##VIDEO ID:ohRCzif8Hng## so open it TJ meeting is open at 604 no that clock is wrong I'll change it that okay whatever sorry it's 6 o' so uh how about if we go to right to the superintendent of Gateway Regional Schools five new business second all favor all thanks nice to be here to see you too did you want to wait for Cara she's coming she wasn't gonna come tonight but she's coming specifically because Christan is here so maybe minutes or something I don't have sorry I didn't have time um I can take a motion to table a minute for June 24th second all in favor I what are we talk I do the social Med okay oh do you have warrants there some no um the only Warr the only warrants that should have come in now were the payroll the other ones did come in last week but I wasn't here so okay I did that just in case and the payroll warrant did not come in so we can't approve those now have have the bills been paid or they are oh yeah okay y yeah I just wasn't sure TJ if this paperwork doesn't always come in in a timely manner and I wasn't here after this day so I put it there figured from we get them from can you sure from the accountants and then I give them to you guys to sign and then I make sure they get back into the one and all that this is another problem why if they're not getting in in a timely fashion I think it was also just that I she usually does it I haven't done it before so without her here I think maybe it was just easier I think he misunderstood me I put it there just in case oh they didn't come in last week because I wasn't going to be here oh and I know I was going to be here tonight so so we'll just table all right better so now what about uh this here uh discharge of Bine on on real estate that's something that carara needs to sign and the town clerk needs to that's nothing Christina can talk about the social media so I submitted the updated social media policy to KP law a couple of weeks ago go actually and I thought that it was pretty standard issue stuff and um I hadn't I kept checking in I'm like you know where are we at with that and he responded and said these policies require careful reviews to the number of current issues and civil rights concerns they present we are reviewing this policy and we'll have comments and recommendations to you this week so hopefully this week they will give me their comments and recommendations regarding the social media policy I mean there was really nothing uh crazy on there but that's that um one of our last meetings we had talked about reaching out to Jessica Carrington to ask her to inspect um the animals on NY Brook you guys remember that I did get her contact information I emailed her I haven't heard back yet are the animals still there I didn't see any c I don't know some are some are I guess changes pretty regular I guess well she does she takes and rescue stuff and then yeah because because I know the gentlemen that had the cattle they they're gone Y and Rainey is here by the way too if you want talk to rainy hi rainy oh we can't hear you rainy unmute yourself how about that okay yourself am I still muted no you're good okay so do you want to give your oh you can finish oh I yeah I was just kind of no we don't want to interrupt you uh we did send a letter to One n Brook Road um regarding the Board of Health's existing bylaws it was certified uh certified mail they did receive it um and then I just had a question for you guys so there's a fuel tank at the highway department that's serviced by bman bman um do you know what account we should be paying this out of cuz Okay not a clue not a clue Randy you got any on that he says it's not happen well actually um I remember when I was here um they were paying it out of one of the accounts just like were determined because everybody draws on that right all the Departments draw on it it wasn't coming out of a normal fuel account so honestly I don't know which one it was but I know it was a separate one that be out of the general fund then I I hate to say that but I think it was yeah would have been my idea because if it didn't come out of the highway it would have to come out of the general fund I would think well I always think so yeah yeah because it's not a regular monthly bill or whatever it's just under ATT testing annually you know yeah yeah I would suggest the general form okay I will look into it and I will get that paid just a small update Cara is actually not joining us tonight oh boy so I feel the pressure I'm not even doesn't need her to speak so it'll be good I've heard her speak before she can do that very well okay so anything else no not not on my end I think that's that covers it okay now uh just a quick question have we heard anything from Dave Hopson on the union no sir nothing yet I can reach out to him if you'd like yeah I know he's not feeling good but oh I didn't know that yeah uh he wasn't at the fair shind Saturday night his wife said he was since be want too good so you know give you know get in touch with him tomorrow supposed to be at a meeting with me on Friday yeah so okay I'll touch face with them okay thank you yeah of course rainy yes you're up oh we're accepting only compliments not complains M you're all wonderful how about that okay um actually I don't have great deal real small um but I'll go do it kind of fast NY Brook the culbert and everything else has been done the only thing left to do on that is the guard rail so then once I get that bill I can submit for the uh fair share monies for that um oldchester um equipment's in place right now um again I wasn't there today uh I had a personal family situation so um but I was contact with the guys all day long everything's all set we're