I will go ahead and call to order this community engagement subcommittee meeting on Tuesday November 19th at it is now 6:04 p.m we are all meeting on Zoom again because the johnon was locked but we do hope to have fully hybrid
meetings moving forward um I'm going to go and call the order I'm Stacy I'm the chair of this subcommittee I'm here member Den here member Goodwin here all right all three of us are present and we
have a quorum um we so I think we just all consented to for right now since there is no public present um we're going to go ahead and move forward to item three which is the approval of
the October 22nd subcommittee meeting minutes uh can I get a motion for that so moved second any disc discussion all right so let's go ahead and take a vote um and I think because
it is online we do have to do a roll call vote um remember Goodwin yes M Den Eve yes and I am also a yes so that is unanimous we have approved the minutes of the last
meeting all right now to the main meet um main meet of our of our meeting today is to start setting some goals for the remainder of this Academic Year related to community engagement and I know that we've seen some suggestions come through
email from the public about topics that we could take up um or at least I think we have and I would also love to hear from each of you some of the ideas that have been percolating in your brain since the last time that we met
well okay I'll go um I think that I think that we should revisit having Child Care at our meetings at the uh main school committee
meetings I think that we should revisit the time I think 6: PM is not conducive for Community engagement with so many Working Families in our district um child care I know is a
barrier from people coming to meetings uh it was a barrier for me um when my child was younger and I've heard that from many people um I know that we talked at one point in time and tried a few meetings
when we were working um pretty hotly with redistricting on having meetings in other places uh we had a meeting at Oak courts we had a meeting at lien woods and the community centers there and I think the general feeling was well we
had a meeting and not that many people showed up so clearly this was a bad idea but I kind of think that that you have to give it more than a few chances to see if it's a good idea people may not know that it's going on they may not know what we're offering and so I feel
like we need whatever we do we need to give it some time to get the ball rolling and we shouldn't just assume that people don't want to access what we're offering um so I would like to revisit
those meeting outside of our normal area ideas and it doesn't have to be for a full school committee meeting but it could be as listening sessions like quarterly listening sessions but I definitely think that the time that the
our larger meetings are at and the child care issue would really enable people to be more involved that's my current two cents I'm complete thank you yeah yes
maam I was thinking along the same lines but attaching meetings to whether it's listening sessions to things that I know large groups come out like I just put the high school band performance on my
calendar that's usually a large group of people who come out would they come earlier if they knew there was somebody there um willing to listen um about engagement or anything that they want to
talk about um right now this time of year is kind of hectic and the things that parents come out for is usually something with children performance or either the hockey rink or Sports um kind of attaching some
meetings or some times for them to talk to a school committee members at those events um right now I know Turkey trots are big uh parents will come out to watch the Turkey Trot having somebody sitting at a
picnic table that they can chat with might be a way to do that um so you know the things that are happening during the holidays that people come out for were kind of what I was thinking of especially for this time
of year um because it's a hard time of year for people um but the band concerts are big turkey trots are big um in sports and the hockey rink um I'd have to have double sweatshirts but I can hang out at the hockey rink um so I I
think there are just places where even if it's like like Community Action does this really well they have a table and they put a table up at every event um as as a principal I got used to just shooting them an email and they would come and they would have free goodies
like free books or something and people would just sit down and chat with whoever came from Community Action they would be there for um so I got invited to community readers that's a a family night in December um and I think
you all got the invitation as well so that's a good place to have a table where somebody's reading and then somebody's sitting and listening uh Community Action usually is there as well um but those informal conversations sometimes tell us more than the formal
I like that we're brainstorming about different ways that we can be available in less formal settings perhaps um that not everything I think as Elizabeth was saying not everything needs to be a big full school committee meeting um although there might be times when that
is appropriate um a question that I'm having that I'm not sure if either of you know the answer to um or I can make it you know my job to go find the answer is do we as school committee have a
budget besides for Prof I know we have one for professional development that's what how we got you know to go down to the cape but I'm thinking you know you mentioned free goodies and such in the community action table I'm thinking what what would be relevant that we could
distribute I know that the schools themselves like and I see Karen all over place with a table with like Title One um bookmarks and little books and other like stuff but I don't know if there's something that we could distribute that
