##VIDEO ID:4-_343FAcvk## good evening everyone my name is Angela Mills and I work for the town of ammer this meeting is being recorded on the town of ammer Zoom account it will be uploaded to ammer media and ammer media is on this call and I believe they are live streaming it um the town of ammer uh is hosting some meetings via Zoom due to the suspension of some of the open meeting laws by our wonderful Governor as a result of um former covid restrictions at this time I want to remind everyone that if you're in the attendee room when it comes to public comment we ask that you please raise your hand because it's Zoom webinar you will be promoted or your raised hand will be in the order in which you raise your hand so if you're the first person to raise your hand you'll be at the top of the list and then it will progress as people raise hands if you're calling into this meeting you will have to press star nine to raise your hand and then the same thing you'll fall in line with the others who have raised their hands and at this time I'd like to recognize the chair of the school committee Sarah Marshall and I will make um Nai your co-host Sarah I hope you have a great meeting thank you so much Angela yes seeing the presence of a quorum I'm calling this meeting of the ammer school committee to order at 6:34 p.m on October 15 2024 we are meeting remotely uh at the last minute because of the heat is out in the high school and it's just uncomfortably cold cold and we're sorry that that happened of course it's unpleasant for everyone working in the school and an inconvenience to to members of the public perhaps so please bear with us we're trying to we'll be doing the best we can to um get all the public comment heard and and hope people are finding their way to this meeting so um because we are meeting remotely I need to take attendance uh I by roll call and everyone committee members need to answer so that I know we can hear you and you can hear us so I'm Sarah Marshall I'm here BV roads I'm here Jennifer sha here Bridget Hines here Deb Leonard here are you are you able to turn your camera on are you not at this time sounded like not at this time okay not at this time no all right thank you we're also having a hard time hearing you so maybe you can be closer to your microphone y all right the first order of business is public comment if there's anyone in the attendees who would like to make a public comment please use the raised hand function to indicate that and I will ask you to unmute so the raised hand should little icon should be at the bottom of your screen and I who was that Deb Deb yes did you post a sign on the high school um door I did ask na yes thank you so much NY yes thank you all right I don't see anyone uh with the raised hand in the audience oh wh two so first I will ask Roger Sarah can you clarify that there's three minutes for public comment yeah I do that when they when they come in so Roger please unmute yourself State your full name and uh where you live please and then you have up to three minutes for a comment my name is Roger Wallace I live at in ammer on J uh I have a comment that is actually going to be slightly out of place but I thought it was the time for excuse me public comment so I'm going to make it uh we as Educators know that we are often the answer to our children's educational needs we are also aware at the same time and I I think for all of us we cannot be all things to all people the students at 80 acres for which you will hear about later are getting a look at our world and the environment in which they live and inhabit in a slightly different way 80 acres stands for things that are important the Roger Lawrence Wallis excellence and teaching award is focused on issues of social justice and Community Building within the elementary school community at Wildwood Fort River Crocker Farms ad acres and the foundation is firmly predicated on those same Concepts that we find in the in rajal EIT and are central part of the award I love Public Schools 38 years in amers one year in Worcester would would certainly be evidence of that but at the same time I embrace the idea that an alternative place to educate our young students is extremely important I have attended several events at the school and they truly embrace the notion of community in a social justice environment and so as you listen to Adrian who is my daughter I don't even hesitate to say that I hope you keep those ideas in mind thank you very much for hearing me out thank you very much next is Reed P please unmute yourself and then State your your full name and where you live and then you have three minutes sure hi can you hear me yes go ahead please y my name is uh Reed Parsons I live in Amherst um and I'm here to share my thoughts um and Views as a parent of an 80 acres climate Justice Co-op School kindergartner and I also have two older kids in the ARP schools um the climate Justice Cooperative home school is really a special place and it plays a special role in our community and the lives of the young people who enroll there uh it deserves the opportunity to serve more families and be recognized as a licensed private school in my opinion uh from a parents perspective I appreciate the school's uh small class sizes currently less than six kids in a class which ensures students get ample attention and guidance from the full-time teachers who work there students engage in Hands-On often outdoor activities collaborate with one another in projects that span and bring together art science math language arts history and music for example my kindergartner is currently working on creating their own superhero complete with a written description of superpowers costumes decal and even a theme song this project is just one example of the interdisciplinary self-empowering projects students undertake in the process of working on these projects my child is growing lasting relationships with teachers and friends in a learning environment that is dedicated to supporting their whole selves I also happen to be an earth science educator in higher education and I value the school's focus on human interaction and connection with the Earth while providing an understanding of environmental justice and its connection to racial Justice the kids are learning about where food comes from how it is grown they get an opportunity to grow some themselves the connection between food and culture they're learning about indigenous practices all these things help them become good environmental stewards we as a society need to come to terms with the fact that those who will be most hard hit by climate change both domestic and abroad are bipo communities so we must address the environmental crisis and social inequity as connected issues the Adres climate Justice Co-op school does this by empowering kids to be the compassionate change makers needed to bring a brighter future finally as a member of the community concerned with the well-being of our neighbors a category that I'm sure many folks here would count themselves among I implore you to consider who benefits from the services 8 Acres off offers this school is a safe place for kids and families of all backgrounds but specifically provides a safety net for bipo families who may have dealt with bias either implicit or explicit in their kids' schools these loving parents deserve to have a choice of where to send their kids uh just as white families do excuse me please finish up it's been three minutes okay uh so I that really concludes my remarks so thank you very much all right thank you um and please Roger and read uh lower your hand um or I may think you want to speak again which would be irregular next is John um please unmute yourself and then enter and give us your full name where you live and you have three minutes okay hi can you hear me yes go ahead okay great uh my name is John bilderbeck I live in ammer I'm actually driving home from the high school having attempted to end in person um my comment is really uh in advance of some of the written comments that were submitted for today's meeting uh particularly um as a parent of two children at Fort River Elementary I'm writing with my preemptive support of cantes um for any number of reasons um there are some concerns among the parent Community um about whether the um school committee and the new superintendent are as supportive about Comm anes as we the parents would like to see and I just want to use my time public comment to say that Kami NES was the reason why we chose to purchase a house in ammer and live here with our two children I have a bicultural family and I want my children to be able to speak with my grandmother my uncle cousins in a different country we value by cultural education we value bilingual education and um I want to go on record that many many parents feel like Comm anes is a real asset to the community I am not certain um any of the uh plans or discussions that have or have not taken place about kantes but the point is that there is uncertainty being felt among the parents and we really would like the school board and the superintendent to um uh come out and be transparent about their intentions and support for the program thank you thank you all right that ends public comment so the next item on the agenda is the chair's update which I posted on board dots to um two quick items uh and no one it is still the case that no one has volunteered to go to the masc conference so I'm I just assume we are passing on that this year but I did want to um bring to the four two items that are really for agenda planning but I need to know tonight so I didn't want to wait till the end and we might run out of time um these two items I don't want to get into the the content of what they're about because they're not noticed as being issues we're going to deliberate on I simply want to know um whether the committee is interested in being involved the first has to do with this um report on the state of the schools that the chair has to make to the town of ammer in December I asked Jennifer about this few weeks ago she has no recollection of past chairs ever involving the school committees so so that's fine I'm happy to do it all myself um but I want to give the school committee members here the opportunity to say no we we want to see it and approve it ahead of time um which which would be fine except still a little tricky because we only have one more regular meeting before it is due all right so I think I'm going to I I will say that unless I hear substantial protest I will do this myself the bo the whole committee will of course see it and get it and I would welcome your ideas for what ought to be included for highlights of the past year for the elementary schools I posted examples of past reports so does anyone want to do want the committee to be more directly involved this is the time to raise your hand and Reed can you put your hand down please public comment is over I'm sorry to interrupt I just realized that there are people that are trying to access the public comments um and we're not able to do so um I think they're having some technical difficulties or they're in an audience room or something like that is there a possibility we can have that looked into I see many PE thank you for um for raising that and I will just say there are many people present as attendees uh I think many have come in in the last few minutes perhaps and I considered that this might happen people might go over to the high school and then only find out that the meetings um been moved online so I I will have another few minutes for public comment later in the meeting all right okay thank you thank you for bringing that up so anyone who wishes to make comment public comment just hold tight and we'll we'll come back to that so I don't see any committee members with raised hands wanting to intervene I'm not taking any public comment at this time um all right so that's what I'll do moving on the second item I need to know whether to put on next month's agenda is whether this committee wishes as a body to submit a comment to desie regarding uh the pioner valley Chinese immersion Charter Schools request to expand enrollment by 100 seats we could do something collectively we could submit comments as individuals if we want to do it collectively that again has to be on the um agenda for next next month Bridget Sarah you're muted oh yeah I think I'm there now yes I would I would like to be part of um putting together something or that we do as a committee to um to speak to the the type of um situations and inequities that arise as the school expands over there yeah absolutely okay any other committee members I I asked for a volunteer is there are other committee members um agreeable to uh let's say if Bridget and I draft something and bring it to the November meeting feel free Jennifer is nodding Erv is set I'm fine you're fine uh Deb do you have an opinion yes okay okay thank you very much Bridget I will be in touch tomorrow about about how to yeah how to proceed with that all right um I didn't receive any school committee announcements but it's not too late do any members have announcements no okay then Sarah did we report out sorry I can't raise my hand right now did we report out on the um elementary school building um final bid situation I think it was preliminary last time um it was in well I haven't heard any more than was in a press release from the town and the uh superintendent uh Herman I think also issued a okay so if there's something more that you know that we don't that's I just didn't remember the timing of that and announcement with respect to se September seems like an awfully long time ago yeah all right um so I'll so we'll have the superintendent update and then we'll approve the minutes and then we'll open for public comment again all right and then we'll get into our new business so Dr Z do you I asked for um okay I just wanted to make sure I could share my screen give me one second let me bring it up can everyone see yes okay can you see the presentation yes okay because I think I'm going to address some of the emails that I saw around public comment and some things today especially when it comes to the programming um and let me start off by saying I think that at every point of my leadership I've been very clear on the fact that I am a transparent person I am a honest person and I am a person that leads with integrity and with accountability respect and so um we'll start off with our Arps priorities as always our three priorities student safety and well-being healing and stabilization of the district or District and I want to say that one of the things that I'm working on with our office our communication office and we're going to get that out is an infographic um not just for this committee but for the all the communities that I serve I think that one of the things that I've realized is that and um it's going to come out in my entry findings is that individuals forget that I am one superintendent but I serve three separate districts and so at any point in any given time when I'm speaking I need to be very clear on what district that I'm speaking on and even though individuals like the media may present me as the ammer superintendent at that time the content may be geared towards pelum or the content may be geared towards the region and even more so this whole um committee body serves on the regional um committee so you know we really need I need the community and I need individuals to be mindful of the fact that when I speak um or when things are presented what lens I speak from and I'm going to start presenting that so everyone is clear and of course data data and accountability for equity and I need to be very um as a superintendent I have to have I'm going to call it an umbrella View and I have to look at what's best for all children um and Equity is not equality and so when we look at what's happening in the districts and what we're and when we look at what the data States um or if there is even data then we need to delve deep deeper into that into how does it work so that every so that we're creating a system or systems that meet the needs of not just the few but also the many so our agenda today I'm going to go into our cracker Farm recognition I'm going to talk a little bit about CPAC um and how they were recognized as well as I'm going to hit on some points with the commantis program because I think that individuals are quoting from one lens and from the full lens and so I want to make sure that what is presented it's stated clearly um and I think that interpretation of what individuals want to hear directly or want me to say is not what I'm going to say I'm going to say what the facts are in front of me and what I'm faced with and so um I'm hoping that we could have deeper discussions moving forward around what it looks like and what my Approach is um and then there was a request um chair um Sarah you asked about our school choice numbers and so I wanted to present that as well I am still working on the class ratios I have that for you um but I think that I need to kind of break that down and kind of put that in its own update to walk through the committee and the class um the student class sizes that was requested so first of all cracker Farm was rep recognized as a Desi 2024 School of of recognition um that was really great these schools are selected through the state's district and school accountability system which evaluates school-based um on various criteria overall achievement and growth um this means that we were exceeding standards and reflects the hard work of our dedicated staff student and families of cracker farm this is really CR great um and critical for us to say that there's designation as a school of recognition by desie is a testament to our great work um and the achievement highlights the commitment and so I'm truly truly honored um to say thank you for the great work to Derek um to Alisia to all of the strong individuals that work at Cracker Farm the teachers par Educators even our cafeteria staff serves as Educators our custodians so the crocker Farm family where Crocker Farm they care um it's really really a big deal and so congratulations to them um I want to talk in my update about our CPAC our CPAC was recognized um and I received an email from one of our CPAC parents in terms of the great work that's happening in terms of disability awareness month and so they have been highlighted I think this is the ammer current and one of the key things is if you drive in front of our school and I wanted to show this picture there are these wonderful signs that talk about inclusivity neurodiversity um that CPAC has has kind of flood and I'm going to say subliminal messages as you drive over in front of our schools um and so thank you to CAC and just creating that level of awareness and inclusion and true um moving forward they are working um and we are working together they're working on a list of indicators around neurodiversity University and priorities that we should take into consideration as a district when we're um rolling out new initiatives as well as when we are looking at trainings what are some key indicators that should be included and this is one of the ways that we are definitely working with our advisory councils to kind of build that level of collaboration and communication for all of our students and um I wanted to stop and talk about this because it seems like um every time I address it because and I'm going to be very Frank because I'm not I don't know if I'm saying things in a way that everyone receives it well um but I am coming