going to probably start later tomorrow or the day after so we're going to do what we need to do to make sure it's all completely passible for any emergency equipment and actually normal normal Road uh Road usage um you'll the engineering uh with Beach Bridge um I have a meeting this week I've uh been spending a lot of time trying to contact them to get to a point person uh I want some explanations as to what has actually been done I want them to show us what is been done because their billing is pretty vague it just says a number of things and they bill us um as Christina had been told that the state is saying that you know they're getting paid a lot of money but there's not a whole lot of answers here so I basically told them we're not going to sign any more warrants to pay any bills until somebody starts explaining it to us um that reaction real fast um line painting I don't know if it's going to start this week or next week but it will be very soon um last week I had spoke to you about uh a body for the 350 I gave you an estimate and I said I wasn't going to do anything until I had a firm price it pretty much came in the exact Penny um I had to make a decision last Friday in order to be able to do this uh I had to say yes or no last Friday I said yes I can say no but I I was hoping that the board still supported it um otherwise it would have been three months before we could get that body put on um the other thing would be the winter account um there's a very tough situation there uh the accounts for the I don't I'm not at work so I don't have the account number in front of me but it's for blades nuts and bolts and parts for Sanders and all that for the winter um it's going to be pretty much maxed out already because there was a sander that was bought by Dave and not build till this year because it was ordered under the old pricing uh he did he did it right he ordered ordered it right because it was needed the one that's it's replacing cannot be repaired but the problem was is that took another chunk out of the bill and uh out of account and we're barely I I don't think we even have enough blades to change um edges on one set of plows for one season uh for one time never mind the season um there's a number of parts we need for the Sanders so I'm I'm going to be notifying you the board in a in a dollar amount here this week um but we are pretty much going to be um over budget before if I order very much more replacement parts um outside repair account that's also I just want to make it aware that it's going to be probably needing money not right now but it's going to be need money soon because there was an extensive amount of billing going on for maintenance uh I've ended that um those contract those uh agreements were not binding contracts um the companies that were doing it uh I mean we have filters and stuff on the shelf and we have oil in the shop why we're paying for others to do it I don't know but that's ended um the only other thing was is uh I know Mr re C wasn't happy with me Friday but he wanted me to take guys we had hot asphalt we were doing I Brook um we were using the roller raking and putting H asphalt on the cver that we did and a bunch of patching too um I could not justify wasting Hut asphalt to move uh some debris and I won't go too far into it but we did everything else he had asked and that was probably not to his liking but I said I'm sorry I am not going to stop the guys working to do that that being said I'm pretty much uh done I'm sorry just one quick questiony sorry I haven't had a chance to talk to you um there the line painting yeah we there is a code of uh Massachusetts regulation that requires our parking lot to have line painting because we are a voting uh facility yes there is there any way we could work that into the line painting project that you have planned uh we cannot work it into it we can do it separately okay um but I also wanted to talk to you too because we had a brief discussion with Dave Stokes as far as uh designating a computer parking spot or commuter uh that could be expanded upon um so I wanted to discuss that with you because of also Paving type situation all right uh but it it should not be included in this line painting because this is County bid and it's basically for linear feet okay that's fine get it done before election do you think that we would be able to get the line painting in the parking lot achieved before before the election in November one way or another we will okay we'll discuss it thank you I got a question is that cab still sitting up to the salt shed no no we uh in fact I used the SJ I used cabota Friday to unload a truck are you talking about the old one the old one yeah the old little excavator Min excavator yes and then you got that plow now that used plow we could sell that would help your budget some I don't I it should be in the paper and put out for bid uh you would be I I would argue with you that we should not put it in the paper out for bid we should maybe do for gov deals uh we put it out for bid in the paper we're going to have a lot of liability gov deals we will not okay well whatever just let's get rid of them they're sitting there let's make some money with them or get something back on itad honestly Jeff I I am working on it yep uh but there's also uh uh some interest from a dealer on some of this equipment so I'm G to have to probably put it out to gov deals to be safe for the town um but we also have to set pricing so I've had the I've had the equipment dealer coming down to look at it to give me fair market Price okay I just want we have we have to set a base limit on what the minimum was was to be expected that we would