would actually be relevant to us in our position and also meaningful you know what I mean or if we even have a separate budget that would allow us to do it I mean I think it would still potentially be valuable for us to just show up and be at a table um but that's
sort of my one and I I like this idea of of really encouraging I don't know if it's a I don't think that it's a stated expectation that we as as school committee members have something like an office hour kind of thing I don't I don't know if that's a I know it's not a
mandate but I don't even know if it's an expectation we've created for ourselves as a group but I do know that some members of our school committee do hold office hours and they've got them listed in their email signatures and that sort of thing but if we could put together perhaps a
schedule and have folks sign up um one thing that I would like to be very clear about with our other committee members uh with the larger committee is that it is actually not just the three of us who are responsible for enacting these
things we come to them with policy suggestions that is our entire committee's responsibility to to um do um so those are sort of my thoughts
um I am also wondering along the same lines as like do we have a budget what would it take to get child care at our meetings and we can we can brainstorm this a little bit and as far as revisiting the time I do feel like that's something we can just propose we
can make a motion and see if we get a vote about it um that that is 100% something we can we can do relatively easily as long as we get the other members to agree um all right both of you have your hands up but I saw Elizabeth's first and
then no okay okay hold on I'm trying to remember what I just had in my head um we were talking about a budget oh what we could hand out the budget calendar and the yearlong agenda
uh also uh meetings a calendar of meetings for all of the PTO cpacs L packs and such although I don't think we have I don't know if we have an lpac but the the packs we could have a
handout for that I think that one thing that's um I think one thing that we have to keep in mind is that the public is going to come to us and think that we're the people to ask about all of the things that they're
having trouble with at the school but that's not our mission um so we're so even if we're sitting at a table we're still referring them to the superintendent so I think that part of the community engagement piece is
letting them know what we can do and what we are there for so telling them how we can take their concerns their budgetary concerns to heart and letting them know the packs that are available
for them to join letting them know where the superintendent is going to be when family nights are these kinds of broader things um I think are really important and as for Budget I I've been through the charter so many times and the only
thing that I've seen set aside for us at all is our stipend and our professional development money but um one of the things that came up not that I'm saying it's valid because we never went down the road of discussion but one of the things that
came up because I did ask about this child care issue multiple times was that they were afraid the old committee was afraid of there being liability issues it wasn't so much a budgetary issue it was more who is watching the children
are we taking responsibility for this and we never discussed it further but I do know that for many events the superintendent will put in their mail out information let us know if you need transportation and or
we will have child care available so there must be something in place I just don't know what it is or what the route for funding is if that makes sense oh whoops sorry I hit the wrong
one but I'm complete thank you Mel uh the child care um is usually provided by um the high school Honor Society they're usually children um in
the past schools and when they did events would contact Tara cluder and she had the Honor Society and there were kids who had to do community service and so there were usually three or four children who would would come and
do Child Care um so that was one one source of a child care provider um but that was within a school setting So within a school setting there's less liability because you're covered insurance-wise because it's a
school um so that would be one of the things and that would be one of the other things is just attaching ourselves to PTO meetings um that happen so that you know we would be having child care in addition to the PTO having Child Care
um so that might be something we can do sometimes it's small things um like movie theater tickets are raffling off something um you know stickers that said I talk to a school Committee Member something silly that gets people
motivated to um just chat about different things one of the things I know is parents don't know who to call they don't have the phone numbers that is half the problem with communication in Greenfield they don't have a phone number or people don't answer the phone
and then they get frustrated so I think it's really even a contact list I mean we used to have magnets years ago with like all the phone numbers and the names of people who to call if your kid missed the bus that kind of it was a magnet and
we gave them out to parents and that stopped um you know because the the people kept changing so I I think just phone numbers and contact information if you're having a problem with your child's IEP here's the phone number this
is the person you should call if you're having a problem with your child you know this is the person you would call I think that's really something that's kind of there's stuff on websites but a lot of people don't have access to
websites um or don't know how to use them correctly so just something concrete even on a bookmark um so I just think that's a big thing I feel like all I've done is give give out phone numbers um to
people okay okay um yeah and I'm hearing what you're saying about uh going back to child care I'm hearing what you're saying about
