All right. Hello and welcome to the community engagement subcommittee meeting for the Greenfield Public Schools. It is Monday, August 25th, 2025 at 6 p.m. Thank you. We are handing agendas
around. This meeting is being recorded. If any other person present are also recording, you must notify the chairperson of the subcommittee at this time. Is anyone else recording? No. Nope. All right. Let us do roll call. Member Goodwin
here. I am here. Vice Chair Ston here. And also present is Superintendent Joy. And we have a quorum. All right. Next up is public comment. Is there anyone here who'd like to make public comment?
I will. I don't know if you need me to move closer to some mic somewhere. I think it will be okay. Um I just have to set up the timer. Okay. But you can come closer if you wish. Of course. I just remember Glenn had me move over
there one time. That was because there was a mic somewhere. I don't I mean be closer to this. We can even Yeah. Maneuver this in your direction. Okay. Just Am I there? Yes. Hello.
All right. So, uh Pamela Goodwin. Yes. Okay. Three minutes. Please state your name and where you live. Yep. I'm Pamela Goodwin. Um, I live at 54 High Street here in Greenfield and um, I've been attending the school committee meetings for a number of
months now. Um, I recently did attend also a subcommittee that was budget was chaired by member Martini. Um if I'm remembering right, one of the meetings it was suggested that um member
ston be a leazone to um the city council and I think that that was not moved forward for a vote. Um and when I look at the
um agenda, it says develop goals for a joint meeting. the city council community relations subcommittee on September 15, 2025. I am just wondering since most everybody
in the city knows there was a lot of confusion, a lot of chaos, a lot of change going over um and one of the reasons why s interim superintendent Joelle was chosen was to kind of settle everybody down. he had a lot of
experience in other places and also experience here in the city of Greenfield. So I don't have any objection necessarily for somebody who's trying to represent um the school committee to city council.
However, unless I'm mistaken, there's the school committee and then there's the city business. And except for like a budget season where the school committee and the superintendent have to come before Ways and Mains, for example, to
talk about a budget, that happens first. And I know that we always have the superintendent come to city council every month. So we have the mayor come on a steady basis. People, she presents her program, has an
agenda, questions are asked by the city council. The same kind of thing can also happen. That's why we have the superintendent there each month where something is presented from the school's viewpoint and then city councilors ask
questions of the superintendent. So, I'm not real clear, but I thought that there was some kind of a division in the charter separating school business from city business
except in various circumstances. I also talked to the city clerk today who explained that if a member of the school committee wanted to sit next to the superintendent, um, that's always a possibility. Much
like the mayor can invite anybody up to her if she wants assistance. Same thing with the superintendent is what I is what I was under the impression. And since we have a lot of changes going on, I'm just wondering,
you know, those are my thoughts and I can hear the timer. So, thanks for letting me make a public comment. Okay. Thank you very much. All right. We have some other members of the public
who have joined us or let me see if uh if you'd like to make public comment now is your time. Tommy Lee, would you like to unmute and make public comment? Going once, going twice. You can let us know in the
chat if you change your mind. Okay. All right, moving along to the next part of the agenda is the approval of the June 17th, 2025 subcommittee minutes. Uh, does everybody need a minute to look at it? Have you looked at
it? I would love a minute. I usually count on as an editor. Yes. Take a moment and then we'll do our motion. This is the second copy. Sorry. Anybody ready? Okay. Could I have a motion to approve
the minutes from the June 17th meeting? So moved. Second. Okay. So, member Ston made the motion and second from Goodwin. All right. All in favor?