in new and I need to take the opportunity to see what all programs are and there was an email that was sent comparing commantis to the ilc program and I felt um there you know there are things that individuals are not looking at um and they can't compare one to the other and so I wanted to take some time and kind of go into you know not just what we've seen but what we're delving into and what are some key considerations for the future of the program um one of the key things that we need to look at is in terms of federal regulations and title three talks about um it doesn't talk specifically about bilingual education it talks about our English Learners and the fact that we are under idea have a federal mandate for our ilc program but when we start to talk about ilc and comparing it to commantis it's two different ball games and leagues um and so I know everyone is talking about I you know but the one thing I would like to say is that our in our ilc program runs on the same Pro schedule as Wildwood and so when we talk about the pros and cons of comment anst there are a lot of Pros um let's talk about language development we heard the parenter in public comment talk about the fact that they want the students they want their child to be able to speak to their family members in another language so it's fostering fluency both in English and Spanish and enhances students cognitive abilities to lead to problem solving and just that Doo bilingualism it's a big resource so that language development um a sense of cultural competency incre ingratiating both language and cultures um and creating that global citizenship and I see that where our students who are primarily English speakers are in the classroom with individuals who are primarily um Spanish speakers and so that goes to inclusive environment for our English Learners our students who are are would have been otherwise task as an English learner is now engaged in the content um with students who I would say are primarily in English speakers and so it creates that true immersion of the English language true immersion in the Spanish language and you can see that there's opportunity for academic growth um research has shown that dual language programs often outperform once it's implemented correctly once there's strong instruction in both languages once there is that level of commitment in terms of what the full programming and structure is supposed to be teachers are well trained there is high opportunities for academic growth and parental engagement the commantis program has strong parental engagements because parents know what they want for their students um for their children and they've outlined their needs um some of the cons that we've seen so far is scheduling and I think when I say that the commantis and I don't have it here as a visual but I will um share it when I say that the commantis program causes a scheduling conflict is it runs its own schedule schule within Fort River so right now what Fort River is it's a building and the building runs two separate schools commantis has one schedule that runs and then there is the other schedule that runs and that's why I want to skip down to this actually causes a level of segregation of the school Community where you have individuals who are calling students monolinguals I mean that's a term but then you have kantes explorers and so you create not a unified school you then have created an environment where the entire School Community is segregated you're either in the commantis program or you are in the Explorer Program you're e you're you have where you you have individuals being referring to children as this is a monolingual child like you start to put labels and I sit back and I cringe at times because I think about what ammer truly says stands for in terms of inclusion equity and those different levels and how we have to start to build in and make sure that we are identifying that and so it it's a research based as we start to look at it how are we now going to address the fact that katus has kind of created a separate group of students based on their language proficiency um leading to less interactions between English dominant and Spanish dominant students and seg literally segregating the school Community um one of the things that's a issue is our staff turnover our bilingual program reply rely on Specialized teachers and even this year right before up until the school year started we were still looking for certain grade levels teachers because we had a high turnover in our coming antis program and then there's gaps in our evaluation and man in um so we need to have ongoing assessments we need to have a deeper dive into the data to see academically how are our students who are in this program performing in comparison to their peers there's been a lot of conversation around that data but when I've asked and now I'm delving into it we can talk some more um after the mcast presentation but we're going to circle back as a district team and look and see how are we evaluating what does that data say how are they performing in comparison to their Pairs and how do we adequately monitor the program so everyone seems to be concerned about what where what the future is um one is program sustainability we need to evaluate whether we have the adequate Staffing the budgetary resources or resources and supports to maintain the program over time and how do we recruit and keep and attain staff members um to make sure that we have the adequate trained bilingual Educators that can impact the long-term of the program and its viability um we have to think about how are we adjusting to create an inclusive School culture where I can stand up and talk to parents and they not refer to children as monolingual or you know you don't have a school where we're talking about two completely separate schedules being run in the same school building I also need to think about the fact that in 2 years the two schools are merging how does that work together when we've adequately built a building that cannot sustain um students from K through 6th grade it only sustains K through fifth grade is Dr Herman's video Frozen for others yes okay definitely Frozen all right na I don't know if you are near Dr Herman yes Na's working um with Dr Herman now to make sure she gets back up thank you you're welcome that was Tanya yeah right hang I assume Dr Z's left and is going to rejoin I'm sorry we had our internet uh signaled out so we had to start back over oh my goodness we're all in the office U she's coming back on in a second can you hear me yes awesome I don't know where I froze well let's see I wonder if somebody else I wonder if I could share this screen and then you don't have to depend on your Internet to do that um you were talking about the what I think what you need to work out yes that's thank you all right I'm gonna go through it quickly um the things that we're considering um so again impact on school Community how do we create create an inclusive culture where students do not feel like they are segregated um based on language proficiency um where we are creating an environment where all students feel like they are one and Fort River instead of dividing the community it is one whole Community together um we need to consider what are the academic outcomes and clearly show that there are academic growths so we need to balance bilingual instruction with the core academic goals and ensure that students are adequately receiving the instruction that they need to be proficient and to meet meet grade level proficiency as well as showing you know just the successes of the program overall um and make sure that we address our logistical challenges again that address that that consider our program sustainability um which is logistically the scheduling and we've been I've been researching sear Ing and reading around the successes of bilingual programs and they show that a well-implemented bilingual program can lead to academic success for both English Learners and native English speakers however what happens is in the long term and over time Pro there they often the challenges and and situations start to such as Staffing segregation um and academic rigor start to impact the successes of these programs and so there are strategies that various school districts have done one is reviewing and ensuring that teachers are not only bilingual but are trained in effective instructional strategies so that they can often run the class in both languages um that is one consideration that I don't think we often have um making sure that we create the opportunity for a full inclusive School struct culture um there are School districts that have done implemented this and have made sure that they are they have found ways to curve the height of segregation to curve what is happening within the the environment so that it it presents as one school culture and all children belong there I think the labels and titles have have created that and we need to be very mindful of that as we engage with children and other speakers um and then just making sure we have a balanced curriculum and long-term commitment to the overarching program needs to be one that is sustainable with the adequate resources and budgetary needs as well as the um continued family engagement that comes around the entire program and the possible restructuring of the program so that's that and I'm hoping school choice um this year we had in ammer um from K to 6 we had a about I'm going to say 58 available slots um of which 31 were accepted and so um I will get that I'm going to I'm I'm waiting on it by school I'm going to get it by school so that you can see how many SP slots were by school and where they were accepted to so this is just the overarching number I will get the committee that further detail um to share um in terms of school choice and then I want to say thank you as always um we have our feedback survey this survey is up for about two more weeks um to help with the entry into the program and just making sure that we are um collecting where we would like to see the programs going so I will stop sharing and see if we are open for any questions on the committee yes questions for the superintendent Jennifer hi thanks Dr Z for that update um so just regarding Tomy antis I mean I wanted I just want to say I am I am firmly in support of continuing common anst for the long term I think it's a wonderful program and adds so much to our community our school Community um I think that the we know we've heard we've heard from well uh Sarah you haven't shared the written public comment that we received but hopefully you will do that later in the meeting I've read the written public comment and we also had one um public comment from don't that anymore we don't I forgot about that okay sorry so anyway it's on board do there's written public comment about com anes and I guess I want to say like the written public comment is very passionate from from parents who um whose children are in that program and I guess I I want to say like people fear losing what's important to them so I think the fact that this program is so important to so many parents is why we're hearing from from parents so the and and you know it they may be misinterpreting the things that they've heard but in a way that shows us that Comas is really important to them so um if if and if if problematic things have been revealed regarding kantes and the this the the feeling congregation in the school and the the feeling of being separated from the non-com students then those are things that we need to address and deal with in a way that supports the common anst program and the rest of the school community so does common anst have to be on a different schedule I don't quite understand there's no bells ringing right in the elementary at Fort River so I'm not I don't quite understand what what the difference of schedule is but does it need to be on a different schedule can there be more integration with the rest of the school can we do things to uh to make sure that it does feel like one school and that there's more interaction between common anti and explorers and so that it doesn't feel so separated so I just I want to voice my support for continuing and committing to Common antis long term whatever that looks like in a way that serves the whole school Community I think that what what was happening Jennifer is that because I'm not saying it in the way that and and again I'm I I'm going to be very clear the comments that I read and I received are because of things that I said in response to what I was asked and I'm not going to change how I said what I said what I am going to say is is that how it is run is an issue for how the building is able to be structured it is an issue for the for the program that's there it is it's not like it's not going to go away with the problem and things but they're Pros to it and I think that's the part that because I'm not talking solely about the pros and that's why I said here are the pros here are the cons here are our key con considerations and things that we have to Hash into but it cannot continue to run the way it is run it can't and and and it it's just not realistic to to what's happening and so I for me it's I'm new I'm coming in and the same questions you're asking I am trying to delve into I am trying to see I'm trying to te to to to tear it apart and say okay what are we missing why is it this way because it it just can't be that it can't it can't be that difficult that we're not delving into it and the one thing that I that I that I feel is that because it's not again saying hey I have never said it's a horrible program I've never said it's one that that we don't support I I've consistently said what is best for children I will stand behind of but it has to be implemented in a way where we know how it's going to be sustained we understand the problems that we're facing I mean if we don't have staff then how who's going to teach the program if they're not trained to do that and if there's instructional supports that need to be put into place and we don't have the funding or we don't have it there like honestly and truly we have to be and I am not going to sit here and be and give the nice answer which is to say this is a great program let's continue it next year knowing good and well that there are things that need to be addressed especially in the school Community Front where we're talking about we're literally talking about one building but we're talking about how does one community in a building deal with the next and I thought we came past that years ago so I'm trying to figure out how do we like create a unified front where everyone feel feels like they belong in in the same school they're a Fort River student and then when we look at the students who attend a lot of the students actually come from Cracker Farm while would like they actually belong and they come into for sorry um my sinuses have been on on on edge the past couple of weeks and Nicole isn't helping so give me a minute but um they come into Fort River and they're in Fort River but I'm saying for me even in the morning when I had sit and sit it had a whole host of parents around me and I said how many of you are non coming on his parents and I think one person was there and so for me like even to that how do we engage everyone so that everyone feels like it's one unified front it's one unified community and and it can be done but I feel like the the conversation is she's not saying this that we want to hear and so that is the upset she is telling us all of the things she's looking at and she's finding yes because at the end of the day I'm looking at Fort River as a whole that is housing two complete and and I walked into it there's an Explorer program and there's a commantis program think about how we refer to the children and what's happening in the building it's like two separate things happening in one in one building and that's the reality that's the truth the truth is that Fort River might be a school but the way how it's consistently presented to me to anyone else that walks in it's like hey this is coming on test this is explorers no it's Fort River Elementary School that may have two things running in it but it it doesn't run that way it really does not run that way well um first of all um just I have a loved one who's in the uh commos program her second year and you know I've always admired that program uh however I do appreciate your analysis and your way of delving into it I think that's something that it has has been and is necessary who did I go off no no you're there I'm sure all right so anyway um I'm I I really like that program the other thing is I I should have said in uh in terms of a school committee uh um announcements is that I went to uh Fort River open house and it was extraordinary in terms of the numbers of parents and kids who were there uh and it's it actually the second year that I've done this and I'm always amazed at the turnout I know that one year the last year was like over a 95% turnout I assume it was the same thing this year which I so I want to just applaud the uh Fort River Community because they're obviously are really really engaged parents uh not only for the common a program for but for Fort River and and of itself okay Bridget I would I wanted to say I agree I agree Irv um I met the PTA president she's a really sweet individual I think that there is a whole lot of great things happening at Fort River um um we had a librarian meeting I had a meeting with all of the Librarians and um the Fort River librarian shared with me that last year um the fifth graders were actually published in a book of poems and so I'm waiting we're going to have an announcement come out about that so there's great things happening in Fort River um there there's great things happening in all our schools but yes there are great things happening in Fort River and I do I want to make it clear I don't I I I mean I think the program is valuable I think there provides a lot of positives for our students I just also don't want to be unrealistic with where we are at and the things that we would have to do to improve upon how the program is being done and I think the push back comes in is that everyone thinks it's fine the way it is but there are there's always things when when you're asking questions or you're looking into things and maybe we haven't delved as deep as possible but um I'm deling as deeply as I can be all right Bridget I think I would pretty much Echo what Jennifer said and I I like um a few other people in the room I can't be completely neutral about this I was on the committee and part of a group of parents who are pushing from um you know many many years back to try and get dual language immersion into our schools before the Chinese charter school was even founded and I do feel like if our district had been faster we probably would have lost less fames so I feel like the program is really important to those sort of enrollment dynamics that we have and then it's also really important for um making groups of students who we see later on and when we're looking at things through a regional lens are feeling disengaged from school but here is a place where they're so engaged and they feel so much like they belong so um I do think one question that always occurred to me with dual language and I again I have that original bias and my very first job out of college was in the Dual um language kindergarten so um so I'm really attached to it but I always wondered is it possible is it something we could do for all children you know so um so I want