attaching ourselves to different other meetings that are already happening in a school setting but I don't think that that addresses the fundamental when our monthly full committee meetings happen like we can choose to hold different
kinds of sessions that are that are like that but that it won't work for our big ones I am wondering if there's an opportunity for more partnership with GCC and their Early Childhood educator program um because that's literally what they're
going to school for and I don't know if they're required to get any practicum hours in um but that could be that would that could be something to look into I don't know
who is the one I don't know who to contact a GCC I mean I could look it up and just find the director of their program and do a cold call but I don't know if it's us well I'm actually pretty sure now that I'm saying it that it's not us alone for certain that Karen
would need to be part of forging that partnership and the whole committee would need to vote in order to expend the labor to pursue it you know what I mean I don't think that's something that we can just go Rogue and start doing on our own that was my other question was
on your list of questions so if we like do tables at different places does that have to be post did yes um well so if we it depends on how we label them right for best practice if
we want people to come talk to us yes they should be posted that people need to know that we're going to be in places but if it's not a public meeting per se and there is not a quorum of us present then it's not a meeting that is beholden
I think to the open meeting law in that kind of way um so it'd be more of a do we actually want people to come talk to us if the answer is yes then we should let them know we're there but as long as there's not four or more of
us um then that should be fine and I wouldn't imagine that we would have you know especially if there are events multiple events happening on the same night we wouldn't want a bunch of us all at one you know these tables would probably be one or two of us ah two would be best practice or we could buddy
up and go you know one of us with Karen if Karen was also having tables um something like that um all right Elizabeth um I
think I I love all of these ideas but I think that there there's a path that we have to follow where we start at making the large meeting as engaging to the community as possible
and we sort of fill those seats first like get get out into the community with that meeting first so like starting by saying you know this is these are the actionable steps that we can do to make our large public meeting as accessible
as possible with the child care or the transportation or whatever we deem the time all these changes and make them really concrete and make them in January like do it as part of our organizational meeting and say like these are the
changes we're going to implement and I'll vote on it and then give it like five six months and then start to add other things and start to say like okay now that we had we've done this the next
step is to make sure that we have a Committee Member at least one Committee Member at all of the school events that we can possibly attend and then like really make a calendar of what the events are and everybody gets assigned
you know sort of like the subcommittee of one or whatever or two you know under Quorum so that we can go so that there is somebody at the graduation and at the band concert and at the like that's part of community
engagement just showing up because I hear from so many people that oh well we invited you and you know we're hoping that you would come and see what the kids have been working on and then you know you show that presence for a little while and so you're constantly upping the Annie so that by
the time we get to the end of the year we're so involved in community engagement that when that organizational meeting hits because we don't know what's going to happen all new people may come in if you don't have like this foundation for that it can just get
swept right away and just be gone um if you don't have the right people in place to do it and that's I mean that's an unfortunate reality of the very difficult and enterprising new work that we're doing as a group is that it
could just all go away if we don't you know make it sort of set it in stone um because there are three of us that are going to be you know changing out or staying or whatever and um Melody too I think you have to do it
next year too right um um so I don't know that's a separate topic for discussion but I actually don't know if mads need to do it next year or if it's until the end of the person whose term she had filled the vacancy for I
think it's just to the next election but yeah but that but neither here nor there the the I just worry that you know if we don't have things set and like stepping stones in place and a staircase up to full efficiency it can very easily be
swept away um I'm so sorry I forgot to do this can we hold a vote to suspend the normal rules of procedure so this can feel like more of a discussion and I don't have to call on you I mean I'll facilitate and still happy to manage
but um yeah can I get a motion for that so moved second all right any discussion uh remember Den how do you vote Yes good one how do you vote Yes
and I'm a yes all right so we've suspended the normal rules of procedure for the meeting so this can feel like an actual discussion okay a I just feel feel like I needed to actually do that um please continue um I that's that's all I really
wanted to say I just I want to make sure that it's not um let's discuss this as a possibility but as in let's enact this starting in January and then just ramping it right up the ladder of efficiency and making
it so that when new people come in they know that this is how we do business we engage the community and this is what's expected of you instead of it's you know June or July and we haven't decided yet do you know what I mean okay so if I'm thinking