I I I Okay, motion passes. Minutes are approved. Next item on the agenda. What do I feel like I have? Okay. developing goals for a joint meeting
with city council community relations subcommittee on September 15th, 2025. So I guess I'll give a little bit of background to that. So one of the things that we had talked about is um making
some good relationships with our sister subcommittees that do similar things. And on the city side there's the community relations subcommittee. um we'll be receiving an invitation from them shortly to join them at that meeting. And the main goal is to see if
there are any overlapping interests for our constituents both on the school side and the city side and how we could better serve everyone by working together in that capacity. So, um one of the things that we need to really plan is what we're going to talk
about at that meeting. So, I think in order to do that, whenever we've had these meetings in the past, we've voted to suspend Robert's rules of order so that we can just have a loose working session since that seems to work better for our subcommittee. So, um, can I have
a motion to suspend Robert's rules for the rest of the meeting? Some moved. Second. Okay. All in favor? I I Okay. Um, yeah. Cool. All right. So, we don't need to do that anymore um until the end.
So, we are meeting with them for the first time. In fact, I think this is the first time that we've ever had a school city joint meeting um or been invited to one. And we have invited for this subcommittee and we've invited city councilors in the past to join the
budget and finance um and in all of the classes that we have taken in Hyannis and in all of the professional development we have always learned how important it is that we create relationships with the city side and attend each other's meetings and
potentially have meetings together. Um so as far as we could tell that is not in violation of the charter in any way. So, we'll be meeting on September 15th and so can I ask some questions? Of course. Yes. This is the time. The time is to ask questions and find out what we're going
to talk about. Okay. So, I guess so they invited all of the school committee or just some of the school committee? Just us. It is a meeting between two. We're being invited as a subcommittee, right? Who's the chair of their subcommittee?
Laura Wandowski. because I've never heard of this subcommittee at city council and I'm pretty faithful about watching Sheila Gilmore. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So, it's Laura Wandelowski and they're excited to invite us and see how we can work okay. Together. Now, if it was a joint meeting
between the larger school committee, we would obviously need to vote on that. That's what I just want to make sure. Yeah. Like, okay. What? So before we talk about what we want to talk about, what is they invited us is what you're
saying to me. So what are their goals for the meeting? We don't know yet. We have not received the the invite with the information yet. The sense that I'm getting is that we just have we have these two bodies now, the school committee and the city council that have have these two
subcommittees that have very similar names. And I think we're curious about each other. What do you do? What are you about? What's your purpose? Meet and greet. Yeah. It's kind of like are our purposes overlapping? Do we try to do the similar things? And you know, obviously we're going to have a more specialized
purpose, but like is the intention for them, I don't know, to get more people at city council meetings. Is there intention to see how our public events are being received? I don't know. Is that what their perview or charter is? I'm curious about these things. These are the kinds of things that I want to
have happen at this meeting of just tell us what you do, what your point is. Do we have similar points? Can we host any joint like events together or something? So, you know, I walked into my first classroom in 1983, so I'm old.
So, I gave a lot of con, you know, a lot of thought Yeah. to politics in schools over the years. And my concern always is that schools stay, politics stay out of schools. And I and
I can tell you personal stories. My dad was um in Vietnam twice and my sister was told by a teacher that my dad was a murderer because he was in Vietnam. I can tell you during 911 we had problems too because politics came
into our schools. Um, and I had parents who were bringing back people from Afghanistan who worked their their kids were in my school. So, politics in schools to me, schools are nonpartisan. You know, this town is like I don't even
know what it means anymore. Left, right, progressive, all of that. To me, the school committee represents people who stand for children, not really a political stand. I see the city council. See, I see them different. So, that's
why I wanted to say this is the city council is the politics of the city. I really feel that. I mean, when I listen to them, it's like, oh yeah, we're over here and they're over there and it's it's politics. But when it's a school committee and I've sat through decades
of school committees meetings in different places, it's really supposed to be in my heart nonpartisan. you know, um, for years it was the band parents and the sports parents and retired educators who were
on school committees who were just trying to make sure good things happen for kids. And I think we're all people who want good things to happen for kids. But I just really strongly feel that there there is a big difference between the two. And it and as a Greenfield person
who has watched all of the Green and Field school committee meetings and ironing my clothes on Sundays for UMass class, I started like 1996. I've been watching school. They've stayed out of the the politics. And so I really and
