee we have also added postings for the superintendent search committee and for committee members who are interested in joining the school committee you can see the screenshots below that's um and the superintendent search committee interested members um should reach out to us and I that's all she has y any questions or comments for Mary Jane you want me to talk do you all right Todd um so a couple things so on January I mean on December 30th uh there was a car accident on 202 um your Kendall and the Junior Senior High School uh lost power there was the JB basketball game was going on um we the generator that uh the backup generator at the school has been um hasn't been operational for over a year um it's my understanding that the generator belongs to the town because it's the town's emergency shelter um I did put in a capital request uh to be voted on at the annual town meeting in May to replace the generator um we knew that this was a concern um that we had the potential to have situations where the building was occupied at night um there is some emergency lighting uh we are checking batteries in the backup uh systems uh to try to do the best that we can but until that generator is replace the high school is vulnerable with uh any power outages uh East Meadow with its renovation has a backup generator system uh the water for the district is through East Meadow so the Junior Senior High School does have access to that but it doesn't have uh Power um so if we had a power outage in the middle of the day for the high school there would be no heat but they'd have water correct okay I just want to make sure that I'm understanding that it's very clear to everyone what what that means besides I am 90% certain that we would have water I don't believe that there's a secondary pump that feeds the high school but in the event that there is be on record leaving towards okay for sure um so so that certainly is is uh has been an ongoing concern of ours uh trying to communicate with the town to they were trying to get parts for the existing one I know that that was an ongoing uh challenge for them because the generator is military surplus it's original manufactured was 1967 uh it was rebuilt in the mid 70s uh and has been on campus I don't know 15 20 years um so it has certainly lived its life its full expectancy but um it does leave us vulnerable um and uh David uh luk skz from our technology department um is concerned that we had some damage to some um servers and equipment in this building uh it's it was we're not positive yet we're looking into whether it is related to that accident because it it followed uh that event and so we have some uh equipment to replace um we are what cameras noted that's good cuz lightning strike took those out for two years so um so it was some other servers but uh not through our camera system um so we're looking to see what our best course is for financing that replacement so fortunately that wasn't great news I'm going to be full of not great news today awesome um a we have a major concern with our funding for special ed Transportation uh the estimate that I was given that we used to build our budget last year was um significantly below what the actual costs are going to be uh to the tune of around $330,000 uh I'm sorry what $330,000 is what our anticipated shortfall in transportation is um so I've gone through our budget um one area that we can project some savings um we had about 75,000 in Savings in regular Ed Transportation last year if nothing changes that would be a portion of it um we have some our circuit breakers coming in higher than originally anticipated uh so that is another portion of it and I think we can cover the remainder from our special edit revolving Ida uh and I we have um unused idea from fy4 so that means that building our budget for this year we are now even worse off because we have to a more reflective number no uh so that number has already been sent to the town so my original version um in the transportation article for FY 26 reflects you the more accurate estimate and how come it's so much higher the estimate that I was given by the former director and so I priced it out were there like drastic changes to that estimate that we you know no I just think it was not a it just we were over um at one point by about 150 after we've submitted our original budget um I asked the former directors would that increase be adequate for fy2 I it was indicated that it would be adequate um but now I certainly learned that it was not okay um so I've personally priced out and done the estimate for what our FY uh 26 cost would be borrowing any change in placement you know the new students we we have a I think a full grasp of what our cost will be next year have we spoken to the town yet or waiting to see so this is my first public got it I wanted to let the committee know first sure I am going to email the Town Administrator and the finance committee chair uh let them know at this time I think we have a pathway within um our budget to cover it um if our regular Ed Transportation if those costs uh are higher than if we don't have the same savings we did last year that would be that 75,000 might be the area that we might need some support from the town okay but those other that larger portion um I believe we have resources to cover up wow that's a big one yes better than 3:30 so 75 yeah you took my breath away there for a second sorry on a positive note uh I mentioned the rural aid grant last time and how uh our original our first payment uh was at fy2 24 amounts not the fy2 that was an error in the des's first um dispersement they are going to make up the difference in the second dispersement in April so we will have our full uh Aid amount awesome so end a positive note I appreciate that it's good always good to end on a high note and so that's all that I have for this week any other questions for Todd okay um we don't have a CES update at this point um we have two things already on the agenda for um the next meeting the CES representative and the um vote for the school calendar make sure superintendent search lives there and we're make sure we have vote for school calendar and superintendent search um any uh policy sub uh sorry subcommittees for next time budget for sure and policy I think are the two that we need um and we should probably usually policy and evaluation you guys kind of double up right George M so we'll have both policy and the evaluation sub committee do a little tag team on both we'll do budget um and I think that that is all so far for um for next time anything else before we vote to enter into executive session good job getting over that hurdle that was a big one yeah well done appreciate it um okay all right if we're all set then we'll vote to enter into executive s session under Massachusetts General Law chapter 3A section 21 part A3 to discuss strategy with regard to collective bargaining as doing so in an open session may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of the committee the committee will not return to open session Janie can we have a roll call vote please Jen i m i George I Liz Liz you're on mute mute sorry yes okay thanks everybody have a good night