about the amount of time we have between now and the end of the year we have seven months um and a good chunk of those months like really we have six months because a good chunk of those months are eaten up by holidays um you know between
February break and Christmas and New Year's and like the whole there just there'll be a good chunks of time that we're really not going to have to have to to work with um if we we have this Clear Vision of I
think where we're trying to go and the ethos that we're trying to embody of just this is a norm this is just how we operate as school committee members we are super involved or we would like to be super involved um I think that some of our
current members even might be less on board with that than others or we might need to negotiate like what is a reasonable number of events to sign up to as a sing individual like that's something we can have a discussion about maybe in the full committee cuz I don't think that we should
be overextending any of ourselves you know um we do need to prioritize our lives and being full happy humans because that's how we continue to be good functional school committee members is by maintaining like
boundaries um it's good and I also you know I see where we're trying to go and I don't know if we're going to get that in six months you see what I mean by The End by the end of the school year I don't know if we can be fully where we're trying to be at that time and so
I'm wondering is is the good is like the solid singular goal then to if we wanted to make it a smart one by the by the end of the school year we want to see a 25% increase in the number
as of parents and other community who attend our full school committee meetings regularly like I'm throwing that out there and I want to hear M which what are you thinking about that I don't know if that is
something you know it's it's not just school committee meetings it's PTO meetings it's it's all of it's parents showing up is is hard um because they're working and they're you know they're doing all these other things and their
kids are involved in different things so I was thinking of more like an engagement goal of okay my there are two things I'm hearing is we want to be visible we want to be approachable we
want to be present and so even if we could set a goal that we attend you know 80% of all School District activities between all of us um and then if we could increase the
invitations to attend um that we get 90% of all District activities we're invited to because I think there are things happening that I don't even know about and I used to work in the district but I know there are activities that are
happening that we're not invited to so if we could increase that because then we know it's taking place and we can be present um and then communicating those things I mean the superintendent is doing a good job with putting things out on the media
but the more events that are out there that people know about um the more likely they are to participate in things um so you know we get invited to the
band thing we get invited to I get invited to the turkey truck because I'm the only one who remembers how it ran I get invited to uh pajama knighter the community readers because again I'm the only person who remembers how it ran and so it's sort of like but there are things going on in
every school that we you're probably getting invited more to more Federal Street things because you're there so I think that's part of it is even um being ined more yeah
um I've been jokingly in my head wondering if each of us school committee members should adopt a school like I just I go to pH street because that is my neighborhood school and I walk when I do the volunteering right and that that makes sense for me there are six schools
and there are six of us and I don't count the mayor because she's really really busy got other things to worry about um but I don't know like is that and because it's also like one point of contact one you know and just like
you're you're going to go to those events and then maybe every year we can rotate and try out a new school so that it's but I don't know that's just like an idea um but I I think yeah oh I'm sorry no um
there's something there is something in our policy that states that once you're on the school committee you will do you are expected to attend all the meetings and to attend and work on the subcommittees
so I feel like this would be like to me it doesn't really matter what the percentage number is because I think that no matter how engaged we are no matter how successful we are with Community engagement there are going to
be a whole lot of times when nobody wants to engage with us like it's just gonna happen where nobody's there and we're the only ones and nobody cares and it's fine um but I think that it might be worthwhile to put an to change the
policy to say that you will work on your subcommittees and that you will also be available to attend school functions and then if we have a a calendar of the functions I like your Adopt A School idea although I know some schools are quite a bit more active than
others but if we make a really clear expectation that you will you know that you'll look at the calendar and you'll reasonably be available to go to an event you know once every other month or every month or something like that and
that if you have to travel to an event like sometimes there are ban events that require you driving down to Amherst or something um that you're you know expenses would be reimbursed if you had to go far a field things like that I
don't think people would be um against that as long as it's parceled out you know and everybody knew as long as you knew in the policy so when you sign up for this gig you know that that's what's going to be expected of you I I
would have been absolutely willing to do to do that from the start but that involves us really reaching out to all of those pto's and all of the packs and making sure that we have all that information but then the second part of that is we have to I think one one of
