this government meeting is brought to you by eastw works and our local cable subscribers so we're just going to call to order at 5:15 great uh we're GNA roll call in uh mayor LEL here Mary here Eric is out tonight beny here here Mar is on her way car Scout present okay um first we're going to open the floor to public comment if anybody nobody is in the room with us but if there's anybody joining virtually who is interested in offering a comment you can go ahead and raise your virtual hand we'll leave that open for a minute while we waiting for that so what I gave all of you was the summit evaluation which will go over in a couple minutes and last two pages are all the comments that were provided and they're um broken down by which section they were offered in bless you Shar I was all right we don't see anyone for public comments we are going to close public speak for this evening move on to our first item agenda which is a school committee discussion of the superintendent evaluation I'm going to start really briefly by explaining to the public what this process looks like and then we can kind of go around the table and you get everyone's thoughts um so this is a standard form that is provided to us by desie um this is typically something that we perform every two years correct but in this case we are doing it um after one year of insurance grur beening with us um every member there are six uh elected members plus the mayor who sit on the school committee every member received an evaluation form they are all identical every member completed that they were all submitted to me I then um ran metrics and took the median value for every category to create a summative evaluation which is what we will review tonight um and all of I believe all of the individual reports as well as that Summit report and including the comments will all be made available probably later this week uh I just have to get it into a PDF and provide it to the city um would anybody anybody have thoughts we want to go around maybe share bit of what you thought when you performed your own evaluation because it was really funny the everything kind of came out down the middle but it was really funny to see the differences like where people were really like enthusiastic about exemplary here or other people was just interesting to see well I mean I would just want to make a comment on the um and maybe it's more for desie if they listen um on the and and for past years too I mean the poor categories that we have to use um like the so proficient is like very very good and there's Exemplar which is like Stratosphere and there's nothing in between right yeah you know and I remember the very first time we did this I trying to think I think Cindy might have been Nancy Fallen be and Cindy like it was really tough like we tried tolit the difference and it would have ended in that column had there been an in between category yeah so I mean I would just want the the first time if you look at this and it you know you see the P it's like oh well there was there was an issue or what not and that's actually not the yeah proficient is definitely above average it's also an extremely complicated form to understand and to fill out and um at least two of our members had never done it before you had probably done it a while ago I done it a while ago yeah so more than half membership had never seen this form before yeah and you could tell there were some questions about you know are we evaluating the district or are we evaluating the superintendent so some of those comments and more like think encouraging needs Improvement things like that were not act there were clarification for the comments that this is actually not a reflection of marine Benda these are concerns I have about the district at large so this is a workshop evaluation and we will look better this it's very confusing yes it is not an easy form very counterintuitive any thoughts Linda on on the Bess or on my either um I just want to say and I did by the comment in here that says but the evaluation is from January to June because that's the time that I've been involved in this process and um but prior to that when I was running for a school committee I had many many comments from because I spoke to Paris I spoke to teachers I spoke to parents and I had many comments about the fact that she came in and would pass out papers to ks that she would come in and walk the hallways with kids that she would come in and she went into diversity class uh whatever it's called University Club yeah when we were in the interim between having the other person and the new person and took B over and I felt that that was Exemplar I felt that that was such a positive step to take in a system that has had a lot of chatter around that and so I just wanted to let you know personally that that's something that I saw and really see value in okay yes thank you and also I remember you saying to me specifically when you were dis we were discussing in my grandchild and some of his situations and whatever and you talked about how every child needs to have an advocate and they if there wasn't one for a child you would be that one and yeah impressed yeah Ben you any thoughts um second what you're saying Ben loved you I'll show you Ben no it was uh it was it was super so helpful to to have to come in here and then to hear the like the kind of universal praise in a way like um from teachers from parents just people feeling comfortable with your presence in a way that I hadn't seen from superintendent yet in this District really uh lots of lots of really positive feedback and and you know just having looked through the tal of last year um uh feeling like this District was a sh that was really in and help set us and helped I think clarify the uh reputation May or just settle things down so I feel like when people look at e it's nothing that place full of it's like he made us less woke oh my I wouldn't say that wow I didn't really mean that no I feel I feel really