then when we get to budget time, it's always like, oh, the mayor cut the budget. I mean, it becomes a political sort of game. And I don't want it to be that. I want it to be everybody and I believe that our city council is pro pro kids and we're pro kids but another
election could be totally different. I just am concerned I guess. So I think that one of the things to understand is that if you have never seen Greenfield interact with their city side, if you've never seen the schools interact with their city side, that's
not right. Like that's not how that's supposed to be. And there's a lot of things that Greenfield has never done that are best practices. And we're taught that having open lines of communication between them, it's not a partisan issue. It's that we're trying
to do the best possible job for the citizens. And by making relationships and meeting and getting an idea of what they're working on and what is coming down the pike budget-wise or whatever, that helps us to make a smooth
experience for the citizens and to give them the best that we possibly can. So, it's not a partisan issue and there's not politics involved and no one's going to discuss politics. But if, for example, they're hearing something from their constituents that they need to improve upon something and it's the same
thing that we need to improve upon, we could do that together. And that's joint resources. And that's really how it's supposed to go. And when we talk about hiring a budget person or or or a volunteer coordinator, one of the things that we're taught is, have you talked to
the city side? Do they also have that? Can you share resources? Can you talk to that person? It's not about mixing things and or creating conflict. It's the opposite. So that's I mean that's my goal. I'm not going into anything
desiring political strife. Um and the fact that they're so separate is not necessarily how it's supposed to be. Do do you have comments Stacy? I will turn so that you can be sure recorded. Um
sure. for posterity sake. Um I mean I can I totally agree that our schools are for educating all of our students regardless of anything regardless of what their parents think or believe or any of that. Our schools are for
educating all of our students. And the history of education is inherently political in this country and everywhere, all countries, but in this country in particular. And so I can't I my philosophy is not that education is totally nonpartisan because we look at
the games they're playing federally with our schools now. It's very clear politics are already there whether we want them to be or not. Now, I also I disagree that our city council is the politics of Greenfield. They're supposed
to be administrative, and that is their function, that they administrate the budgets. They they're supposed to that's that's part of what they're about is making sure that we have sound policy and fiscal like that's why they have the
the ways and means. That's why they control that. That's why they are forward looking and thinking about, you know, whatever. But, you know, I'm not a city counselor, so I don't have the total ins and outs of all that they do. Um, that being said, I think though
having this relationship with another subcommittee, like I said, it's not we're not going before the full 13 member body and trying to develop independently us three a relationship with all of that. We're saying, "All right, you've got this group. Ostensibly, your purpose is to make
yourselves more accessible to the public. We also have a goal of making ourselves more accessible to the public as a group. I want to know, do they have any strategies that have been more successful than what we've done? Maybe. I don't know. What strategies have they
tried? That's a good question. And so for me, it's about again a factf finding mission, if you will. What do you do? Why do you do it? How do you do it? Have you learned anything about how we can do this better together? I also
think that it's important for our like we do operate separately. We are fiscally independent like we are a subset. We have our own oversight and our schools are the biggest economic driver of our city.
Yeah. And if we like our long-term goals, our 5 10 year plan should be in line with the city's 510 year plan. That's right. Not saying that they are lock step, but saying that they have a relationship with one another and to
hamstring our ability to have that relationship at the lowest level possible, like closest to the actual people in the town. You know what I mean? Um, we don't need to have it all live up here. It can be us having conversations saying, "What do we want
for our kids? What do we want for our town, our city?" apologies, you know, and how can those two things be mutually a town who turns into a city by a boat and it was a manipulated mode. Well, whichever way, but it's like, you know, how can our how
can what we do and what they do work like clock gears so that we're smooth functioning. It's sort of the same reason why an goes to the city planning, you know, we have to know because we're part of that. We have buildings in the city. It's sort of the same. It's, you
know, we do a lot of overlap that we don't even know about. Like our school, our um summer eats resources are we our summer eats goes to four rivers too. Yeah. Like we have we pay for some professional development to Stony
Burnham teachers. Like we do all of these cross things like there's no reason why we shouldn't, you know, explore all of those pathways and understand them. There might be a path for us. There might not. And is there a way that we can do things more efficiently? Mhm. I mean, I I hear you. I understand you.