our main goals um I've been really thinking about this like what would be a main goal is to and I don't know how this falls into our purview but we need to make some statements about how the website is put
together because it is not Community oriented for example there's no way to navigate to the CPAC meetings there's a broken link there so you can't even find out when they are unless you use the search bar the other
pack meetings aren't listed easily if I was a parent navigating the site I wouldn't be able to find the things that I need um and I don't think that it's the design that's bad but we're missing a lot of the information that the
community needs right off the bat um so I I don't know how we navigate that as a as a subcommittee that might not be tou would say write a very clear and concise because I did this as well very
early before I was even a school committee member with the volunteer information because a was like it's it's yeah it was hard to find um it's better to find now but if you are like hey this link here needs to be active or this you
know because it's with the turnover that we've experienced in our Our IT department I can understand how some links didn't quite make it um but as a first as a first approach I would say send an email
very clearly this needs to be this this needs to be this I need to be able to find this from this you know and lay it out and then give it a little time month couple months yeah the it folks to do it and then if it's still not then we can revisit it but I for now
I don't think it's our committee's perview to do anything about it but as a public a member of the public like you are well within your right to be like I want my website to be functional and a lot clearer right right but it is a piece of community engagement and I'm
just thinking that we might bump up against that in some way yes and we can certainly make recommendations about ways that we think that it could be a more inviting and easier to navigate
resource um I'm also hearing now that we're thinking about recommending a policy change that would be something that I think our subcommittee would need to vote on if we would we would need to agree before we would forward that
um I am just wanting to also be clear about the boundary for our committee like I I I'm hearing about we also want more people to be involved with the PTO and we want want more parents to be involved with the
packs and we want more people to be just generally engaged but we can't take on the community engagement responsibilities of the PTO and packs themselves at a certain level like we can be supportive and we can
help cross list all their events and we can be CH like we can be out loud and remind people that they exist that they should go check them out but at the end of the day it's also they they have a role in themselves like we don't own those bodies for really good reason right it wouldn't actually be proper for
us to own the the parent organizations um and they also have a role to play in their own Outreach so I don't want to take that away from them and I don't want to make it entirely our responsibility um because that's a
that's a big job and I do think that it were a first set of goals like maybe that's a longterm that's a stretch goal is having having a way more robust connection with those groups to the point that we are able to help boost their engagement and they're able to help boost our engagement where it
becomes a reciprocal relationship but for now I do think that we need to set our sights a little more manageable we need a bite-sized Chunk we can't eat the full meal right now um just thinking about time and capacity
and fighting against historic precedence you know what I mean like we there there's a bit of a an inertia battle that we're we're going to have to try to win um so I just wanted to remind and that's not to say no I'm not saying I'm not saying no to any of these I'm not
outright I don't have the power to vet to um but I am just trying to remind us that it's okay to small consistent steps are a lot better than trying to make a giant leap right now yeah that's what I was thinking where we like start with the foundation with the larger meeting
and then kind of really move up as we see the need really but if we want to start mandating people going to events we will probably have to make a policy
change right as just to State the responsibility that's expect that's expected and I that's something that I would like to to just double check our for that part of our policy is that
a legally mandated definition or are we are we do we actually have the authority to change the expectations for members of school committee in our district alone that might be out of step with what expectations are for other school committees that's a question that I have
that we can we can work on asking I will be I will be seeing our our legal council tomorrow for the committee or the bargaining rules session um so I can you know try to get five minutes either
before or after with her to ask that question yeah that's a good idea because that it is yeah I don't know about that there are policies that we can definitely change quite easily but then there are other ones that you
know might be sort of Tangled in with the town Charter right right um okay so I want to return back to something that Elizabeth said very first and early on which is this issue of potentially changing the meeting time
for our large school committee meetings right now to date we hold them at 6m other Town meetings like um city council happen at 6:30 and um I think I would have been in
favor of changing just for the purpose of making them consistent so you don't have to remember oh yeah one starts at six the other starts they can both just start at 6:30 and I think it gives an additional half hour for families to eat dinner or pick kids up from their after school programs or whatever it is that