to think bigger and just put out there that I wouldn't be at all supportive of eliminating it but I would be totally supportive of expanding it somehow so that there wasn't that feeling of division among our students especially yeah go ahead I was gonna say I don't know where anyone got the elimination from yeah that's that's the so that's the part right because I'm and that's what I'm saying because I'm not saying something the way that everyone wants me to say it if it makes them feel like she's trying to get rid of it that's not it I'm I'm trying to be realistic with how do we Su and that's why I'm like program sustainability is a consideration how do we sustain it and possibly expanded because dual language programs actually provide a benefit once well implemented once sustained but if it is not sustained then we have a gap the issue is how do we sustain it in the current environment that we have how do we take what we've have identified as conss thus far and switch them into Pros but it's going to take some work so I actually have seen where and in the research were different even here in Massachusetts different schools throughout the nation have shown where they cannot run the program as a program because it is a school of its own so they have taken that model and created a full school so those and that those full School models are the ones that are the most successful Nationwide because it is difficult to run it the way how it is being run currently and so a lot of them that has dis like a lot of the programs that have been disbanded or have been cut or not like when you look at the research it's because they've tried to implement the model that we currently have longterm and it does not work it is not sustainable so it is best sustainable when it is its own School are we there yet I haven't finished the research it's like we're we're still researching to see what that would take and what that would look like but again not because I talk about and maybe that's me these are the things I'm seeing these it doesn't mean that there aren't ways to expand on it there aren't those ways I've never said let's cut the whole thing and throw the baby out with the bath water never said that I said these are the things that I'm seeing this is the things that need to be addressed but there are a lot of Pros we just need to implement it in a way us sustainable and that everyone is supportive and that the school can run as one school building de hi um yeah I'm a little confused about having this conversation peace meal the last time I knew it was an agenda piece on the ammer school committee agenda uh we had a presentation from Katie Richardson we discussed um EX was in June um so we discussed and approved I believe 5 expanding or changing the focus from a 5050 model to a 9010 model um so I don't really know where the criticism or concerns are coming from but I would just like to say if we want to talk about common AES as a whole let's do it as an agenda piece and let's bring in all the pieces of information we have but um there's no reason to think that we are we're being asked to um make a commitment that we've already made and there's no reason to believe that we're changing direction and and certainly not with hearsay and information from other school committee meeting so I I just feel like this conversation is um not well not sorry I were home I just don't see where this is coming from um and I'd like to to to develop it in a thorough and systematic way if if we need to if that's what's being asked of us did you make this presentation in response to the emails perhaps so not not just the email I I have received questions concerns all all these things but Deb where it comes from is the fact that I believe one of our earlier ammer meetings and I'm like it's I stated that Fort River is literally running two schools within a building right okay and you know it's a problem that must be addressed it is it is a problem um but I want you to know that your comment just now where you're talking about you you you looked at the coming ontis model and you shi from 910 and and all these things and those things that were done that is what I'm speaking about when I said it's actually like running two completely different buildings or not even build like the build is Fort River right I would like for for for maybe for you to walk through a presentation on Fort River and how Fort River operates and then from that Vantage Point seeing their schedule seeing what it looks like maybe from that vantage point it could kind of create why it is for me a little bit of a concern and I think the concern that comes in and why this is why this is um Coming forward is because I've been talking about the school building as a whole the school Community as a whole and individuals are hearing me talking about Fort River as a whole and it's like but is she trying to get rid of coming no I'm talking about how can Fort River as a whole function where they have these two completely and I and if I could find from the data presentations where you know Tammy was able to show her schedule and just share that and so maybe that'll give a glimpse into where some of this is coming from but it literally even in the presentation I had to tell Tammy as the principal that you you're not even aware of how you are presenting this and it's coming off as Tommy presented Fort River and all of these things that's happening and then there was a portion where um I want to bring the schedule up real quick I need to kind of copy this out but um there was a portion where the you know Katie presented and Kam anes but in actuality Tammy is the principal of the whole building and so what I'm trying to say is that we I just need it to be and it's not intentional it's how it is structured that provides that and so that's that's the concerning part I think that everyone is kind of concerned about and if you give me one minute Sarah I know that well I I actually I actually I know there's much more to say and I'm sure we will have continue this conversation but I'd actually like to move on we have a so Irv you've already had had a comment I'm sorry I I really think we need we've got some other big um matters to address um okay so we hear the Public's concern and we hear your concerns and um this is only the beginning of a discussion of of I'm sure with the the future like what next year is going to look like so um IR do you mind your hand still up is it yeah I just I just I just seen saw this as a superintendent's up update I didn't think we were this was any kind of discussion on the commoners program and all question just follow up questions it was not intended to be that kind of discussion right we're not taking any action we've not yeah the committee is not doing anything about kamad at this meeting all right so I just wanted to update the community on what I'm looking at because I think there was a lot of question around that and and I I I wanted to clarify like you know coming in upon entry what are some of the findings what are the pros and the cons and that I'm not trying to cut a program I am trying to one look at a as a whole Community how does River function and more so what needs to happen for it to function safely whether that means it needs to expand and just be a Bilingual School then maybe that's it maybe it doesn't need to be a Bilingual School what needs to happen and what needs to happen in the next two years that we are switching to a building that is key fight thank and thank you for doing that these emails the public comments started coming in and I figured there there must have been something something to provoke the concern all right so the next uh item on our agenda is to approve hopefully approve the minutes of our September meeting um do any committee members have edits to request please put up your hand if so I don't see any so so I will move that we accept the minutes the draft minutes of September 17 2024 as final is there a second second Jennifer thank you this has to be a roll call vote so Bridget yes Deb yes Irv yes Jennifer yes and I'm a yes thank you okay all right so I would now like to reopen um the public comment period for not more than 10 minutes so I would ask people who've already spoken not to raise your hand uh yet and let's give any of the many people in attendance the opportunity all right Nicholas I can't see the Bergos please unmute yourself and give us your name assuming assume that's your name uh and where you live and then you have up to three minutes can everyone hear me okay yes I think you're not okay I'm I'm actually not Nicholas Bergos my name is Rachel um I'm using my husband's Zoom um so I actually want to speak on behalf of AD Acres I'm an employee but I'm also a parent of a child who is within um the 8 Acres educational system um so this will be relatively brief but as a licensed special education teacher in both the hoolio and South Hadley Public Schools respectively I feel that I can speak to both sides of the coin um that said I really can't emphasize the value of Education offered to the students at ad Acres the children at the school never cease to amaze me with their emotional maturity and their willingness willingness to explore the world around them they are profoundly creative wildly intelligent and resilient young people and I will be proud to hand my future down to them the teachers are warm they're loving they are talented and they are unbelievably qualified to shape the future of our community and our word and and our world offering students of color a safe space to learn explore and come into their themselves as individuals is necessary to create the Amor we proudly came to be so I hope we can walk the walk the same way we talk the talk I I implore the board to take a close look at the values ammer strives towards along sides the values that 80 acres practices and approve the public the private sorry the private school um thank you so much thank you please I'll mute you okay John bilderbeck did you speak earlier I don't remember please unmute yourself I I did speak earlier I will see my time um and uh take my take my discussion offline thank you thank you you can always send in a written comment to SCU comment arps.org thank you um next is aumi please unmute yourself uh and give us your full name and where you live thank you can you hear me yes I can hi um my name is aumi Parsons and I live in ammer and I am vice president of 8 Acres as an organization focusing um my focus is on Education team but I'm here today hoping to speak as a parent of a student at 80 acres um our two older children attend schools within the district um while our youngest is enrolled at the 80 acres homeschool Cooperative we Cho we chose to enroll our youngest at 80 acres because of its nurturing envirment and relationship based approach which honors each student's uniqueness and individuality fostering a holistic understanding of them as a whole human being in contast um contrast as um our children older children have recently been vocal about the persistent anti-asian sentiments they encounter on regular basis at their ARP schools um despite their inherent sense of justice and confidence they have chosen not to share these experiences with us for a long time opting instead to confront these challenges alone in hopes that silence might quell the negativity as a parent we value the opportunity to make a choice as to where to send our children ad acre school offers our children opportunities to feel safe acknowledged and celebrated for the humanity our children bring to um our child brings to her Learning Community I hope this school become more available to others in the community just as it has been a great fit for our child thank you thank you all right so that concludes public comment um s there are actually two more people how come I don't all right thank you uh I don't know why they don't go shoot to the top of my list but Georgia will you please unmute yourself and then tell us your full name where you live and then you have a up to three minutes um can you hear me yes okay my name is Georgia Malcolm I work at the high school and I live in South Hadley but I work you know clearly work in the district um yeah I'm not sure I'm a little bit confused by the 80 acres I really think it's quite inappropriate I mean we're trying to Dr Z is new I'm also the president of the ammer pelm Educators Association I'm a black woman from Jamaica so when people talk about social Justice and people of color I'm right up there um so Dr Z is new right I think she just got to her 100th day and what I can say unapologetically is that she's very open she's transparent the union we're not playing games with her we have honest conversations we H we ask her to do a Q&A because people have questions about the budget she agreed to that so I would suggest to those people from Fort River who have questions about cam antis or whatever questions they have they can reach out to her office and I'm sure she'll be more than happy to have a meeting with them but this is what happens in ammer people talk and talk and things get out and everything gets all misconstrued you know another thing is I mean Dr Z inherited a mess a financial mess a colossal mess that it's not going to happen overnight she's rebuilding the foundation is totally decimated and she's having to rebuild from scratch so I would just ask that people give her the chance they give the white people here's a black woman that's coming in and people aren't going to like the change but I would really appreciate that people give her the courtesy that they give previous administration who really wasn't doing squat thank you thank you Georgia next Banna o please unmute yourself and give us your full name and where you live and then you have up to three minutes hi my name is Brian Owen and I live in North ammer I'm here to speak on behalf of the 80 acres Co-op school um 80 acres is a wonderful School for students to learn curriculum rooted in racial climate Justice um as somebody that works at 80 acres and as somebody who has volunteered at the school I firsthand witnessed the growth of students and got to see how the school's in ative curriculum teaches kids about the land social justice and how they intertwine ad ACR school is filled with caring Educators who are constantly going the extra mile to make sure all our kids can dream big I hope you all move forward with moving the school application forward tonight because it would be a mistake not to like Rachel said earlier I hope that we can walk the walk the same way that we talk the talk when we think about the opportunity for students in the community thank you thank you and one final comment that'll be 10 minutes Sharon Carney I think please unmute yourself give us your name if that's not your name and where you live and then you have three minutes hello can you hear me Yes actually sorry this is Sharon's hosand k um we're both here um Sharon has already submitted a public comment and we'll try and keep our comments brief uh we're just very much in support of the C days program we have two kids that have had extremely positive experience in the program and and a third one uh hopefully joining in the next couple of years I guess I just without kind of going over kind of stuff that's already been said I think the one thing that that has raised the anxiety is we haven't heard uh before tonight or tonight just an explicit commitment to work with Fort River to work with the commantis family to make sure that the program is successful and sustainable the parents are obviously invested and are willing to do what's needed but I think just hearing that from the committee and hearing that from Dr uh X would um put everyone's anxieties at rest thank you thank you okay all right so now we're done with public comment of course we always take written comment and we'll move to new business I'll invite Adrienne Wallace to turn on her camera and her mic um and before I turn the floor over to her I I just want to tell the committee and the and the um the public that uh M Wallis first reached out to us in in late June and we don't meet in the summer and since then we've been caught up and trying to figure out how do we do this because it's such a rare a rare request of the school committee and I felt that our way forward as a committee would just become a lot clearer if she made her presentation to us and we would we would know what it was um we're being asked to approve so uh Miss Walla sent in um a document which has been posted on bardocks I'm sure the committee is seen I will now ask you miss Wallace to go ahead make your presentation do you want to show the document or just speak I'm sorry Jennifer just sorry point of order sorry to interrupt um could you just explain again to for the members of the committee and for the public why we're even doing this like what is it that compels us to be hearing from a private school that want to open in the town there is a Mass General law uh stating that school committees must give approval um or not but but any private school that wishes to open in a town must get the approval from the school commit the school committee in the town where it's going to operate regardless of where the students in that school come from and sorry we are to and sorry and and the the law says we are to evaluate I don't have it's in our policy LBC that we um need to determine make our determination on the basis of the curriculum and whether it's um um equal in in efficiency and in thoroughness and efficiency thank you thank you thoroughness in in effic and efficiency to that offered in the public school so it is it is traditional to hear give the petitioner um a chance to explain uh uh what it is uh her group wants to do so and I gather there already is a school in existence must not be in emers so um perhaps we'll learn about that too so thank you go ahead thank you Sarah thank you members of the committee um my name is Adrian Wallace Esquire I am here to share with you about um 8 Acres uh climate Justice Cooper school and our desire to operate a private school in ammer right now we operate a homeschool Cooperative um and we are really excited to have the opportunity to operate as a private school because that opens our ability to seek accreditation to seek um athletic opportunities that would otherwise not be available for our students so those are the main reasons why we've submitted an application am I able to um share my screen you should be able to okay yes oh well seeing somebody there you go yep okay just going to change to full View and is that your full screen or can you see other items I'm not I can't tell should we see your tabs at the top and some okay there we go yeah um wonderful okay this is the vision of 8 acers we believe that all students should have the opportunity to learn in their natural environment and also we believe that those are matters of climate and racial justice so again we have a legal obligation to present our case for operating as a private school to the school committee so that we can um operate within the bounds of the law as a private school so just to share a little bit about our grounding before I jump into explaining our curriculum we are grounded in the principles of the Black Panther parties Tempo plan informed by Decades of climate research um and committed to advocating for Black Liberation each day all sorts of people can do that um and we strive to nurture and educate the minds that will create the solutions for climate change um which is necessary now than ever and build Beloved Community in the vision of Dr King our comprehensive