You're not We're not saying I want you to feel super comfy about this because I really have strong feelings about it. You know, the people who want to ban books in your schools, the people who come in front of school committees who don't want us to teach evolution. I mean, there's a lot of there's a history
of politics trying to run what we do in our schools, and Massachusetts has been pretty good at like back off. Yeah. Um, and I just um want to make sure that
um our schools stay as good as they are and get even better without um somebody deciding we're not going to read some book in the library or somebody say we're not going to teach evolution in biology. Um because there's a political
agenda behind it. And I think the world is kind of crazy right now full of political agendas that are scary. and well-meaning people bump into it all the time. And that's just worries me as somebody who's had to stand firm um
against it. Um everything from history didn't really happen to we're not going to teach history anymore. I mean, I had to deal with that in this city as a principal. Um, so part of what I'm saying to you is it's just And then the
longest serving person I think on city council who's been on city council multiple times I think is the mayor. I guess if we're going to do this, I would like her to be present for this joint meeting because she has the longest
history on city council. Well, we can't do that because then it would be a quorum for us. For Yeah. four of us. We can't have four. That's against the law. So, but we can have our subcommittee
meet. And I think I think if we spend a little time, we can find all kinds of examples of um wave our arm of we're saving money this happening one penny at a time. That's right. We can find a lot of examples of this
happening in other districts and we've heard of that. I mean, I've met many other school committees who are like, "Oh, yeah, we meet all the time and we know." Do you have examples of that? Have you encountered that, superintendent? No. I What I've seen in some of in Chabe, for example, they would send a
school committee representative to city council meetings more as an observer. Obviously, they can't vote at that time and not even every time reporting out. It's just a liaison. a liaison becomes more active generally during budget
times or you know school building projects something big that's really going on but general meetings they would really just be there observing but for sub on the subcommittee level not too many subcommittees now oh okay we have a lot of subcommittees I think as a body we've chosen to do that
which we have many we have many more than most but okay so it sounds like what I'm hearing from the two of you is that this meeting would be a chance to see what they're about. It's exploratory. We're going to see if there's overlap
and we seem to be in agreement with that. We're not proposing anything. We're just on a meet and greet. A meet and greet. I'm okay with I'm not I just want to know Yeah. what they're looking for and have a
conversation. And I'm always good with conversation because we do run into the same thing. I mean, yeah, I think that that's a good point and I think that um a conversation is enough really to get started and we might find that we have things that are aligned and we might find that we do
not, but it's worth the conversation. And I think that to your point about staying really strong against things that we don't believe in, knowing the people who could bring that forward and having them know you is valuable and will help to have those
things not happen because there have been many years where we don't even know the city councilors. Like there are city counselors I have not even met who have not met me. And I think that's kind of I have personal feelings about that. But I think it's better if we all know each other. And I think that's good that you
shared that because I think that's that would be like a social thing that should happen. I I've been advocating for a city municipal barbecue for like ever. Oh yeah, we've been talking about these things a long time. The mayor would love that. Did you tell
barbecue and botchi ball? Bring it. Stacy's great idea. Man, okay. So, do we feel good for that? We're go what we're doing. Yes, I'm okay with that. and just and let's tell them what we do. They tell us what they do and we see if there's overlap for
constituents. There may or may not be, but I have a feeling it's going to be about uh number five on the agenda. What it's going to be discussion of merging district event calendars into one combined calendar identifying if the Greenville Public School Information Technology Department
can merge all district electronic event calendars into one. I think she placed a link, but that's that's not the same. No. Okay. She she's not a tech person, but she tries. So, the background from this is that we've talked in the past about how we
are we struggle as a school committee knowing what the schools are up to and where the events are so that we can support and be present. And we started trying to make a calendar and realized that that's not really a good use of our time to be plugging things into a
spreadsheet. We got busy. It all fell apart. So the thought process is is there a way to make it so that there's one calendar that we can subscribe like the one calendar to rule the mall where we can see what's up at the schools and also