they're needing to do that might enable them to come um but but if we are going to make that recommendation at the next full committee meeting in December that we should take a vote on it just to you know make sure that it's like coming
from us as a United body but I would um I would entertain a motion to that effect to bring a policy change or is that technically a policy no it's just but it's it's not we don't have to have a policy meet uh vote
on it in policy because it's something it's housekeeping okay so but didn't vot on it last we didn't vote on it when it came up last time it was just handed
down okay um I think unless I don't know do you guys remember voting on it because I got an email saying that the times weren't going to change but I know that we were sort of surveyed um I remember being surveyed I don't
remember we were like asked um I would entertain a motion to bring a recommendation forward to the full committee that we change the time to 6:30
so second great all right discussion on that what are we all an agreement about that or just makes sense that all the town meetings are at the same time I mean that yeah yeah I don't think that some toown meetings happen during the middle of the day
which is something I will not entertain um because that's um but okay so all right then I guess if there's no actual discussion on it then let's take a I just I guess the only discussion point that I would have
is that we we make sure that it's on the agenda for December because these oftentimes we want to change things it ends up taking a month longer than we think and if we want
to have that conversation ready at the organizational meeting in January we had better put it in the minds of our fellow committee members in December is my only thought on
that good otherwise it'll be March right and our rationale just so that when I'm presenting this to the committee our rationale is that one it makes it consistent with City Council meetings and that we would like to try
this as a strategy for boosting Community engagement because we think that more parents will show up okay are there any other pieces of rationale that we could give that are not a stretch and it's okay if the answer is no that's fine I just wanted to be sure
that I was capturing all of our thoughts okay all right let's uh take a vote on that um motion member Den yes member Goodwin yes and I am also yes so that bringing forward that
recommendation is a unit unanimous vote from us and we shall see what the full committee does with that um okay I am also mindful of the fact that it is 6:46 we have about 14 minutes
so we're trying to keep this meeting to an hour um okay so that's one thing that was that the next sort of item on the agenda we have some due diligence to do about child
care and what that might entail at full committee meetings so that's just homework um part of that may be the Senior Center policy you would have to run that by hope to see because I know this was a
problem because they wanted to um a robotics class wanted to use the senior center during the summer and that was a big deal um okay so I think it may be a that would be the first
question yeah that's a good place yeah um yeah my other question was you is there so there's our main room where we are and then there's the room where we usually go for executive session is there another room off to the left there's a fitness room
does it there's a tiny there's a tiny office off to the right of the um room that we use for executive session and that is like a little office that they use when the legislators come to have a open business hours yeah um but it's
really small it's it's it would be large enough for us to have executive session if we all squeezed in but it's not comfortable right I again that and that's kind of my point is there's there's a bigger room they use it for fitness and that's where we ended up
with robotics um so um it just there there were rules that had to be followed to use that space um that were very clear okay cleanliness
and supervision um so I think that's just something to check into but it's it's yeah that's where they do the aerobics and stuff and that's okay but that's not where we have our full
meetings no no okay no okay okay so I will look into that um and also ask if we have the authority to change uh
expectations for ourselves that um made that is Scooby Scooby I'm not sure what he's up to singing the songs of his people it sounds like or Major's doing something
he does not like got it um okay and so the next sort of thing and we've we're we're circling around this and this um think we still need to set a
very so we have these these items which are a great start I for us this shows that we're trying to do stuff um trying to make this a more accessible meeting space for people um is I think we also need to
figure out it's we've got these sort of two varieties of goals one is related to um you know is the goal for people to come to us and to get more people to come to us or is the goal for us to go to more people and they're they're not at odds necessarily just two different
flavors of achieving the same goal you know which the overarching goal is more Community engagement overall um and so I think that that is where I'm noticing that that our discussion sort of Teeter totters around um the next item on our
agenda is setting topics for the December meeting and so I'm wondering if we need another meeting to have this discussion out and so that we can actually get clear and set some real targeted goals for ourselves I would rather have a longer meeting right
now and nail down whatever we need to do than have another meeting before now and the next meeting because I'm about to leave for Canada for a week and I'm not gonna be around and my schedule is just really full so I'd much rather just do
it tonight if you guys are amenable okay um so to be clear I'm saying our our December meeting which is on the 17th I was not thinking to try to squeeze in another