curriculum is taught in alignment with black American culture within a supportive and empowering Community just to underscore briefly climate Justice is absolutely a black American cultural value so as you can see black Americans are more likely to be alarmed or concerned about global warming and climate change than our white counterparts and that's because we know we are disproportionately likely to be harmed by the impacts of climate Justice and we have a different culture cultural value in um in community with the land so just to reiterate um exactly what Sarah was just talking about the standard of review for private schools in Massachusetts is set by the compulsory attendant law attendance law that's math General law uh chapter 76 Section 1 and this Law requires school committees to approve private schools when and if they are satisfied that the instruction is as thorough and efficient as the instruction in public schools in the same town just again to reiterate and underscore the school committee approval does not mean that the school committee either endorses or evaluates the program quality of the school it is simply examining its thoroughness and efficiency to be in line with that of the instruction in the public schools at the end of the day parents uh are responsible for and should have as many opportunities to enroll their children in a school that aligns with their values and what matters to them um and I have some wonderful news for you committee you've actually already approved ad Acres climate Justice Cooperative schools curriculum because we have a number of students in who have submitted homeschool applications which have all been approved each and every one along with surrounding districts you've actually taken a look at both the thoroughness and the effectiveness of our program and deemed it to be sufficient um that happens every time a student wants to be homeschooled for those uh who are listening who may not be aware you have to submit a homeschool plan to the district which then can approve or reject that plan and each time a student um who has participated in our program has submitted a plan uh to ammer it's been approved also just as a as a small note the last private school that was approved in ammer was approved by the regional school committee and that happened in 2020 so not entirely new to the process um happy to send you the notes or show you the video pulled from that meeting at any rate to jump into the thoroughness and efficiency of our curriculum we use a couple uh proprietary that are not proprietary to us but proprietary to other organizations um we use wild math as a foundational math program and I will um share some samples of that momentarily um for ELA we use fish tank uh which is literature based literature forward um program we also use a project Learning Tree for our science which focuses on Environmental Education through outdoor experiences and for history we use a people's curriculum uh for the Earth these are all research backed and supported uh curricular opportunities for students um for our art PE and music are teacher designed um so that they can integrate elements across the curriculum um that are culturally relevant and uh important all of that lays on top of our framework which is a pedagogy for Liberation from Palo Fred which again emphasizes empowering students as active participants in their own learning not the bucket model the community model um and making sure that students are engaged in environmental responsibility this is a little bit about the why and I'll just sort of narrate over this briefly while I share with the committee that all of these things are in the application uh packet that I submitted I wanted to give you a hard copy of this lovely 29 page document but um I trust that yall will consider it digitally so our curriculum our math curriculum specifically looks at math in an outdoor relevant way and what that looks like as students are learning for example um base 10 that can be represented by leaves sticks and trees that they've collected and found now perhaps that doesn't sound like a real significant difference but actually being able to see how numbers matter how scale matters how trees expand how they fall at certain angles and how that is a right triangle it's actually really informative to how students are able to understand the world around them and to actually be able to integrate what sometimes when they're written on a whiteboard just look like Concepts into their actual practical everyday St uh understanding it's one thing to say a tri triangle is the strongest shape it's another thing to build a house out of a triangle uh with respect to our English language arts curriculum we use a literature first curriculum because we believe it gives students an opportunity to not only do build their literacy skills and to focus on critical thinking but it also allows them to really build their own identity and to understand the identities of others our science curriculum again we use project Learning Tree connects science to social justice empowering students to think critically about climate issues that disproportionately affect their communities so we use a a broad approach again all research backed all um either common core or Massachusetts curriculum framework aligned um for history we use a people's curriculum for the Earth which is rooted in environmental justice and covers global history Z persistance Art and music again teacher design but rich and black cultural Traditions one element is African storytelling which has been a really powerful opportunity for our students to gauge in learning about oral histories and oral forms of communication um and again that's all grounded in our liberatory uh framework which comes from a pedagogy for Liberation uh we also have um a social and emotional learning teacher who meets with each group of students every day and we have individual learning plans so each student has the opportunity to have an individual learning plan that focuses on both their strengths and where they need to grow so we don't have a need to have an IEP for every student because effectively every student has an individual plan tillered directly around their skills and their needs now I'll just note too for the committee that we are a micro school right the reason why we're able to do these things is that we're really small um right now we're we operate um and invite K through four homeschool Cooperative students um in our vision is and I'll talk a little bit more about our vision in a moment but um as uh as Reed mentioned our class sizes are small we're not intending to be a large school our goal is to really be a micro school so we can continue this very individualized um but also community- based approach uh relevant to our application are our uh perspectives on education educator excuse me qualifications we really care about somebody being able to teach it doesn't matter to us whether or not you have have uh 75 different credentials in education or have passed all of your mtels what matters to us is that you can actually demonstrate that you can help young people learn whether that is from experience as a licens educator as a homeschool parent a coach Community tutor um whatever that experience is as long as you can demonstrate the ability to successfully teach students um then we are interested in your candidacy as a teacher we also require that our teachers be uh have cultural awareness and responsiveness so that they can demonstrate an understanding of the strengths of our student Community which is um diverse and and very powerful amazing group of students um we seek Educators who respect and integrate black culture and history into their teaching it's also important that our teachers be committed to climate Justice and social responsibility as well as committed to flexibility and Innovation and education because we work with children obviously safety is also important um and background checks are an important part of our uh commitment to keeping all of our students safe cared for and held um I'm just gonna again narrate over this I've talked about in the application too why some of these things are really important but I just want to step back to to sort of emphasize something that aumi said there are a number of things that the emmer schools do incredibly well I think their ability to like share curricular Resources with students help uh I'm sorry with teachers help teachers understand their teaching and how it connects to grade levels is really quite Second To None I think where there is room to go to grow is with respect to anti-racist and culturally responsive pedagogy all we offer is another option for parents who are seeking something else um it doesn't mean um and also there's Mutual opportunities to learn for example ad ACR actually operates programs in partnership with the high school um and with the middle school because we believe that climate change um and racial Injustice impact all of us and our goal is to really be a solution to those problems and we can't do that without Community with the under the opes of our school of course we're teaching directly ultimately 20 or so students in that space but that doesn't mean that we aren't invested in the community and also operating as an important part of it uh just to share a little bit about our long-term educational Vision we are seeking to operate at the end of the day a k through eight school we are only seeking um permission to operate right now A K through four school as we expand we will continue to seek uh the permissions that are required by law from the committee we would like to operate a small climate high school and one day even the climate College um I'm going to share uh some curriculum samples I pulled them up on my screen okay this is when my like Millennial struggles are going to be very obvious to everyone I'm so sorry no that's the wrong that's the wrong tab there we go so this is a um I would love to be able to share the entire curriculum with the committee however because they're proprietary materials I'm not able to do that this is a selection from fish tank which is where our Ela curriculum comes from um and as you can see the standards listed here uh these are the same standards that you'll see listed in both the common core and in the Massachusetts curriculum framework so I believe the first standard for um language is is almost identical in how it's written here there's some small small differences but nothing substantive um and all of those align and um fish tank is happy to share their alignment with Massachusetts curriculum Frameworks I'm not able to do that on their behalf again because it's p proprietary excuse me but you can see um that those standards are well aligned um when you consider and look at uh these are the uh the standards from Massachusetts curriculum you can see that the first standard is almost exactly the same almost identical um excuse me and when you look at our math this is our math curriculum this is from Wild math for example you can look here and see that uh standard uh counting under counting cardinality in place value number 20 is count forward starting at any number and I believe the Massachusetts curriculum framework is K I want to say it's KCC A1 um which is identical and then uh just another example uh under addition and subtraction um adding and subtracting up to 5 plus 5 is identical in the Massachusetts curriculum Frameworks I believe it's K CC A5 um could be six I think it's 5 but these are the same exact standards that you'll find um in the Massachusetts curriculum Frameworks again everything's all well aligned and we're making sure that our students should we'd love for them to stay with us forever but should they return to public school um we're ensuring that they have the skills necessary uh to do so so um just to give the committee an overview of what's in our application you'll find again our letter of application curriculum overview our teacher qualifications uh a brief side overview happy to provide more information but aware also that this is a public forum um and would prefer to Pro provide those opportunities for the committee to get to know a little bit about more our about our site um offline for security reasons um and you'll find some sort of underlying notes that are important to us about climate Justice education um and black liberation so I'm going to close and you know I understand that this meeting is um long and it's the evening so I'm going to close and open up to any questions that the committee may have I just want to like mind and bring to the front of really grounding in that thoroughness and effective standard um and I'm would be really really happy to answer questions and be responsive to whether or not our curriculum is thorough our curriculum is thorough and efficient as that of the public schools which again the committee has already said that it is um and then really would encourage the committee to offer the opportunity right give us give us the chance to offer the opportunity to parents and parents can make the decision that they want to make um as the stewards of their children so thank you again for taking the time to listen and I'm happy happy to respond to your questions thank you I think we'll first take um questions from committee members to Adrien and then we'll excuse her and have some time for discussion about how we want to proceed all right um so Jennifer thanks hi Adrian um thanks for that presentation can you give some examples of the ways that your curriculum is accessible to students who special needs sure and that would be a really appropriate question for you to ask if you were a parent considering enrolling your student because that is also relatively clearly outside of the scope of what's required to approve um the school but I will tell you that because we're small and because and and I'm happy to tell you because I'm really proud of it but I I do want to just underscore that I think it's outside of the the scope of what's required for approval um again because we have individual learning plans for each students where able to help each student get access to what they need to be a successful learner at 80 acres um again above and beyond an individual education plan uh an individualized learning plan highlights each student's skills each necessary necessary areas for growth and provides a road map that they'll need to actually be successful so we do that for every student and some students for example may have a complicated home situation that doesn't require a diagnosis but actually means they need something a little bit different in that moment students may have different language needs students may have different um skills that they were taught in the past or things that they want to move Beyond so because we offer individualized learning plans we're able to tailor our curriculum instruction um and resources to exactly what not only that student but also what that family needs can I chime in um and say Adrian I think you told me must have been in an email that 80 acres does not offer special education services and if you wanted to do that it would be Desi who would have to approve your spe your plan for special Edge Services is that correct that is correct which doesn't mean that we don't offer opportunities for all students like for example a student who uh has dyslexia let's just use that as an example um we that doesn't mean that we uh remove that student that means we offer them what they need through their individualized learning plan but just again like enforcement of the Ada is outside of the scope of this committee the committee needs to follow the Ada but the committee does not enforce or have the ability to execute any enforcement power with respect to the Ada and how that's administered um and with respect to special special education if we wanted to be approved as a special ed program or a special education school that would indeed have to be done through de right um Adrian thank you for submitting a really good application I mean it's was thorough I didn't I would like to say that going through it took some time but I I did enjoy going through it uh and so I I applaud you for that uh one question how many students uh will you have initially or do you have um I believe we will have 11 students initial in our initial K through four um chenko students all right good enough so anyway I applaud you for doing this and as a person who was a founding teacher of a New School uh I do know that it is incredibly uh not only um exhilarating but exhausting uh but it's well worth it and so I uh wish you well thank you and I'm long-winded I there's nothing I can do about that one but thank you no information information is good um Bridget and IR you can put your hand yeah thank you yeah thank you than you um so much Adrian I I'm really excited about the school and what you're bringing forward um it's so important I think the Hands-On learning at those younger ages for like integrating and processing the knowledge and um to have it so culturally embedded as well and then climate forward like I'm uh I'm really um just really glad that you're that you're taking this under and that some students are already receiving um the benefit of this I have two questions and I'll just put them out there the first one is just like in Googling I saw that you'd had approval in 2021 from the Northampton school so I'm just wondering what happened with that school or that type of thing um and I'll give you my second question at the same time so you can just answer them on your own which is like we have that period like K through four Early Learning it's so crucial for students and I think you've got all the building blocks in place there unless a student is bumping into something like you mentioned dyslexia or something like that and I do think to meet that thorough and efficient standard we'd want to see like what are your plans for evaluating not necessarily supporting but referr referring for um for testing Etc because if you run into a student like that our district is still responsible for providing some services and um figuring out together with you how to support the student if they stay at your school yeah absolutely we um I'll answer your second question first so we've already worked um with the district in the under the um umbrella of our homes School Cooperative with the district on particular plans for particular students with respect to um any needs indicated on an IEP or 504 we uh will continue to do so and we also work with some partner organizations who either have uh Specialties in a particular area like working specifically with students with autism or um if we need something more uh broad-based and we say hey this student may need evaluation we we're not exactly sure what's going on but it looks like there are may be some underlying concerns that we want to address so we've worked with the district already in our uh and have forms some Partnerships to be able to diagnose um and offer support for specific things um specifically around autism in this with this most recently formed partnership um with respect to to your first question which remind me of what that was just give me one Northampton thank you with Northampton thank you so many things going on here uh we were actually yeah we were approved in Northampton and then do you know that my staff primarily live in amers and they said Adrien we are not driving across the bridge every day and so they made me drive across the bridge every day um so for that reason we we relo re relocated we found out