accept Okay that's all yeah oh George uh ready my I like to clarify my point with you that on Friday I asked you to stop by on your way back to the garage to pick up the uh debris that had been created by the fire department volunteers to clear the rush that was in the area that so that people could work on the building and you said you were too busy to uh pick it up on the way back to the garage so well George I I I'm going to interrupt we could go on this back and forth but that's not what I had said that's not what you asked you even asked me to turn around and leave a truck there and I said I could not I did help as much as possible I TJ I brought the Caboto over to unlo unload the truck the other day did I not I did what he asked and he wanted extras and I did not have time to do it well that that's understandable but I wasn't you know I think this got a little uh mixed up because I cided with you that you're working with hot asphalt you got to work with it absolutely and I took the dump trailer from the cemetery and I went over and George's wife and I loaded all the Brian dump trailer and I took care of it so happy ending then Happy Endings we like them especially if they got hot plugs and whipped cream all right and I appreciate TJ but I I would I wasn't refusing I just said I could not do it then that's right I understand that not a problem okay all right anything else rainy no I'm outet thank you oh good thank you Rainey thank you okay guess what I'm up you're off sounds great so thank you for having me um I wanted just to give you a couple updates for what's going on at the District this school year so we are working with the bar Foundation again they gave us $100,000 last year to do some good work around figuring out what really engages students and like what areas of need um we have for the district and we identified some areas in which we're going to focus on this year so one of them is like connecting learning to students real life and making sure that they understand what they're learning and why they're learning it and so that's like one of the main focus areas that we have this year um another is having students persevere through difficult problems and like try something maybe fail at it try again and then come out on top because we're finding that um like perseverance level and like grit is not something that is a strength probably Nationwide but something that we're seeing so we want to make sure that we're building that with our students um and then the other piece that we're really focusing on is engaging in the local community so you may see more projects that are local for us so for example chest Elementary is doing some trail work like right in their own backyard um little ville's doing some projects at the dam so like there's some cool things going on locally I think that's great to take advantage of um and then we're also like tying our our books that we're reading um to those projects and so you know Chester read the Nocturnals over the summer which are about like animals that come out at night and so they're like looking for animals on the trail so it's like a very nice connection for students um speaking of real world learning we have more students enrolled in our vocational programs so when I started our Early Childhood Program had 12 students and now it has 28 so that's pretty great and our welding program is maxed out as it usually is and so we're looking to figure out if we want to like add another staff member right now both of our vocational teachers are teaching an additional class so the load for teachers typically is five classes out of their high school schedule and they they've agreed to teach six um so it's nice because it gives us the ability to offer more programming to students without like hiring an additional teacher um so they are getting compensated for that and that's outlined in our contract but I'm excited about how the program is going and growing um and also we had an amazing shop teacher in our wood shop that was part-time he has retired That's Mike Harper and um in his place we hired a less expensive full-time wood shop teacher so we've expanded our wood shop program to middle school and so there may be problems with giving middle school students power tools but so far it's going well and he's really focused on safety for the first couple weeks um so hopefully we can you know make some bird houses and bookshelves and things like that and the kids are really loving it um in addition to the bar Foundation Grant we have another great grant that we received which is um for Early Childhood expansion so I I don't think you may have known that our current our last year prek program was four days a week and we offered a full day and a half day program so with this prek expansion Grant it's now 5 days a week which is obviously a lot better for working families and um for consistency with students um so our full day program is now five days a week so that we got $250,000 and we hired an additional staff member um to give teachers prep time because all the prek teachers would work their full day and then have their prep time all on Fridays but now that students are going to be there on Fridays this teacher is helping give prep time throughout the week and like offer more um Science and Technology instruction so it's like a double win for our students um and so next year we're supposed to get more money in that Grant but that's subject to appropriation and if that's the case then we hope to um expand our half day program to five days a week as well so I think that's a great thing for our families um we also have 45 students coming from Germany to do a program at Gateway so