meeting before our regular school committee meeting on the 11th I don't think that we need to come to the next school committee meeting with like the best goals in the world we can tell them these kinds of things take time because we're trying to be really thoughtful about
it um so when were you thinking we're our meetings are the third today is the third third Tuesday of every month and already pre-registered it with with um Becky high tower so for the 17th
of December and then I believe that's the 21st of January so what is this extra meeting time that you were thinking of I'm not thinking of an extra meeting time I'm saying we have uh we need to set topics
for our December meeting on the 17th and I'm saying is this are we continuing this discussion for that topic oh okay I understand now sorry given knowing that do you would you still prefer to just have a longer meeting and do you have a suggested item
for December um no then let's let's just continue it at our December meeting okay yeah because you're right it doesn't have to it's doesn't need to be discussed it with the larger
Committee in December right um and the other thing is like clearly we had no members of the public and part of that is possibly due to them not knowing about it in time or or what have you but I do think it would be nice if we got some Community feedback on
what they think our goals should be um uh and we can I can ask and write a little blurb that goes in Karen's parent updates just to say hey our next meeting is the 17th this is the question we have for you send us an email or come to that
meeting to let us know your thoughts and the question that I have for them is would they rather us come to them more like are they going to be at these events would they value us being at these events is that the goal that we should be pursuing or would they rather us make these meet these other meetings
more enticing to come to us sort of getting their feedback on these two different approaches to meeting the goal that we are that we're sort of coming up with and by then I will also have followed up with um hope and Becky
about is there something that I missed or I need to do to make sure the johnon is open um I don't think so but you never know um okay I know that we did receive at least
one email from a parent specifically discussing the redistricting um Outreach related to that with a suggestion to actually send put flyers up or hold meetings at the affected
addresses or the affected communities so I mean that's at least one parent that I think would be in favor of going out more um I think for for for that one um that's that's where it gets that's where it gets a little tricky where the
boundaries between what we can do and what are the is the school's responsibility or what is their purview to make decisions gets a little blurry because we're hearing this ask for a particular type of Engagement um but that is also not our issue to take on
specifically I thought the superintendent at the last was it the last school committee meeting said that she was going into those Comm ities great then I hope that she repli par and says that yeah that's what she
said great yeah I just took that email as a thank you for doing that um when I read it okay um all right are there any other topics aside from continuing this conversation about our goals with the
aim of having something pretty concrete for now through the end of the Academic Year um for December is there anything else that that folks wanted to have on the agenda well I'm
fine no I think I think we're shaping something so we're starting off small and it's going to get bigger I mean just attending things and finding out what activities are out there that's the
start yes I will be on Thursday the Federal Street PTO and I think it's a combined PTO activity actually but it's occurring at Federal Street they're putting the last as they called it The razzled Dazzle on the display that'll be going like the fairgrounds there's a
great video they did a great video I saw it very very sweet video so um I will be going and and putting as much rasle Dazzle as I can to the situation um okay
great are there is there is there any anything else coming up for folks right now before we move to a journ I don't think so thank you all for this very productive discussion I really app have a question that's not to do with the
committee that the two of you may know the answer to okay do you want it on the recording sure it can be so there's the our school committee meeting our next school committee meeting is also the same time that um the collaborative has
their their meeting so is there something in the policy does our meeting Trump a a collaborative meeting it's like you can't be in two places at once is the collab what what's going on
at the collaborative meeting is it a it's their normal like meeting like that that we're all invited to I think that our large committing our large committee meeting is more important than the collaborative meeting
right okay because the collab sometimes has like 50 people there right and it's more of a tuning in I mean unless you were the chair right no which you probably could be next time yeah I mean in general I would
probably say that our meetings do take precedence over these other meetings but I also that's what I thought but I just wanted I knew I knew Elizabeth had been on the part of the collaborative before okay I have missed collaborative
meetings for regular school committee meetings and then caught up in their minutes okay thank you all right well um with that then it is now
6:59 p.m and I do want to affirm that no members of the public um they were never in the waiting room or anything like that so hopefully next time like I said we'll put out a little notice in the parent updates that go out and ask for them to show up and give feedback or to
send us emails about our goals um but in the meantime I would entertain a motion to adjourn so moved second all right roll call I'm a yes goodwi yes den yes all
right this meeting is adjourned at 6:59 PM November 19th and I'm going to stop the recording [Music]