a lot of our students that were interested um a lot of our parents um and a lot of our staff actually were ammer residents and so at that point it made more sense for me to drive over the bridge than to have everybody else go uh the reverse way they're both terrible in the morning by the way there's no winning yeah yeah all right um I have I have several questions and then committee members may have more so there's just some things I want to understand you are already teaching according to this model but under the rubric of a home home school cooperative and you just want to reclassify it essentially as a private school is that correct that's correct we want to operate as a private school because it opens up athletic opportunities for our students they can compete against other private schools um and it also OPP opens up the opportunity for particular grants like if we want to take the students to the Smithsonian um if we operate as a private school we have different opportunities to be able to do that then if we are not are you changing your curriculum in any way to support your application to be a private school or is this this is what you do now no this is what we do now okay um I'm I I I heard you say and and I just want to be absolutely certain that you're applying to be a k through for school is that right because your said K3 and you wanted to go to K5 but so if so you are asking for approval just for K to 4 which means and if you get that and if you want to add grades you will need to reapply to do that so yeah we would need my understanding is that we would need to do a notification process um and then if the committee has questions they would be permitted to ask we I do understand that we have to apply if we want to add things that would need to be submitted to the regional Comm uh committee so if we wanted to operate as a middle school well that's interesting thing because it seems and and maybe it was different during the pandemic when children weren't attending school in person but it's our reading of the law that the regional committee has has no role because a school has to be approved by the town's school committee wherever it is operating so there is no town called Regional you know it's like if you wanted to have a school in lever you'd go to the Leverett school committee even if it had eighth graders in it so is it's our our belief that as long as you wish to operate in ammer no matter how many grades or what grades you would be coming to us yeah that's an interesting reading I would be happy to talk to Attorney Terry about um about those concerns but I would also say that those aren't particularly relevant at the moment because we are only seeking to operate K through 4 time I'm just harking back to your said that the region had done this and that but again maybe during they did and during the pic September 22nd 2020 right which would during the P during remote learning so it was may have been yes a different process then um uh Deb you're muted thank you I'm sorry um I enjoyed reading the packet I found it interesting and creative um and and I had a series of questions one do you want them like all up front or one at a time um all up front is totally one of the things you had said in your in your letter is that you were hoping for a timely turnaround so I was wondering what that turnaround you were hoping for looks like um The Homeschool approval and the Northampton approval of the curriculum I feel like is is a great jumping off point for us because uh we're required as you know to make sure that the curriculum has presented align with the mass standards which you showed us part of but I wondered how that's handled with the homeschooling students or the Northampton students how that particular issue was addressed um when when those curricular were approved by those well one by our district and one by the Northampton District um and then the part that I'm struggling with and look also welcome your input on as well as uh attorney teres is the part from desie that gave us guidance as to what we were looking for um and it said compliance with a applicable federal and state laws so I'm not really sure where they're going with that you said and it makes sense to me that the um special education part of that is beyond our purview so what um what can you tell us about that particular uh line in the Desi guidance that would um direct me and that that's all I have yeah okay thank you I counted four so I will go in order um with respect to timely turnaround I mean I think uh ASAP and the reason I'm saying that is because we've already been approved by the district so it would it would feel a little silly really honestly to say the the uh courts have said that the standard for thoroughness and and Effectiveness should be similar to that used to evaluate homeschool plans so it's a it would be hard to imagine what would be so fundamentally different from an application that was submitted over the summer to by a homeschool parent to this application now um will there back to our The Homeschool approval piece uh that those are submitted independently by parents that were reflecting on our curriculum and how our school Works um and were're subsequently approved by the district um and also I'll just note that um with respect to how those processes worked in Northampton there does not have to be alignment exactly with the Massachusetts standards it just has to be equal in its thoroughness and Effectiveness um we think we've demonstrated that I think I've demonstrated that in the application materials as set forward um but I'm happy to provide and with permission of any of the curricular providers uh more in-depth samples um happy to provide a like a narrative of what our class structures look like you'll see even in the application materials there's an example about our schedule um and I'm happy to provide any lesson samples as as long as that's okay by the Proprietors I also think like again as you mentioned it is a strong jumping off point that a similar District located not too far away also in Massachusetts has approved our curriculum um and again the district has done so itself with respect to the legal requirements and compliance you know I'll say this unless the committee does something you know approves something and I want to be really careful here because I am a lawyer so I'm not giving anybody legal advice I'm not providing legal advice to the committee you should speak to Attorney Terry for that um but my my understanding and my interpretation um of that piece of of the Desi guidance is really about you making sure that um schools aren't doing something sort of agre and their application materials with respect to if the school should ever do something illegal contrary to any federal law that would then be the under the enforcement power right a parent can bring that up and say hey this is happening at the school this is unfair bring that to desie or bring that to any of the other enforcement bodies that exist within the state or the uh federal government and they can they can pull something forward um with respect to actively sort of monitoring our ability to implement the Ada or immigration law or any of those pieces would would be I think far outside both the school committee's purview but also Comfort level like I hope yall are not feeling like we got to enforce better A lot here um but anyway again I as an attorney my best advice is to speak to yours about what those specific concerns might be thank you Dr Z hi good evening very interesting and and thorough conversation um and presentation I had a couple things coming in July 1 um and I'm hearing you repeatedly say that the the district already approved it based on the homeschooling for the parents and so for me I have um a concern and it's not directly towards this because I actually want to say that the approach of your curricular materials actually comes from Real World application um and the fact that that's actually what's how we're supposed to be applying learning consistently um so I don't have the concerns around that I have concerns around the consistency in the applic in the homeschool approval process and what grade levels were approved if you have if you are aware um because recordkeeping has not been the best so we could find that so if you have out of the grades that you're applying for versus the grades that were previously approved for homeschooling and this is solely from my edification um if you could if you don't mind sharing that over I don't mind sending the email um because I'm trying I just want to see for myself if it matches up some of the things that we found yes I would be happy to share those in the past we applied for approval for uh K through 3 uh specifically in emmer and no the other one would have been we had approval for additional grades but that would have been in Northampton so I will I'm happy to send those over if you want to compare what we have and those materials um to what's in our current application okay um can I just check that I understand what just happened you're Adrian you're saying you submitted or the Cooperative homeschool Cooperative submitt no what what happens is for homeschooling a parent applies towards the district they submit their homeschooling plan and the district is supposed to send an approval to the parent whether it's approved or not since coming into to the district I've reach I've only seen one package that has come in for this year um and there hasn't been a standard policy set of approval in writing and so the teaching and learning team has been working to develop that in terms of what that's clearly supposed to look like board for the district however in can I is it okay to say Adrian in Adrian's presentation what she's pointed towards which is is a valid which is valid is that the district has in the past approved the curricula in terms of based on the separate applications of of parents my question to her is based on her application this evening what grade levels has this District approved for her for not for her but for the parents separately so that so that we can know so I can as we start to build out our homeschool data procedures and things we can go back and see what grade levels have been approved that's that's that's what I'm I'm looking at so I'm using a part of that to make sure that we're in alignment yeah and just to record the response it was uh K through third right that so hope parents received approval for homeschooling with these curricula for k for one for two and for three but not for four correct yeah four would have been excluded but it would have been included in other District Palmer Sunderland Northampton right and the mere fact that students each year do not have to reapply for homeschooling um so basically if a a child was approved for third um they they they are more than likely approved for fourth um but again we need to those are policies that the policies or procedures that the district needs to put into place in terms of like a notice of intent and those types of things for homeschooling for the following year that's a gap on our end not on on hers um because those written policies are not standardized and in place so I'm just trying to figure out what grade levels for for our my edification thank you I thought I'd seen another Deb had you had your hand up or no further questions from committee members all right in that case we'll say thank you very much Miss Wallace for your presentation um I think we'll now take a few minutes uh as I had alerted you we're very unlikely to be voting voting tonight um and we we do have other things to get through but um I think it's safe to say that we will have this on agenda for November I mean I would I would hope that will be the case and um we'll be talking uh in the next few minutes about how to proceed to get to the point where we can take a vote on thank you I I appreciate that and my last and closing comment will just be that you know there are other private schools that operate in Amis and I understand that that process has somehow been lost to history even though there was a private school approved in in 2020 um and I would request again like those private schools have the opportunity to operate I think ad ACR should have just as much opportunity to operate um as a private school our impact on the ammer public schools is minimal it's already happening in fact um and so I would argue that you know the committee uh be encouraged to be as Progressive and as open-minded as possible and not make us face a harder process um we're entering at a time where it's indicated to you as Dr Z said right like many of the processes need to be reconfigured or strengthened or whatever ever the case may be but in our particular case I don't think that we should be punished and have to wait and suffer because the committee wasn't aware of its legal obligation to um to approve public schools and again I think we've demonstrated that we meet the thoroughness and effective standard so I look forward to your decision I hope it will be timely our kids absolutely deserve it and I hope you all have a wonderful evening thank you so much all right um so now we can talk a little bit about how to proceed um I will first maybe say say a few things about what we had been talking about at the previous meeting um we had started off with our current policy which is just a statement of the obligation with no explanation about how to what the committee would do in order to evaluate the thoroughness and Effectiveness I brought forward a proposal to hand it off to the superintendent to decide and make a Rec recommendation and um you all didn't like that so we found some more possible way or more ways in which other districts can handle this and that's where the Desi guidance but it's just guidance it's not it has no force of law as far as I can uh understand um that's and so we brought that forward too I I admit it was a mistake to present that information as a draft new policy at least we could certainly change our policy if we want but but miss Wallace the petitioner we have to evaluate her application under our existing policy so that kind of brings us back to square one I will also say that um when I met with Dr Z last week to talk about the agenda I asked if she'd be willing to to make um Mary Kylie or Tanya McIntyre give us three hours of their time to review the application re or or whatever else might be needed um and she said yes and Tanya is present we all heard that Mary is leaving at the end of the month um wish her well but my goodness what a loss for the district um so that's that's an option it does take some time away from an administrator but I don't think a very uh large amount of time um so that said um take comments Jennifer can I jump in real quick before Jennifer starts sure and explain that the reason being is as teaching and learning works to develop The Homeschool policy it would help for them to understand a private school policy because we need to form well not policy I'm sorry cuz the there procedures the guidelines that we are going to operate as as a district it helps that team to to kind of do it in alignment so that's one of the reasons and um based on a time frame for November Tanya will probably take the lead as Mary hands over all of those things to her so you're saying it would be beneficial to the district because of your responsibility for evaluating homeschool applications to have these two separate jurisdictions but essentially the same kind of evaluation have them harmonized correct okay all right Jennifer um I wanted to clarify a few things so attorney Wallace said that we or the district has already approved and as we've discussed has already approved the homeschool curriculum but um we the committee have not done that um my it's I'm learning as we go it sounds like the district or the central office the administration is responsible for approving homeschool applications in curriculum not the school committee and and now the school committee is responsible for approving the private school application so it's two different bodies and two different parties who are doing this it it it's it's good information to feed our decision that the district has all or the administra the central office has already approved The Homeschool application but that doesn't mean that we should just rubber stamp it and and it's a and we haven't seen we haven't we had we hadn't seen this before tonight um I also want to clarify that um you know our job is our responsibility is to um approve approve the curriculum as long as we're comfortable that students attending this school will receive whatever a thorough and efficient um education that the curriculum you know meets uh the ammer Public Schools ammer elementary curriculum um and that and that to me doesn't what that I mean no matter how much I um how much I support the philosophy of the school or not and in this case I really do that's not really relevant to what should go into our decision- making so we should we should be we should be focusing on what our job is which is to approve the curriculum all that being said I I don't you know I don't see any red flags I don't see any reason at this point not to approve the school not that we're going to do it tonight but I I would be you know in um I don't see any reason not to approve it at at this point and but I would appreciate hearing from Tanya about her um opinions and perspective on the curriculum so that we can vote comfortably at at our next opportunity thank you Deb yeah um I would like somebody and I'm perfectly happy for it to be um somebody in the superintendent's office to take a closer look at um the assessment procedures and the um alignment with standards and maybe some samp lessons I I don't have any problem um moving forward once that's done and and based on their timeline I don't see the need to wait until November when they're ready to kind of give us feedback I'm willing to have a special meeting if the timeliness is important for the schools functioning Dr Z I just want to be clear on two things one um policy IBG is instruction and home home education of students that is the policy that states that the superintendent has the right to approve a reject the home education plan um and then if there is a issue with the rejection of the home education plan it is then escalated to the school committee second of all I just want to be very clear is that Sarah Marshall did propose to have the superintendent or design review this and have this done after the presentation is done to the committee and that was a part of her original submittal in terms of the updating of the policy as I see fit right now I would give my stamp of approval on the 80 acres um homeschool program once I get the information and shows where it moves forward I like I stated I think that the instructional materials have a different approach um I think that the only thing I'm not clear on is how many students per grade level they plan to have I do not know if that's within our purview or not um I do know that my team is prepared to support it so that it can align with what we're doing in terms of the hes School procedures because technically even her presentation this evening of the fact that this District in the past has already approved the homeschool curriculum and plan whether individually or not shows that there was some sort of support that the previous administration who sat in these seats felt needed to be given to the programming at at large based on the parents individual submittals and So based on their individual submittals there was already