something that parents can subscribe to because we had an email that I said that I would reference in regards to this um that came just the other day and it's not really materials but it's just a constituent thought about how they were
getting ready to come to tonight's meet and greet and they didn't get the emails that they felt that they needed to get. And I've heard this now from like a dozen people and missing emails, missing supply lists, missing things like that. So,
while that's not our purview because that is your job, um we'd like to see if there's a way that we can have something that encompasses that and what we need to support on our level and
in the pie in the sky dream that also involves like city events and how it all collects together. See how I'm going with the maybe? You know what? I'm I'm Yep. So, and past superintendents, just so you know, have tried. Um, Jordana was big into this
and it really is an issue of different technology at the schools that is different at the district level. So like so that's why Samore was born. Okay. Jake Tumi found it. He and I paid for it
ourselves. We were like communicating with parents on the slide on some more because it was easy for us to use and then everybody adopted it. So great, right? So what would happen at the school level is we were trying to put it
on the district website, but then a secretary would be chosen to do that and then the secretary kept changing and then the principles would forget to tell sec. So the secretary changed thing in the schools and at the district level
and so then it just sort of became whose job is it? and the schools keep sending out whatever you know I mean some more became the the user thing that we used but there wasn't a central there is a central calendar on our website
yes that's what I was going to ask if I may yeah of course yes this calendar that's there are you looking to have all the schools have everything there or are you looking more con conceptually like Google
calendarish where you can have, you know, you can click on Google calendar and and add to your own calendar or and then you can uncclick and it comes off of it so you don't get confused with all the stuff that's on there. Were you looking for more like six schools with clicks there or do you want everything
like so for example on I'm making this up today is right the 25th you have everything that's going on in every single school under one date of the 25th I guess based on what parents have told me and what teachers have expressed is that they would like to be able to go in
to a central calendar and have everything on there and then they can click select or deselect what they don't want to see everything Yeah, because then they're like, "Oh, I have one child at four corners and I have one child at the middle school. Those are the calendars I need to look at, but I also want to know when are the
school committee meetings." So, the subcommittees would be on there. I don't want to go to everything, but maybe I want to know if there's a school event this week. So, it should be something that can be selected and deselected. Um, but it's just there's also been like a history within
this our committee, our large committee that there hasn't like there is a there's Google Docs from the past, but nobody can like add people to them or take people off of them. Like nobody like somebody left with the password like there's permissions there's permissions issues, you know, that that
we come up against sometimes. So we it's sort of like it's time to centralize all of this information and just have like just start to tackle that and we don't know how so extensive that is. Okay, but let let
me give Stacy a chance because she they have not spoken on this. Um, yeah, I was just going to sort of answer your question a little bit of it is kind of it's an all of the above situation where people do want to be able to add calendars to their phone or something like that
and we want there to be this one place where everything is listed, every single thing that is happening with a school on any given date. That way there's one place you can go. But it would be helpful as as Elizabeth was saying if there's a function somewhere on our on our calendar where they can select or
deselect a particular school. Um, right. If I may, our Ian Edwards, our information technology director, and I had talked about this in preparation for this meeting. He believes that there is definitely something we could do. We would have to probably might take not a
ton of work, but you'd have to have each school put in whether it's via Google or something like that, and then he would collaborate because this is not what we're looking at right here. That type of scenario. Yeah. But we could drop I could drop some proposals with him. Yeah. And I'm I I'm wondering I don't
know what the functionality of S'more is, but if that is a platform that all of our schools are That's what I'm saying. It's a newsletter in there. Can you scrape that? Does it feed into a calendar? I don't know what the what the function is. So,
but that could be an easy one source to draw from. He and I did meet the other day and last week and in preparation again for this. I think there's something we can do. Sweet. you know, we we unfortunately we were not going to be able to get it done by tonight. Um,
we didn't expect that. It was more of a conversation. We wanted to hear I wanted to hear more from you and he's out helping some of the schools right now but then you know he and I will catch up this week. It'll slow down after I say after tomorrow. more still professional development, but then it'll we're not in it's not a like a must
