Heat. Heat. Hello. Good evening. Welcome to the Greenfield Public Schools School Committee meeting for February 11th. There's some materials getting passed around. We're good. We're good. Um,
thanks everyone for being here. Uh, I'll go ahead and read the chair statement. This meeting is being recorded by Greenfield Community Television, GCTV. If any other persons present are doing the same, you must notify the chairperson at this time. Is anyone else recording?
All right, great. Um, if not, I'll go ahead and call this meeting >> go ahead and call this meeting to order at 6:31 p.m. Uh, member Webb, can you do a roll call of the members? Mayor Disorger
>> here. >> Member Dyman >> here. >> Member Goodwin >> here. >> Chair Ston >> here. >> Member Webb, I am also here. Vice Chair Childs >> here. >> Member Denive >> here.
>> All right, we have a quorum. Everyone is present. Um, with that, we will roll into public comment. Uh, our recording secretary is unfortunately out sick today. So, if you have public comment, um,
please address member well. All right. Anybody else? We can get a list going. Anyone else in the room for public comment before we invite the first one up? Anybody? Anybody? Okay. And if you are online and you would like to make public comment, go ahead and start putting your name in the chat now.
Um, come on up. Please share your name and your address and you will have three minutes as soon as I get my timer up. Yeah, >> Chair Ston. >> Yes. >> Um, I'm attending remotely and we don't
have video of anything in the room. >> The whole town's out, right? >> Oh, we do now. Thank you. >> You're very welcome. >> Cool. >> Okay. >> Uh, so Doug Selwin, Sln, 38 Forest Avenue in Greenfield.
Um, so I have a um a request that I know will not be easy um because you have so much to focus on in district, but I'm going to um ask the committee to figure out as
much as possible how to be part of the statewide conversation for things that need to happen and or for actions we need to take to stop things from happening around the state. So, four different um areas of concern. One is um
and and I'm what I'm asking the committee to do both individually but also as a committee to contact our legislators. So, Senator Cmerford and um Representative Whips and uh Representative former Representative
Bla's office um about these issues. One is to encourage the reopening the foundation foundation budget review commission which would be looking at the way schools are funded. Um hasn't been done in decades I think or at least a
decade and we need we need that to happen and the more they hear from districts the more likely they are to respond. Secondly, there's a group around the state that is pushing to roll back and there is a ballot initiative for this to roll back income tax from 5% to 4%.
And um to to eliminate fair share that would cost the state 8 billion with a B dollars. That's a lot of school dollars that would be disappearing. So again, urging our legislators to be active in
that conversation is important. The third um area has to do with um what's going to come next after the MCCAST. The governor has ignored all of the data that her commission has
collected. All they heard from um people in their in their forums and is pushing for essentially re reinstating high stakes testing. Um, this would come at the uh end of courses, but it would be entirely created by the state and scored
by the state with no local input. Again, we need to let them know that's not okay and that she's rushing to get this done. And at the very least, we need to encourage them. I hope we need to encourage them to slow down and think about what they're doing because it's
not only about assessment. When you're messing with this stuff, you're you're you're defining how schools are actually focused. What do we want? What education do we want for our children? That takes time to think about. So, they shouldn't race to um
to make that happen um so quickly. So, the more our voice is out there, I think the the more leverage our legislators have. I would also encourage the school the city people to let them know about
these things too. Um the more they hear from us the more likely they are to at least consider. Thank you. >> Thank you. Okay, I see uh Pamela Goodwin online. if you will unmute and please say your name, your address
for the record, and uh you'll have three minutes. >> Thank you. Um first I want to thank you for all your hard work. I don't know why I'm seeing two myself, but anyway, I know you people work really hard. >> Can you can you name and your address,
please? Just verbally. >> Oh, sorry. Um Pamela Goodwin, 54 High Street. And um >> thank you. >> I I guess I'm a little concerned about the agenda. When I looked at it, I said,
"Oh my word." Um I will make a statement about I I I ran for school committee. I was limited in the preliminary, which was fine. And I really wanted a very democratically
run campaign for school committee. And my attitude and some other people were like the more the merrier. I'm concerned when I look at this agenda after watching the organizational meeting that we are now thinking about having
the need of a mediator. I understand what that's for. If we need it, then I'm absolutely in favor of it. But I will call to people's attention even when Amy Peretti had worked so hard
and when Amy Pedi had um not been u part of the executive branch of the school committee. I don't remember them saying, "Oh my gosh, we need a mediator so we can all work collaboratively." That bothers me because we've talked
over and over on the school committee how we need to pull together as a team. We should focus on what's good for the children. We need to find money for teachers and so so on and so forth. And then there's a motion to reconsider and
restructure by a member which tells me that person is not happy with the way the reorganization came down. I just wanted to state that seems
troublesome to me and I don't even have kids in the school system but I did teach for years and years and I was really hoping that we could like move forward and not look backwards and we have a new superintendent coming. We have a fantastic interim superintendent
and there seems to be um and maybe I'm reading it wrong, but my take is there's some strife. And if everybody pulls in the same direction, has the same goals in mind, I have to say I'm absolutely thrilled that it was a unanimous
decision for the new superintendent. And that's not all that common um to have everybody vote in one direction. So with that, I'll let it go. I hope that if you do get a mediator, you find a fantastic one
and we can just dust duff dust stuff off our feet and head in a single-minded direction on what's best for these kids. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you.
>> Any other persons for public comment? All right, come on up. Please say your name, your address, and you'll have three minutes. Hello, I'm Tara Clutier. I am a Greenfield resident at 255 Cole Rain
Road in Greenfield. I am a teacher here and um I would like to talk for a second about the fair fix for retirement plus that is before the senate um at this time and ask I don't know what the
school committee can do as far as this bill is concerned um it's H4361 um retirement plus was rolled out in 2001 it was very poorly rolled out. Um,
I was a new mother with a young baby and I thought I was in retirement plus and many years later I found out that I wasn't. Um, so we're asking there's a there's a large group um of teachers
that have taught more than 30 years um asking for the opportunity to pay the extra money that we would have taken out had taken out over the years. It's with interest compounded. It's not going to be cheap, but um it gives a fair retirement so that somebody else my
exact age that taught the exact same number of years as me, I would have the same opportunity as them. Um so if you're watching or if if the school committee can support it, I would appreciate that. Um there's many people
in my shoes tends to be people that in 2001 were young mothers. There's lots of us that are very much that. Um, now I'm an older mother asking you to help me. Um, thank you so much. I'll talk to you
later about my other things. Great. Thank you. Anybody else in the room or online for public comment? Okay. Not seeing anyone. Um, I think we will move on. Um,
our student representatives unfortunately couldn't be with us here tonight. Uh, but I believe superintendent is going to give their spiel for them. >> Yes, thank you. They had other obligations tonight. So, they did submit a nice report and I'll I'll run through that for you. Uh, the February student
report to the school committee from our Greenfield High School. Student councils had had a very busy month and they participated with Special Olympics, their unified boti tournament on Friday, January 23rd. They brought three teams from Greenfield to represent and they're also looking forward towards March where
they're getting ready to take another polar plunge to raise money for Special Olympics. If you would like to donate to the Polar Plunge, can contributions can be sent to Angela Mass at the high school. Sounds cold. A polar plunge there, right? Key clubs on