an approval that is because curricular materials and curricular decisions falls under the aspice of the superintendent's office and as such that's where that's where the home school and home education of students lies I do think that that in essence there are two things that need to occur here one there needs to be a consistency when it when it comes to policies and updating and procedures and we need really need to take a deep dive um around what's happening with policies what needs to be updated what are the gaps and what are the procedures that need to be in place and for my office in terms of being the superintendent we are looking at what are the guidelines and things that we need to address in terms of how do we implement the policies that are in place definitely um but Deb I do think that making them wait an extended period of time for us to decide whether or not um it moves forward doesn't make much sense when evidence shows that grade levels were already approved by this District in the past whether it was of the knowledge of the committee or not it is within the piew as established through the policy that the superintendent was supposed to approve and reject so that's why I asked for for the grade levels um that were previously approved and then the fact that there are some procedural things that need to be added on and those procedural things in terms of notice of intent to continue to homeschool needs to be put in place from the superintendent's office that needs to be in there but that has nothing to do with her application as is I also want to be clear that the intent is to provide the students with relevant experiences that align with the curriculum what I heard her say was that as running a homeschool program that they currently run does not allow them to apply for funding for or different opportunities for students to um explore the experiential portions of it and I think that's the part that we need to look at so for for me I'm like I just I would say stamp approval um the team can take a deeper dive they're fine because it helps them to go through those things um Sarah Marshall did say once we had this meeting she would need about 3 hours of their time to dig deeper they're they're on board um but I also do agree that one of the key things we need to hear of whether or not um it is this committee past practice has been timely and she clearly stated that and if past practice has been timely then we do not want to show the face that because it is now 80 acres we are not timely so I don't know who whoever needs to reach out to to determine in 2020 what was done but I think fair is fair and if the standard of practice was 2 months 3 months a month then it needs to be extended to this this organization as as well thank you Bridget you're muted oh thank you so um I think we've been talking about curriculum and that's because um you know the piece of the application that was really stressed to us was about the thoroughness and efficient of the curriculum right but when you look at the criteria for accepting it and when I looked at the application in Northampton there were other things outside of the curriculum that are important for us to consider in the approval so there was like health safety someone like Transportation TSO we call it an amorist planning board like they make sure the site is good and good for traffic with children and that type of piece um you know obviously the fire and inspections now that it's not a home school thing where they're in the privacy of their own home it's a school there's certain additional criteria that are required and then um you know some things that the standard even suggests are site visit visits um what's our plan for like renewal how long are we approving it for before we periodically review those types of things I you know me personally I support this particular project um you know very much so but I want to make sure that we're also doing what we're required to do so that um in every case that we're being consistent all right I I'll say a couple things um in response polic our current policy LBC if I'm remembering the letters right States Our obligation and the only thing it talks about is curriculum it says nothing about health and safety I mean planning Bo Fire any of that all those other things um come to our or at least came to my attention through that Desi guidance but it's not a regulation it has no force of law the only law is the one that's reflected in our Po in our current policy and that's to evaluate curriculum so we could decide to make a super extensive investigation but the more I've thought about it the more unnecessary I find that because there are many um Town departments that have responsibility for for a lot of these things um there's there's the building inspector there's zoning board of appeals there's you know there's a lot of branches of town government that specialize in those things that is not what we specialize in you know we're we're in delivery of curriculum and in student learning so in this this is not a a 200 200 student school you know if it were on that scale then I might be more interested in making sure with so many students and so many moving Parts they had more sort of administrative systems in place but I feel that that is really Overkill in this situation Deb you are muted thank you um you had said that um there was a there was an email or communication from Attorney Terry around our responsibilities around this so just a conversation there's no there's no document can he send an email to the committee so that we could also receive that information directly I will I will ask him I mean you need him to to say that our policy is binding what what is it that you need to hear from him the way I heard heard you say it was that our responsibility is to execute our policy as it stands now and I'd just like to hear that from him directly mean that we can't change the policy during a when a petition is underway no meaning that our responsibility is to execute our current policy okay I okay I will ask him different from where we were going the last time we spoke which is you know well if we had a different policy then we would execute that but I was mostly last meeting I was mostly leaning on the guidance from desie which is not in our policy it wasn't looking at your draft it wasn't looking at Welsley draft it wasn't anything more than looking at what Desi said our responsibilities to the public are and obviously that is not relevant based on the guidance that you said that Attorney Terry provided for us and I just like to put those two pieces together myself I would suggest maybe well maybe we should all reread that Desi guidance because what I recall it saying is that here are things that school committees might consider I understand that it wasn't to do this but no I I I said it was guidance I meant it was guidance you said that he said that our responsibility is to execute our policy as it stands and I would like to bring the desie guidance together with the guidance from our attorney myself if I may thank you I'm just writing so Bridget go ahead thanks I think in um yes those other Town departments are are required and it could be as simple as making a motion obviously we're not there but maybe at the next meeting and thinking what the components of that motion might be um to get enough consensus or votes on the committee for like we give our approval you know um following you know we this is a yes vote that will go into effect as soon as fire and traffic safety and um you know demonstration of policy for referring kids under you know to special ed or whatever those particular components might be and then we could make a yay vote and if we receive those then we go ahead and it's all a go but I feel like we have one liability if we approve uh you know a place that's set up to go up in Flames not saying that's the case here at all but saying ly we also have an obligation for any students who might return in middle school or whatnot when the school doesn't continue past fourth grade that they've been received actually the thoroughness of Education that we want or that they need to have to be able to develop well in the later grades so those are just things on my mind I think that we really need to make some distinctions here between what the regulations are what the laws are and what the guidance are uh because you know those are three things and those are three different things and we uh when we are making our determination have to fit within that uh and and so if you're asking Mark Mark's going to say here's the law uh and and and that law is is uh part and parcel of what may be a part of a regulation or part part part of a regulation desie guidance is not necessarily guidance that is uh regulation or laws it's it's just that it's guidance so what we must be careful of is that we operate a within our policy because that is something we have as a concrete starting point all right we can't and should not go out and and introduce or create new policy uh uh and then have this school uh have to uh have to have have to deal with it because that would not be fair what we must do is make sure that whatever decision we make Falls within the regulations of the state I.E desie all right that and that that that it has to fall in that in that when we came up with our policy it has a it has a uh reference a legal reference there uh so we need to just make sure that uh and we also definitely should not be creating unnecessary obstacles and and uh in this uh this application let's in other words do not use this application uh as a way of U having us then go and produce the new regulation or new uh or or or new um policy that they then must uh um operate under uh let's go under what we know is possible now and then apply that not nothing new and I would say our policy does not make men Desi guidance doesn't all it does is say that we have to if we're we approve it if we're satisfied that the curriculum equals the public schools in thoroughness and efficiency end of story exactly end of our policy and I'm afraid that if we introduce a lot of other requirements um we I think we might face the legal challenge for you know how come we're applying you know doing more than the policy says so I mean I will ask I will ask Mark I don't want this to be I don't want this to be a situation in which this application gives us the opportunity to apply uh and produce a new policy that is that's not what this is all about if we want to change our policy afterwards I think yes we can do that but do not do it uh prospectively Dr Z I would advise this committee to please move forward with established policy as is review and determine after this process that there are things that need to improve then move forward with updating of your policy moving forward you would put yourself in a legal ramification like in legal issues with the fact that you are now choosing this organization to change your policy Midstream that's one two if we are not going to vote on this this evening and there are still additional information that the committee feels like they need I feel like you should give uh Miss wall give a Miss Wallace enough time to provide that information within the realm that this committee is justifiably supposed to ask for as outlined in your policy or in the rules and rs I think like that is the critical Next Step then if you're going to review the materials with the team I think at least sometime this week or next week to review the materials I do think that if you have the opportunity to review and recap what has been past practiced in terms of an adequate timeline you need to do such and I'm going to ask because we're Buton up on a 9:00 um hour and I'm struggling here because I really would like to go take some some kind of sinus medication that that the committee T makes a um a decision in terms of how you are are going to justifiably legally and clearly transparently move forward in this process to determine if you are going to approve or not and be prepared to strongly justify any decision that you have or or will will or will not make anything you accept or reject you are the final approving body just know that that's my last in this all right we do need to wrap this up so Deb and then I'm going to make a proposal you're muted I was going to make a proposal I was going I would like to move that we approve the 80 acres private school application for um K through four four let me just say that if we vote on this and we do not have three votes that is their application is defeated so um I want us to think think hard about pursuing that motion at this time uh maybe people can indicate in for like where what you'll take the temperature like Jennifer where are you at no wait wait my my thought is is to put a little bit differently do you do we believe we have enough information based on our policy to make a decision this evening well there's been there's Deb I would ask you if you could withdraw it at this time I withdraw my motion thank you so much because I would like to suggest that we asked Tanya mcen Tire thank you very much to review the material that Miss Wallace has submitted to uh reach out to her copying me if you want to get lesson plans um you know anything any more information you would need Tanya to um make an evaluation and and tell me like I I'm happy to call a special meeting just to just to vote on this if that's the only issue it probably wouldn't take very long so Tanya do you think like what's your what when can you imagine coming back to us at the recommend ation of the superintendent as you direct her I can open my calendar for Friday if that's available to you all um and if that's too soon Tuesday or Wednesday would work I'm sorry oh come back to us like you would have you would have a recommendation for us I will review the materials and um be prepared to recommend something to you on Friday it's Friday um if you can get me all the materials I'll I'll go through it all right well the the application is attached to board dots you should look at that and and then you will know whether you want to get additional information if there's supplemental uh information that was um shared please share that but um I'll go through everything and um be ready to present something to you on Friday um that's very ambitious that's wonderful to hear um that might actually be I would have to I would have to post it tomorrow and then if there were any delay it might be better just to to to do it next week that doesn't mean it needs to take a week of your time but it would allow allow for a little yeah maybe getting more information from Miss Wallace Jennifer my suggestion to the chair is that I don't think this requires a special meeting we have enough meetings and you've already informed Miss Wallace that we would be voting tonight so I think our next meeting which is only a month after we've originally first seen this application is sufficient and I think that gives Tanya and and attorney Wallace time to to go back and forth if there needs to be and then at the November meeting we'll have all the information that we need and I would imagine it's gonna be a pretty quick vote to vote to approve this like I I wouldn't want to vote tonight but like once I get Tanya's okay which I'm sure we'll get I think on at the November meeting it'll be pretty quick and if we could move on that would be great yes well I need to know from if there are any committee members who are just who will not be comfortable um uh will not be comfortable voting based only on the curricular materials basically that we've gotten already so if it's okay Sarah I just wanted to say when the superintendent was speaking I put my hand up before that because while you are were talking I went through through and read the end of Desi and then went back to our policy and um it seems like that for that while we do want to update our policy to include those other things and I think they would be ideal to have in place to hold this school to that requirement wouldn't be proper yeah I agree with that thinking yeah all right all right so I will confer with Tanya make sure she has what we have figure out if she needs to uh Reach Out to miss Wallace and and we'll just take it from there IR anything more I want to close just to be clear that when Tanya comes back to us the school committee we then look at what she says in light of our current policy yes yes that's it nothing more and nothing else yes all right thank you so much can we take like a two-minute break people go get maybe Dr Z can get her get her medication or whatever all right two minutes five minutes it just okay five minutes two minutes I'm in the office I am nowhere near home two oh oh all right go make it three turn off your camera turn off your mic if you want privacy but stay in earshot thank you e e e e e folks when you're back please turn on your camera so I know Tanya will you you're in school right yes yes I am I'm I'm still at the office okay so you all the middle school has heat do you know what the situation is at the high school they G have I'm not sure oh dear all right hi sah Marshall parts of the school does um we have an issue with the boiler we brought in the um we're waiting to confirm that the individual will be there so they're supposed to start they originally were supposed to start Thursday we asked them to bump it up they're supposed to start tomorrow afternoon um my understanding is this is a longstanding issues there are multiple boilers but one boiler actually is completely down and so that's affecting classrooms on the second third and parts of the first floor and so that's that's really what we're addressing we did send out a notification principle sadik Talib he did send out a notification to to parents um through parents Square an email and we posted it on our social media platform as well and then um he sent out an email to stop so all right we're tracking it we're going to make sure and we promised um parents to please keep them but I do want us to hit Mary how are you H um hit our next section which is on the mcast data let me just excuse me I need to confirm that every that we have I see Jennifer Irv Bridget Deb are you there you certainly have a thank you okay please proceed so um the next section that we're going in under new business is um we're going to be presenting the team is going to be presenting the mcast data um and District designations for the ammer um Public Schools um just so the community is aware ammer is the Elementary District um there is a Early Childhood Center Early Education Center um and three elementary schools Crocker Farm Fort River and wildwood um this evening we are going to be presenting the team Tanya and Mary Kye are going to be going through um the mcast data that's that was just released um and the district designation and so I hand it over to the two Dynamic ladies who are you know who are pushing teaching and learning um to present this this evening thank you Dr Z so Tanya and I are going to do this on speed dial because it's already been a long meeting I know there are other agenda items to cover um we did um go over the accountability guidelines last week for the region so we're hoping that um the committee members um will remember that we'll we'll go over it very briefly and for those of our viewers who are at home all of this this is available on the board doc notes um so in the interest of time we are going to give an abbreviated um presentation right now so Tanya would you like to skip ahead maybe to around slide 12 and I'll sort of fill in as we go okay so here's our