happen right now thing because let me tell you I've been asking for it now for this is the fourth year I've been asking for something like this. I have been asking and asking and asking and I've always been told that it's just it's too big of an of an elephant to tackle. So if you fi if you can find a
way even even individual school calendars sometimes get very big for example school right a lot of activity there just the regular going on events but then all of a sudden decide to throw in a sports calendar on there holy smokes
right every week um two field hockey games two soccer games two boys games a football game right all of a sudden that can take up almost your whole calendar then throw in some student council meetings and throw in rehearsal So things for definitely for people like you said to click on or
click off otherwise you have we'd have one day and it's going to be like people are going to be like I'm some people need to have the experience of visualizing that right yeah and then you know the people who are very particular about I need to know about all the sports can know and then
they won't miss things they you know then people can't say I didn't know that there was a thing right without having to go to arbiter which is a whole separate website right you know and there are people who just want drama or whatever So yeah, the select and deselect. Okay, Melody, how are you? So there were three programs that
parents were signed into. One is powers school. So I don't know if they make and all that stuff. They make an app maybe for a calendar. I don't know. You've got some more which which all the secretaries enter all of that information in by hand and we add the
new kids. And what's great about some more is all the languages are there. All they have to do is click on. So people from Cambodia, Haitian, Haitian families can all get it in the language they like and respond to it. And what would be great is if it could
send to a parent like alerts like you know softball game tomorrow or something like that. And then I'm trying to remember the name of the one that's a robocall. Um that's part of Yes. The I don't know if I know what you're talking about. I think the messaging service,
right? whether they can also um because that's those are the three programs all the emails and phone numbers are in. Yeah. So if there's a way to connect to that that would be the
and robocall is something that I always experience as a parent and I was very surprised to see that it's hardly ever used here and it would be really useful. I know and I've I told all the superintendents this, but as a parent I in LA USD, you would get a
robocall on Monday from your principal or on Sunday and they would say like guess what's happening this week and they would give a rundown and then it would be like press two if you need this in Spanish or three if you need or whatever and you had it could go to your voicemail if you didn't have the time to take this call
and you'd get the information if and that was great if you couldn't get on the website or sometimes it wasn't up to date on the website and so it sort of filled in these gaps. Um, but that's not something that previous superintendents have been interested in. So I'm making my pitch again
for the importance of robocalls for major events, not necessarily daily events, but like, hey, we have a we've got a play happening on Saturday. This is the big middle school play. We're raising money for whatever. Or we have the big game on Sunday. Come out. You know, those things are really important
and they make people feel connected and like they're a part of it because they've had the in invite. Yeah. I can tell you from experience and not not that I'm trying to defend your former superintendent, but in Massachusetts, the companies themselves, whether it's Power School or different companies who control the robocalls and
not and I don't mean control, right? They're we purchased them from really train a lot of the principles and superintendents in the in the world of not overusing them and not losing that effectiveness of when that emergency goes out that something happens.
So I think that's probably why you've seen like said not speaking for them. I would bet that's why you've seen them used for lack of what we'll say regular things. And then how do we discriminate or discern whether the school play which happens twice a year? Okay, that's not
too often. That's a special event. But what about the field hockey game that happens twice a week? Right now, are we telling everybody about even though it's maybe it's a regular field hockey game or is it a big one because we're playing our rivals and whoever our rivals are, whether it's, you know, Frontier or Turner or whomever in whatever sport. At what point then do you start leaving
somebody out and then they start calling and saying to you, well, he wouldn't do the the robocall for the student council meeting, right, that night or something like that. I'm not necessarily defending them, but there's always that fine line. And then people start to tune them out, right? And there is no perfect system.
There will be people who don't like this calendar that we're trying and there will be people use carrier pigeon. I don't know, truly fly. I mean, honestly, there are people who need a raven. So, oh, or eagle delivering it. That's right.