they're going to be here in October for two weeks and it's through our Band program so it's not an exchange program so our students aren't going to Germany but we're hosting 45 students from Germany to come here and they're GNA they're going to be in our classes and um after school they're going to be involved with some band activities and it's going to culminate to a big band concert and so I think that'll be really enriching for our students to experience now where are the students staying are they staying with the homes they're staying with band family homes and so it's like a very immersive EXP experience and the families are encouraged to like show the students the Hilltown so if you see kids like apple picking and they're speaking German that's what that's about it's not an invasion it's a good thing yeah that sounds like fun yeah I think it'll be cool for our kids because um it'll just be like a very to sh Arabian boys back in the 80s that's cool and that was a culture change for them and they haven't been right since I agree with I have well you know our attorney was like I'm surprised that this is happening because programs like this don't EX exist anymore because of all the liabilities and things like that but we have a really great band director who's been in touch with people from Germany and so we're we're going for it so I think it'll be great for our kids nice experience abolutely that's great so two like not so great things I wanted to bring your attention to I probably shouldn't end on this but it's like how my agenda goes um two years ago we got an after school grant for $210,000 for 5 years and after we did our end of year report this year we discovered that we weren't meeting the participation requirements but upon further inspection they are posed in a way that's very inequitable so they require 40 students enrolled in all 400 hours of programming so we have like a fall winter and spring after school session and we have five weeks of Summer programming that equate to 400 hours and their requirements are the same 40 kids need to be enrolled in all 400 hours which isow which is ridiculous yeah yeah that's so absurd we have that would mean that 23% of our Middle School would need to be enrolled all the time and I looked at the other Grant recipients and it's like Brockton and Chelsea Wester Boston you know so it's like a very small fraction of their communities versus like a very big percentage of our communities so I met with Ann GOI today and Senator vus and Senator Mark was supposed to come but he didn't come and then Senator balega um didn't respond um and so that was something that I want to put on their radar because it in order to be Equitable it would be great if they required a proportion of our population to be involved or 40 students at any time because when you look at our enrollment every day we have 40 kids it's just a different 40 kids every day because if a kid plays a sport or if a kid went on vacation with their family those kids couldn't count towards the the participation requirement so it was for lack of a better terms stupid please don't quote me on that Mary um ridiculous it was ridiculous thank you thank you I know and so it was it's really a shame because you know unlike Chelsea and Brockton and Wester we don't have a boys and girls club we don't have a YMCA for our students to participate after school here we go again um and this this grant gave us Transportation home after school programming it gave us the staff for it it provided like field trip opportunities so it's like a huge loss for our community to not have this grant anymore and so I'm hoping between um Ann GOI and John Vas they'll be able to rally the troops to show something because for not getting fully funded rural school aid and then taking this grant away it's like a real mess and I I'm upset about that and they're not requiring you to pay anything back right they are not but they're just not funding US future well so I mean the state has um like uh what they call EJ communities which is environmental justice communi so they take into account the makeup of larger cities and stuff like that benefits so they should do the same for the smaller towns I totally agree and that's what an GOI has been fighting for as the Director of rural Affairs and so it was the first time she's heard of this but upon like deeper dive I found out that Gil Manu has also lost their program Bernardston pioner Valley so all of these like smaller rural communities are at a disadvantage and so she's going to talk to some of those other superintendents so we did our end ofe report and discover this ourselves and like self-disclosed to desie and they told us we wouldn't wouldn't continue another school district Gil monu submitted their end ofe report and desie told them that they weren't going to get the funding after they had like already rolled out the next year to families and families were relying on them for child care so we're not in like that dire of a situation but it's awful because our students should not have to pay the price exactly yep so I just wanted that on your radar um I don't know how far we're going to go with this but if we like do a formal appeal I would love if you could sign like a letter of support or something along I'm sitting here biting my well I'm being as tempered as I can but it's it's just very unfair very upsetting usually I'll have to go down the Run range well because if you have if you look at our program every single day we have at least 40 kids it's just not the same 40 kids I I agree splitting the hair down the middle isn't it it's foolish and I'm not going to tell a family they can't go on vacation for