accountability report for amorist and as we mentioned last week with the region the accountability report is something that desie produces every fall with two goals really the first is to provide clear and actionable info for families and community members about how schools and districts are doing and the other purposes for it to serve as a resource allocation tool for desie so here's the accountability report for ammer and um districts don't get um a norm referenced accountability percentile they get a Criterion referenced Target percentage so what that means is districts get judged against themselves um desie looks at where the district has been in terms of five different indicators sets what they think is a reasonable goal for each of those indicators and then measures their progress against those five um indicators so for us for this year if you go look down at the very bottom we actually went from 36% last year to 81 1% this year so it was a substantial gain the reason why we have the 63% um is they do a two-year weighted average so there was substantial progress on several of the indicators which we're going to look at in a second so here's the breakdown there are five indicators as you can see on the left they look at achievement and growth those are both related to per student performance on M c um they look at high school completion which obviously is not relevant for the Elementary District they look at progress toward attaining English language proficiency that's measured through the access testing and then they look at um additional indicators which Advanced coursework doesn't apply for an Elementary District so it's basically chronic absenteeism so you can see in the achievement and growth sections um we we had quite high ratings desie thought that we were making significant progress and Tanya's going to dig into that a little bit when she goes over mcast scores um and then also on the um chronic absenteeism last year we actually had a zero out of four so there's progress on that as well this was just 2023 some my comments were based on that so you can move and people can look at that online this is a chart that we showed last week for the region as well just so that um viewers and the committee could see how we're doing with our participation rates in the mcast and access testing desie um is very strict about this they want a 95% participation rate it's actually required by the federal government as well and you can see that we've fallen down on this um over on the right hand side with the Box in green that's the state participation rates um for students in various groups and then the blue is ours so um we're not achieving that 95% always now this is um this just shows us for the three schools um the the individual schools do get they get Criterion referenced um measures so they do look at their own indicators and their progress on those indicators but they also get a norm referenced piece which means what they do is they just rank the schools from lowest to highest across the state just like with mcast that being you know where students get compared to all other students rather than just to themselves for these for these indicators on the bottom all the schools across the state are being compared to each other so you can see um Crocker Farm is almost in the top quarter of all the schools in the state on on this particular ranking um Fort River and wildwood are both above the midpoint and this we talked about last week as well with meeting or exceeding expectations that's what we look at with mcast scores and on this chart you can see that for 2024 amorist was above the state in all areas this is for all students collectively um in all all mcast tests at all grades except for grade four math where we were slightly below the state average now we're going to look briefly at the breakdowns by school so the schools as I said they get that um they get the accountability percentile which the district doesn't get that's where Crocker got that 71% and then down at the bottom they get they also get measured um against those five indicators so Crocker had a substantial jump up this year from 44% last year to 80% this year with an and then their overall weighted average was 66 so um here you can see there's um strong there's some progress on both on achievement and growth with mcast and and also um the English language proficiency that was substantially lower that was Zero over four last year two over four this year this is Fort River Fort River um went from 38% last year to 79% this year so also some very strong growth in terms of um and this is the Criterion reference piece right so that's their they're being measured against their own Improvement Targets on this part and you can see here um Tanya will will point you this um also with the mcast the first two the achievement and growth um they're getting four out of four this year um not just for students at large but also for the lowest performing students um this is these charts are interesting because they don't for for for example for Crocker to get four out of four and for Fort River to get four out of four does not mean they scored their students scored at the same level right it means that the targets that the state set for them were achieved and you'll see when we get to the mcast breakdowns that in fact there are differences among the schools in terms of of how their students are doing on mcast but this is still very encouraging because this means that that we're making very good progress in terms of of our individual Improvement targets and this is Wildwood so Wildwood went from 46% to 67% and again with the accountability percentile above the U midpoint and here there's a um Wildwood did did you can see um had some strong four out of fours with with the achievement um and strong on the growth with the mcast um did did not get scored as highly with the lowest performing students so that would be a difference from the other two schools thank you Mary so just to remind you we're going to be looking at exceeding expectations and meeting expectations that is that M plus e category when you take a look at um the results and again we're going to do a speed round for uh for this information just to make sure that you see an overall uh delineation of what's happening so here's the breakdown of uh schools and also our ammer Public School District even though it says ammer pelum these are just the ammer schools that U we're looking at the ratings of uh last year we were at 50% this year we're at 52% I put in slides for each of the schools and Ela that was the first now we're looking at math again raising from 43% to 49% and then we're looking at science a big jump from 41% to 57% when we look at what's happening overall with our amoris elementary schools I gave you also the breakdown like I did last week for the high school and middle school you have um by Race by high needs IEPs El low income you're able to dig into that data and see it and I included the charts to give you a a clearer picture of what's Happening as we look here on Ela M plus e meeting plus exceeding um our white students are at 65% um our multiethnic students are 58% and then there is still a gap here uh with our uh Hispanic Asian and black families um with our Hispanic families being our students being at 20% if you look similarly on Ma we still have that large gap here um our Asian students are closing the Gap from 67 to 63 but there is still a wide Gap with 24 and 26 for our uh black and brown students and again you'll see to the right we're looking at high needs the gaps between our high needs students and our students with IEPs our El students as well as our low-income students as we look at some science um kids are really doing well our white kids are really doing well the 74% meeting and exceeding again um our Gap is there and if you notied the big gap there with Black and Hispanic students we're black kids uh we're at 177% just like last time I gave you the full Desi accountability uh slide where you can click on it and go to school profiles but there's also just the ammer profile as long as well as the district um beyond that oops let's go that way when you take a look I also broke it down by each school for each that um each uh subtest that was taken so you'll notice that I gave you a five for Crocker farm for Crocker Farm Ela Crocker Farm math rocker Farm science Fort River and if if you want we can take a look I just wanted you to know that we have it for every school as you look at Ela with our um Fort River school again same setup in terms of how you look at the data our white students at 60% for uh meeting and exceeding our Hispanic students are at 10% here notice that the Gap is larger between our uh White students and Hispanic students than it is for our black students and our Asian students here it's where and I'm Point stopping here cuz this is the one place where if you notice the Gap is smaller for our black students than it was in in any other um School R subtest but here the Gap is so large for our Hispanic students 10% to 60% again math here it goes back we're looking again um our Asian students are outperforming their white counterparts at 71% again Hispanic and black students are um behind with 18 and 20% uh I want you to note that here in Fort River science you'll notice there is not a percentage for our Native American or black students and that's because it's a smaller cohort of students so they don't give a percentage so you can't identify students that way um but you'll see again the gap between our white students and our Hispanic students 71 to 29 % and I just to jump in here real quick I know we're speeding through it um but I want to highlight the fact that at Fort River and I know that this is why we have to have the deeper conversation around what's happening with instruction as as a whole in that entire building because the gap between the Hispanic students and and and other demographics exceedingly hits over 60% in each one of the each one of the sub core subject areas so even though it houses our bilingual program it it is one that we're seeing that something is not happening where the instruction correlates with how the students are performing and again the growth is based on how they align with themselves so they are not even being being um matched against another another school this is just within the Fort River building itself so again this is why we're diving into the the and I know we're going through it but I think with everything that we're talking about we have to give a full picture of what's Happening sorry Tanya speed through the rest oh no problem um and again we have the same breakdowns for Wildwood um again we're looking at our Ela Math and Science I again I put in the different uh charts for you so you could be able to see it visually of what's happening but you also have um the percentages here in ela 7 4% for our white students 73% for our Asian students and then noticing that our Hispanic student and black students um they're at 18 and 37% uh you have the same information for math I want you to notice here uh 56% for our uh White students our Asian students are outperforming their counterparts with 88% but our Hispanic students are at 5% and our black students are at 133% and then finally with science again notice that the the Gap is between our Hispanic and black students as compared to their Asian and white counterparts um I have um several other slides here for you so that you can see the breakdown for participation rates like we did um last week with the high school and middle school you'll see it for all three elementary schools for each grade level for each subtest so I'll turn it back over uh to the superintendent so I do want to say thank you Tanya thank you Mary um I know we have might have a few questions um but I really want to highlight the fact that again what we're seeing is that instructional model and and materials that are currently in place even though our there are students and supports that are there we're going to delve deeper to see if what we have supports all and then we have to to Spyro back can determine what are we missing in terms of instructional gaps um what you see is though like if we look at Cracker Farm there seems to be a balance in terms of what's happening with some of the subgroups however there's still a gap between our Black and Hispanic students and our Asian and our white students in certain subject areas what we are also seeing that are positives though is that our black students are performing in mathematics they just need to determine we we now need to de deeper and determine what are those specific domains that we need to shift and change so when we look at data right now we're presenting our overarching picture but we need to dive deeper into what are the domains what are the areas is it geometry is it specifically um like I said before we have issues with writing um when we look at reading is it informational text versus literature how do we shift our instructional model and what's taught when so that students are clearly exposed and starting to master those skills another concern of the Elementary level is how we Pro how we present progress to parents because our current reporting model one is standards based and two only happens twice a year we don't adequately allow we don't adequately inform parents around student progress for them to support them at a timely at timely we timely so we are sharing things that are I reports and different and different aspects but again there are some guidelines and procedural things as a district that we need to put into place and we'll present I'll present those findings in my report of Entry um so that you can kindly see what are some things that we now need to to to put forth um but we do need to delve into our critical subgroups um overarchingly we seem to be growing we seem to be doing well but when we delve into our subgroup instruction does not is not Equitable across our subgroups and when we look at our schools especially when we tell into for example Fort River where we should see an increase in terms of our Hispanic and Latin populations where they should be outperforming or doing well because of our bilingual program we actually are showing where they're not meeting or exceeding standards and so that's that's again where we need to talk about what are the pros what are the cons and how do we sustain these and delve deeper into what are the domains what are the gaps that we're seeing what's happening um and so we we are working in terms of building out our data dashboard I have to say thank you to the ladies because this the screenshots of the mcast data actually came from our initial dashboard that was given to us so you get to see what we are going to De I know what we're going to delve into when the full dashboard is is given we will actually be able to highlight students by programs we'll be able to highlight students you know to be able to say adequately against subgroups what are they doing and even down to teacher and classrooms so we really want to delve deeper and create an an atmosphere of data um and I'll stop talking and open up for a few questions and hope that this committee acts for us to amend our agenda but go ahead well to that last Point hold on hold on I well I want to end this meeting at 9:30 it's been a long night and thank you Mary and Tanya for for and everybody for hanging in here um and I do want to give Dr Z time to talk talk about the budget you know whatever she has to tell us about the budget so I don't want a lot of questions now I see two hands two questions and then we're moving on I'm sure we're going to be coming back to this these data because it's going to come through eventually in the budget and in school implementation plans and in curricular changes so I I think we can make time for for more discussion but just a two quick questions and then we'll move on De and Sarah if maybe if if the committee members who do don't have their hand raised now if they can email you the questions and then you can email it to us we can send our responses back and even post it on board docs thank you yes so collect collect the questions so good idea Deb our um math and Ela interventions at Fort River available in um Spanish and English um give me one second I'm going to do something really really quick and I know um it is supposed to be but I want to show you real quick next question while I pull this up go ahead B what's your question two questions one well one's the question uh is this presentation available on board do for us it is second is an observation that the uh differences the inequalities persist across all grades from elementary gr School through Middle School and High School uh for those uh who are africanamerican Or Hispanic it's an incredible uh kind of wakeup call for this school district because our students lowincome minority Hispanic black are just not getting what they should be getting they're not achieving at the levels that they should be achieving at and I hope that this community looks at this and says hey this is not not only okay to me when I look at it and and and and now that I've seen it all through all all of the grades including High middle school and high school this this is not something that I can see as as something that's just a matter of passing curiosity this is a crisis and this community needs to realize that is a crisis for our minority students and I agree IR um I I want to I'm going to jump back to your thing and then Deb this is Fort River schedule um this is what Tammy has been running for the past couple years what you're going to see is this is the Explorers program Mary if I'm then then you have commantis in in two groups so you have Azul and you have Rojo the blue group and the red group 910 and as you can see this is a part of what happen and this is how they have literally tried to make sense of running the pro yeah Deb I I see how you're holding your head so this is why I said one we correct and so this is this is what um they have had to try and and make happen so when you ask about interventions in commantis and stuff you can see that it happens within tier one or with inter TI one instruction um but again this is running a staff and trying to run a schedule and as you can see there's 1 2 3 4 like like yeah so one two three and four about yeah Lunch Period so this is commantis this is commantis and explorers in Fort River this is what they try to operate within and this is what I've been saying when I say that it actually operates in in in a way that's not conducive for the school building so when you ask about what's available um they do try to build in the content and the instruction and terms of interventions and it rotates throughout throughout the school so I'll stop sharing that and then we'll set up for them to come and do a presentation for you I agree it's a it's a it is a crisis it's um it's very disturbing um is but we need to know where we are where we are in order to do better and and be able to measure that progress so I I'm glad to see data this is the first time I've seen the data so thank you again for that let's move on um I'm ready and get a budget update all right so we're going to zoom through this um as much as possible thank you Shannon for bearing with us and so Shannon's going to jump in and assist me um we combined our quarter 1 update with our um preliminary budget data can everybody see the screen yes all right so in terms of our quarter 1 update um throughout the first quarter at 25 admer Elementary School is proceeding as expected um there are couple