A wave. That's the only thing that they will accept. We now deliver by green wave. Optin for green wave. Um, as somebody who's worked here for 10 years, one of the bigger problems is we spend a lot of money
training a whole group of people, whether it's principles, secretaries, or whatever, how to use a program, and then they're gone and we don't train the next group of people. Everything from like how to use the cameras in the schools to how to use powers school to how to use
um some Samora is sort of intuitive once somebody does it. But the robocall as somebody who always has to practice robocall like you know make sure that my voice right right trying to have a new secretary every you know one a year or two a year
and trying to have backup to do that um has been really the hard thing. So that's both like a hey let's improve our staff retention and yes regime exactly let's write it down in a handbook. when we we encountered these things ourselves where all of a sudden I
was like, "Oh, I have to chair a meeting, but nobody has told me how to do that and how do I turn the Zoom on and how do I even hit the record?" Like, I had to write a how to and we had to put it in the handbook. Because we didn't know how to do it with the thought that in the future, you know, you don't want to lose that
information, you know. Exactly. Yeah. Power schooling is $10,000 a day training. So, okay. So, we've made our calendar pitch to you and we I think I think the
most important thing is just to just to see like what you encounter and how you feel about it as you work on it and let us know like how it goes. Like we don't have a timeline. We just This is a test cases. Yes. We will pretend to be parents and
try to select and deselect. Yeah. I don't have to pretend. But the great thing is we have a new tech person because our old Sorry, new tech person. You're right. That's takes his name. Yay. Oh, I don't know his name. So, um nice.
And so, they they he I think he'll have fresh ideas about that. And what we'll do prior to whenever our next meeting is, as I mentioned, he and I will meet, but also I'm going to be meeting with the principles in another week or two. So, we'll bring that up at their meeting and I'll get their feedback and we'll have lots of
information for you. Great. So then the new So moving on to new business then. Do we all feel complete with I just have one question I guess why we're all here. So we see a $3,000 bill for social media
from TMS and I guess I'm not clear on what that covers because I look at our website and it's like people have left and their names are still on it. Our staff list isn't updated. I mean are like I went through all the the websites today just like each schools I mean
nothing's on there about meet and greet nothing's on like their pages that kind of would like a supply list could be put on an elementary school right all that information could have been put right there and so we used to like get phone calls
Becky Terra used to like now you need to update your page so I guess I don't know who's doing our our website anymore. If somebody's in charge of it or we're paying somebody to do that, I don't know. I don't know about the website, but I
know that the social media we learned is under the the umbrella of the TMS vendor services. And so that's something I think we probably have to talk about at the big What does that cover? Is it Yeah. What what are the tasks that actually get accomplished? um because
we were given the special we were given the special project amount but yeah at the full meeting I think that that's probably something that to bring up and discuss and that's something that we have to as you know figure out when we get a new business manager someday
someday so well I'll look into answers for that about social media and who does websites right because that's a place that everybody is used to going it's not Yeah it's not so much our perview necessarily here except maybe
the social media I don't know it's if that is a mechanism to engage with our community then our perview yeah so we could take that on if we if we want to take that on as a subcommittee we could we could say so I guess I'm asking
are we saying to the full committee that we would like to take on the social media piece is that what we're saying do it as we don't want to do that as an investigator and finding out who does it, how much it costs, and what alternatives are. Is are
we saying that? Are we making a recommendation? But I don't even know what they do. That's the problem. Like, so I know what they do. I know. I mean, I know what's going on because I follow all the social media. But yeah, and you know what a social media
manager should be. That's right. And I know that there are options in the city for such things that will not cost us such money. I mean, I would love to see some of our students get experience. I would also love that. And GCC does have a social media intern program. Nice.
Saving another penny. So, you can rub them together. Do you is that is that something that you guys would like to do under our banner? I think so because work community engagement. Okay. So, Okay. So, I'm hearing that we
should bring So, in September, I guess I do want to just be like, let's let's put some parameters around this a little bit because we're community engagement, but we're not administration. We don't necessarily pick who does that. I think we have a role to play in like
what kinds of things do we want to see more on our social media? How do we want to see the engagement happen? I think and also establishing maybe like this may be blurring some lines but establishing how do we know if our post sourcing like how do we know if our is
good enough right if we're even getting engagement like I want to know what's the return on investment in the radio spots we've been up to you know that we used to be I always feel that's was amazing well yeah but I but I want to know but how do like we can how do we know
on our website like how many people visit I don't know that feels like it's blurring a little Okay. So, so is the language Okay. So, is the language for September that we would like to under the banner of our community engagement
task, we would like to discuss. We would like to know what our engagement levels are on social media and what our engagement levels are at the radio spot and who performs these tasks and how much they cost.