a week because it doesn't need our criteria or they can't soccer because they have to be in this program they're still involved and so it's just like Wicked frustrating it's not good for small communities it's not um and so just be honest about that because you know dese's pillar is like you know educational equity which is fine but then put your money where your mouth is you know so well see they forget us we're here well yeah we're west of 495 so we don't need so what else you got the only thing this is bad news to well I guess I just want to bring your attention to something and ask for your but so nationally you probably have seen that there's like a big uptick in school threats and so like last year the average nationally was 29 threats per month based on like the Department of Homeland Security and this year so far it's 785 per month so that's not great um 7 yeah so the it's increased a ton um and a lot of it is spread through social media and so we were not um we were we were in a situation similar so we had a student see a threat online that said Huntington high school is going to be you know attacked but it ended up being Huntington in West Virginia but because social media doesn't put like the town and like the you know of origin the students did everything right and reported it but it took us like a lot of resources to investigate contact the State Police contact our local police like and so we discovered where the threat originated but this is after some chaotic hours of like people panicking which I totally understand um so I want to commend our police partners for really like doing their due diligence and finding it and being able to identify quickly so we could communicate out but I didn't know if that was something the board wanted to be notified of when things like that happen so I notified the school committee but I think myself okay that's what the other board said I just want to be you know cognizant of what you we have to be aware what's going on yep you know because you can't address it if we don't know absolutely absolutely so no that's the right thing okay I'll just keep letting school committee know and if something does escalate then I would let you know so um but I I do appreciate that we have such close relationships with the police because without their ability to jump on it and find something really quickly we don't we wouldn't know if it was a real threat or not because these things pop up but we don't want to you can't ignore it at all yeah not today's not today's world so our local our local guys are great and so I just wanted to formally acknowledge that that they're doing a great job but that's it for me you have any questions the issue of cell phones at Junior and Senior High School seems to be a national issue right now where is Gateway in terms of its policy yeah so a lot of schools are using those like Yonder pouches where they get locked up we use student input to develop a new policy last year so that was led by the high school principal and he got student input and um he had parent reps I think some school committee reps plus staff and so the high school has a policy where where it's away during class but they can use it in passing time and lunch because we're trying to encourage students to use them responsibly and the middle school has a policy where it's just away they don't use them at all in they put in the pouch or something when they come to school they get it that's we don't have the pouches the pouches are like 50 bucks each and so we don't we haven't invested in those where do they put their phones they are expected to be off and away and so they're still responsible for holding on to them and we've been really diligent about consistently following the policy so if students have their phones and they're out then they're sent to the office for like a whatever the tier they're at yeah and for the senior high school it's they they can have their phones was they walk from class to class at lunchtime we find oftentimes it's like the parents that are texting their kid about pick up after school or what are you doing for sports and so it's working so far but we're very closely watching all these other schools that have like the locked pouches um I've seen some current reports saying how successful it is to have no cell phones in schools and how the academic uh level is improving and the attention and the friendliness of the students among themselves is increasing because students are now talking to each other instead of picking up the cell phone and talking to the cell phone I've seen that as well but I've also talked to some folks at the Department of Homeland Security and they are like pretty against it and so I'm still we're still feeling out like how we should proceed but so far the policy is working fine um but we're not opposed to changing it if it starts to not work because we do need students focused on learning thank you thank you thanks for having me good to see you thank you Christ it was really nice to meet you chisa here it's a really nice pen if you need anything or help with anything just let me know thank you thank you George did I miss something in terms of uh the audience participation item on the agenda oh we just kind of zoomed right over do you have a few minutes yes we do thank you oh not well we'll give them we'll give them two minutes is all you get George I was going to give them three it's your lost not mine three I know okay here's your first report of Saturday activity I don't write down okay thank you you thank you ration person that's pretty good yeah are are are you going to formulate some kind of letter of appreciation yeah yeah I I will be