things that facilities and districtwide support which includes Foster and home clear transportation is homeless transportation is trending high and we are expecting that will need some adjustment or as we move throughout the fiscal year so we are monitoring that um they we have encumbered thus far um and the amount of funding we've encumbered as far that's our major concern um and not so much the actual spending to date we also know that salary payroll is tracking kind of low but what we are seeing and what our concerns are going to be moving forward is the fact that um and I'm going to say this we are experiencing a addit of our salaries and we're seeing that there are certain things that we in terms of payroll and we are seeing certain things that we are addressing um so we do have some payroll concerns however because we are um preparing for FY 26 we do have some concerns well as well around where and bringing on new staff um and we'll present that when we move forward we also I would also say that read through the update that's in there um that I attached to board dos right now so we could talk about that um special education is trending above expectations in some part due to the incumbrances for staff positions that have not yet been filled um and as well as Services because of our staffing attendance as well we've had to procure a lot of services um also the emmer school district the Elementary District does have a lot of outof District placements I believe and so right now what we're looking at is or we have individuals who have come into the district um rightfully so and they are in need of um supports and services especially when it comes to Staffing that we have had to budget for and that is coming from our special education um facilities is also trending on the high side and we need to look to refine or reduce our incumbrances based on actual spending as you know we spent for Cracker farm with the fire um alert system update there are some other things facilities wise and one of the things I'm going to tell you is that the impact of deferred maintenance is coming to on head and so things that we did not budget for because we thought we didn't think about um deferred maintenance is coming forth and we are definitely tracking higher when it comes in ammer so we are definitely looking to see where else in the budget we can support facilities because without adequate facilities there is no environment for teaching and learning um so there are I just would like you to know I'm probably going to Institute a budgetary freeze um um to make sure that we can adequately uh afford to make it through quarter 2 three and into four without ending the year wondering how we're going to pay for certain um things so the preliminary FY 26 budget there are some assumptions that are in place um one we took into account that this is a um contract negotiation year with our largest bargaining unit apaa so we're looking at what are some possible steps and cola that we can go up to we are trying to determine what is the adequate percentage that we can go up to for our staffing um we also look we also applied about $750,000 of school choice in the line I did present in the update our school choice numbers and say what we projected versus what we filled um we did apply our circuit breaker to special education around $382,000 um we looked at the support from UMass at 185,000 and that was applied within the payroll lines there are some positions that were in there I am going to express that I do have a deep concern in applying I know that was past practice but I have a deep concern of applying um gifts to actual salaries um and so the team and I are working at what that's going to look like um and kind of flipping that and taking that out of personnel cost and into operational cost so that Personnel is not impacted as was recently happened in another portion of another District that I run um and then estimated 13% as you know um from the regional side we were asked to estimate our health insurance at 133% increase this year that's a that's a serious increase um not just our health insurance our actual liability insurances went up this year drastic Ally including our employee liability insurance we are considered high-risk districts um and so Amis is in there in terms of our employee liability insurance and that went up um this year as well um we're budgeting out because we have to go out and bid our transportation a suggested Transportation increase of about 10% um and so one of the things we're going to look at too we haven't run all of our cost savings scenarios um but we are running we are going to run through our scenario a couple of this right now but we haven't been able to do the cost savings this is a preliminary conversation and then we're assuming that the town is going to give us 2.5% increase from last year um and then we also took into account that we do not have Esser funds and so there are things for example there's $500,000 that we budgeted in 205 um that we don't have to account for in 26 so we are about to I am about to show you what the reality is for the upcoming year um right now this year our projected um our projected deficit with the 2.5% and all of the um projections all of the assumptions that we I just ran through in place we would have a deficit of $1.4 million in the ammer district um again things that I want you to to look at there is an increase in central office this is not in terms of personnel this is an increase in terms of operational costs one we are looking at our legal costs um we do have an increased numbers of personnel cases and matters two we're trying to account for the Amorous portion of the increase in the employee liability and our general insurances and so between insurance and legal cost um that is where this increase of the central office lies because that's where the overarching budget lines come from we are also looking in terms of transportation again knowing that we're going out to bid this year for a new Transportation contract we need to increase about 10% and we're looking at our projected routes that we had this year in terms of um f funding out in terms of our students who need support not just in in terms of our general education but our special education service transportation services additionally if you look at our risk and benefits this is the largest increase for FY 26 at 762 th000 approximately this increas is this large because one again we're accounting for the 133% health insurance increase as well as the fact that our risk and like like there are other things that we have to put in there but this is solely our health insurance increase with a smidgen a smidgen accounted for in terms of our other insurances that we pay but largely this is our 133% health insurance increase and so again with the town budget Target um the increase needed for 676 th000 um after we reduced out our circuit breaker and different things of special education we will still have a projected reduction or deficit of 1.4 million so as we did with the region we want to present tonight to ammer what are some possible scenarios um we have three scenarios that we have brought forth to the school committee in terms of budgeting um one if we have the standard 2.5% um we would be at that deficit of 1.4 million which was presented the again the scenario 2 at 3% we would be at a deficit of 1.2 million again key things to think about because we had in the FY again realistically we budgeted into FY 25's base the 500,000 from Esser that was accounted for in terms of things that to operationally or even Personnel to function now that is not there and we increase our insurance with 700,000 you are seeing the impact again of not having a clear realistic budget that did not include a dependence on federal funds um that that that that brings us forward into this and in scenario three asking or having a 4% we would have a flat about $1 million we have not run saving scen possible saving scenarios as yet um at all we need to run that through to determine on the elementary level that is one reason one where we looking at um this year in terms of Us closing out quarter 1 we're in a good place but we are seeing again like I talked about facilities is trending higher um special education is pushing up higher and we're looking at what personnel that we do definitely need to bring in because we don't want to bring individuals in for us to then have to release them due to the fact that we have seniority claes and other Clauses in place and so that is where where we are at in terms of our FY 26 this is still early in terms of projections um we have started we we do have negotiations with APA coming forward um we do have different scenarios and conversations that we still need to run with the team um I have not the the budget team sent this over to me I'm presenting this to you we have not run the possible scenarios with the with the district team to determine what or how we would need to shift um it will be a grave impact to Elementary programming we need to be able to determine what this needs to look like look at if it's going to be Personnel versus operational I will always go to operational first um in terms of what operational cost we can cut and what does that look like to reduce the impact to our programming as you can see our students need that direct instruction um they need that strong tier one tier two and tier three supports but our budgets may not be able to support that and um we need to determine what we are doing I will say that the team and I have to thank Shannon has been very Vigilant in trying to apply for different grant funding and competitive grants um a part of that we know is the fact that we are gapping a district Improvement plan um Mary has some um I think the last time we updated AA plan but there are some the district needs to set the direction so that the schools can move forward so we are looking at how we can set that District Direction um and create a district Improvement plan so that when we apply for these competitive grants we have a solid plan in place um but these are the scenarios that we're faced with so I'll stop now so we can have some questions because I know we kind of Pass Time Sarah thank you um boy so much so much challenging news this evening um I would just remind every and thank you Shannon for for being here and so late I would just remind the committee and and the public that the town of amorist will present its Financial indicators which is kind of its early guidance about what next year the next budget year is going to look like and start handing like here are the probable percentages at a meeting um on November 4th and that'll be a joint meeting with Town Council and then all the school committees so we'll get some more information there and see if they're even contemplating three or four% or or what so let's take a few questions and and Sarah I know in our planning meeting for this this was one of the reasons why you wanted us to kind of start and I know you were hoping that we were able to and so I'm I'm very happy that we were able to run through at least the three scenarios we don't have any cost saving measures like I said but at least now this gives the committee an opportunity to step in and talk about what would be best yes thank you thank you very much and to the whole team for doing this yeah I think given that we will have the financial indicators soon I guess I I wouldn't ask that you start presenting what the cost what the cost savings might but no that works thank you yeah going back to that quarter one report where um there's three lines that are trending above 3/4s but two are indicated no two are yellow and one is one is green um all is red I'm sorry two are yellow and one is red um well that's the 57 that's the facilities but there's 79% districtwide sped 97% districtwide support and 83% other programs is that because a lot of the expenses for those programs comes in the first quarter the ones that aren't red or yellow I believe so Shannon go ahead yeah so for districtwide sped a lot of those costs are encumbered at the beginning of the year um for the entirety of the year so we're not really too concerned okay um with that and then the um District both the sped and the support okay yeah I could tell you the districtwide support I looked at that specifically and um the homeless SL boster care was over um than what we budgeted by about 15,000 so that's the main driver right there okay thank you Jennifer thank you for the early data and for the scenarios Dr Z and Shannon um and and the rest of the team um I hear you saying you haven't talked about or or thought about um uh what what what the what the potential Cuts would be um and but um you know the we're gonna hear or the financial indicators meeting is soon and it's be it's November 5th right and our next ammer school committee meeting is going to be after that and I think we can be pretty con pretty confident that they're going to give us one of those numbers so um I just would ask like we don't we don't need like sorry you just said we Sarah just said we don't need to be presented with cut options right now but like by our next meeting hopefully you'll have more information on what the town is going to what Town's guidance is going to be and hopefully by that point you will have been able to have some conversations with your team about what those cuts might look like so that we can start talking about them at our next meeting in November thank you yeah our school committee meeting will be two weeks after the financial indicators yeah I think um I sorry Jennifer I I do agree um I think realistically this gives us an opportunity to see what we're facing um and then based on what the town says at the financial indicators where we can go and where we can actually go um as you all know I always plan for the worst case scenario first um and so once that is what we have which is the 1.4 million um we need time to line item out the budget and determine what our operational costs are versus what um our actual Personnel costs I would say that our transportation cost in Amis is higher because of the fact that we route students very so and we cross over in terms of bus routes and we have early routes evening routes um um and so we we haven't had the time to run through those level of numbers to determine um what the impact would be to programming and what you know what those things look like so but we're definitely prepping ourselves to do that um and we're going to have to do that worst case scenario first Bridget yeah thank you for all the information I don't know what why you're gifted with giving us bad information sever meetings in we still we we still appreciate you I appreciate you too I mean I'm the one who has to take the bad information and make it into something so yeah why why you know misery loves companies so let's do it together I have a couple quick things one is obviously Sarah in that slideshow you're working on this should be top of mind you know and then the second thing is you notice the transportation costs and I'm wondering there's a lot of Federal money right now for electric school buses could that help us anywhere that that's all I'm going to let this absorb and sink in when I'm less tired and see if I come up with anything else um one of the things that we looked at when it came to to Transportation cost even with electric school buses is the cost of individuals to run the school buses um as well as the additional routes and what what we're looking at and what do we incur um in terms of overtime so there's a lot of things that we have to break down to see what the exact issue is um and then why we have so many additional routes so early in the year um what is truly affecting us in terms of Transportation in ammer at this point where we are basically about two months in and we're already in the red when it comes to Transportation cost and our expectations so we are going to take a deeper dive into that um and again what ends up happening is the lens that I have and I have to balance with my team is I have budget and I have programs and I have to sit between both and say how how does the budget impact the program how does the program impact the budget and so that's the conversation that that we need to have how do we still run the district in the best or even the most basic Manner and be able to fund it all right IR you get the final comment and then we're going to adjourn actually I was going to say I was going to make a motion to the adjourn well I just want to sh it's it's and it's really good time to adjourn because that presentation on the budget is incredibly depressing and following on the on the mcast data yeah we have a lot of a lot of work to do a lot of challenges all right maybe Jennifer's might GNA wants to move Jennifer I was actually going to suggest delaying warrants till next week but I thought we should read the gift oh okay sure that's fine it's quick I move that we accept the following gifts from Garden Club of ammer to support $500 each to Crocker Farm Fort River and Wildwood Elementary for the Garden Project a total of $1,500 and from Martha over numbers 99686 4 and 99688 to support Crocker Farm principal discretion for a total of $20 and from Walmart various school supplies donated to Wildwood Elementary estimated value $9,400 for a total of $1,520 there a second wait um Jennifer that doesn't add up right I believe that the estimated cash value wasn't added to the total it was just the two cash donations so I think the Walmart right is that right the Walmart um estimated value isn't in total included the cash total okay right thank you is there a second second all right any more discussion at the gifts say thank you very much to the donors um all right Jennifer how do you vote Yes uh Deb yes Bridget yes her yes and I'm a yes so that's 5 Z thank you we have to uh table everything else the handbooks were not ready so we're not not delaying them um so thank you very much I'm sorry can I say a few things about future agenda planning since that is an item on the agenda yeah yeah I have three things one I'd love to hear about the status of the sixth graders at Fort River and and what's what's the latest with that um I would like to hear about the status of the ammer family center I know this it's it's been discussed shifting responsibility from the family center to the school so like what's going on with the family center and lastly I know today's been an unusual meeting for the emmer school committee but it's been very frustrating and I object to being rushed and I object to to school committee members being told not or being asked not to ask questions we only meet once a month and we've had we had to fit a lot in today but it's and I I even feel bad that Tanya and Mary had to rush and give us the speed dial presentation I just I I I I I'm uncomfortable with all that so I would urge the chair to think about meeting management agenda length and perhaps we do need to meet more even though I just we didn't Moree thank you yes yes but tell me your first comment um uh sixth grade grade for you're just talking about maybe not everyone fits yeah yeah you're not talking about the sixth grade move no thank you okay thank you all right if anyone else has agenda requests or suggestions yes it was very heavy very heavy meeting and we're all tired um I move to adjourn is there a second Jennifer all right uh Deb yes Bridget yes BV yes Jennifer yes and I'm a yes thank you very much everyone for all this hard work and thoughtful discussion long as it was okay good night good [Music] nighted e