The again the cost feels like it's blaring a little right because the cost is attached to the vendor but our goal is to decouple that eventually so I don't know if that's going too far the money I do we know but
yes but I just want to stay away from it no we're just trying in charge of the money but our subcommittee yes they're not per se in charge of the money ourselves that's something that we have shared responsibility with with four other And we don't want to do the
social media, but we don't want to do the social media, but I am curious. It is community engagement. What social media posts are out there about the school committee? Not like about us, about us from other people. But what are we sharing about ourselves and the work that we're up to?
We are not sharing anything. I can tell you that 100% because the only person who talks about the Greenfield School Committee online is me. because like you know I get that we I'm I'm assuming and hoping that there is a monthly post when our meetings happen. Um I took that on myself in all of the
groups when I started and then I got very very busy and did not do it. There should be at the very bare minimum on our Facebook page. There should be a link to the GC. We don't have a Facebook page. I thought we had a Facebook page and a LinkedIn for the school committee or for the
district school. Yes. the district school committee being part of the schools last we checked um should be on the school's Facebook page as in like at the very bare minimum when our monthly meetings happen but also when we're at events
I don't think that I'm glad you brought up GCTV you know GCTV was born out of a grant between Greenfield Public Schools and the city see how cool we are and the kinds of programs and um generate So,
and they used to have on GCTV like the little banners. It was like an ad that said school committee this day or and they used to run football games and stuff for parents who didn't make it to the game. They used to do all that and they're not doing that anymore. So, that might be a good because we we
were their startup money. I can say that as a historian of all of that. Michael E. Smith, who was one of my superintendents, helped write the grant with uh GCTV. Chris Collins actually. Okay. So, um that would not be a bad
No, and I would agree with your statement there. In many cities, there there's a big tie with the schools and and I don't know the tie here where, for example, like you mentioned the big whatever Thanksgiving Day football game, the big softball rival, you name it, the play is posted. I mean, I would have
people come up to me now. I remember at the beginning of the school year and somebody would say to me, "Hey, Rol, I saw you on TV last night." I'm like, exactly like, "I'm not on TV last night." Like, I didn't do an interview, right? And they're like, "Oh, no. I was watching
graduation from May, right?" And and they saw me in the fall because they were just rerunning. You know how they do it in the middle of the night or something like that, right? Yeah. That type of scenario. So, is the the count very high? probably not at 1:00 in the morning when somebody's watching graduation, but the fact that
it's out there sometimes people are picking it up and um we could we'll look into our involvement there. 60 people watched the recording of our budget and finance. People do. Okay. Go back to Yeah. Oh, I will catch up on everything
like um so because I don't have time to and watch. Exactly. So, okay. I'm just trying to be cognizant of our time because we have a hard stop coming up. So, is it okay to ask you then to maybe do a little informal research of this and see what
we can if there's possibilities there? Yay. Wonderful. Thank you. Does anyone have any new business to bring forward? Nope. Old business that we have not Okay,
new going once, going twice. New business, old business. Okay, thank you. All right, then back to the Roberts. Let us call our adjournment. So moved. Second.
Awesome. Um, all in favor of adjournment I. All right. So, we are adjourned at 6:50 p.m. Thank you all for coming. Do you have a time on the 15th for that meeting? Um, I do not yet have a time and likely be at 6 or 6. And all of our
meetings, just so we are all in concert, are now on the fourth Monday of the month and they will be back in the library. They were just in a different place today because of the parking and all that stuff. Yeah, I get it. Now you can run upstairs.
Yeah, this will wrap up. [Music]