good about that um uh I think people can look to the district Mountain like okay this this it's a good district there a lot to like here lot to appreciate what's going on here um and that feels good that feels really good and it's like it's like the epy the ideal intro like the perfect Bridge you know yeah to whatever happens next um just help calm things down steady things which we deeply needed so thank you feel good about it I really have enjoyed it yeah and it shows yeah I mean I would I would say um and and Ben said that you know the when you look at the forms and accumulative forms but also listen to these comments I would say again to the public umen Banda not perfect um but you and your skill set was exactly what the district needed and filled and checked a lot of boxes for not just the school committee um from what we heard from parents and what we heard from teachers and staff and walking the talk um and not honestly backing away from it and there were a lot of Tangles that happened especially in the beginning and they're ongoing and and as an inum you could kind of check out if you wanted to and still fulfill the role and you didn't you stayed engaged and got more engaged and you know I feel like with the superintendent search and when we get to interviews and eventually get a a permanent superintendent that there's a good path laid out and an understanding um and also just the the communication with the school committee and the availability I just I I feel like we're in a really good place to to go forward thank you thank you um yeah um so I uh well as Ben said I I um agree with pretty much everything everybody has said um I have really enjoyed working with you this year I um I feel like one of the benefits to having you on our team this year has been that you know you come from you spent a lot of your time in a really different School District um and that has actually been really helpful because um I think one of the things that is challenging especially in the small community like East Hampton is we get kind of locked into like the way that things have always been done here or the way that things have been done in neighboring communities and to just kind of like hear about you know um the different ways that you might approach a problem if this was like a gigantic district with 55 schools versus East Hampton um it's been really good um I really appreciate how much you've been in the school buildings and I think a lot of um other folks appreciate that too um I think that that that's been um something that um that has has really been good especially postco for our community um and to have somebody there kind of actually you know being able to sort of see what's going on firsthand and be a part of that so I uh I appreciate uh working with you I think it's been great so I'm looking forward to another year yeah but be careful on St Martin my apologies for coming in late I was also wa I'm disappointment for the little guy um so I'm not sure I'm sure I Echo what everyone has said but since I didn't hear it I'll just try to be quick and say that I so appreciate working with you I think youve done a fabulous job I think you were just what we needed I think whatever Universe whatever system you want world you want to pray to whatever it is that that you were it was the right time and um it worked out for you to come to us and thank you we just really need it and um it's there's it's not been a perfect year we have more stuff to do um and I feel like you're a person for the job so I I feel confident um that we can keep making progress I think we're on really solid ground for another personel you know to take over a year and come perhaps in the spring of the Year too and Shad a bit and and then be ready to take over that's G to be so important for us to have that transition supering that that come so and I want to jump on that real quick I think we were so lucky to be able to have a year without doing a a hasty superintendent search to just kind of like take a year to figure out like who we are as a school committee but also just get a better idea of who we are as a district and I think having you there bringing some a different kind of perspective was really helpful for understanding that sorry apologize my phone um trying to make sure this ring is all way down um so I sorry it's quite all right yeah more to check go you have more no really after hearing everyone it was just I think like everyone said exactly we are and I like the fact that it's very real that we're being very real in our comments and very sincere in our comments and I think I do think that we really benefit from your experience I think we really I think and then again having that year and I think that that's a huge huge benefit that you you have experience in different areas plus you have experience from the fact of doing it for a while and that's just really and valuable thank you yeah it feels like there's nothing you could spring on you like you would know lot yeah careful Ben I would say a couple of things I would rewind back to the process when we were interviewing for an interim and I've been in a lot of management positions and I think hiring and interviewing is one of the most challenging Parts a good interview doesn't necessarily make a good candidate a poor interview doesn't necessarily poor candidate and when we were looking at the resumés before the interviews I viewed your experience in that larger larger District of Worcester as being a potential drawback and then when you came in in my view it was just head and shoulders above the competition and I went with my gut and voicing my support for you because I just felt like personality wise and priority wise it felt like this perfect fit so what I want to say is two my two highest compliments in Mar would be this first is her perspective of a larger picture which I assume comes from your experience in a much much larger District doesn't sweat the small stuff can put things into perspective can stay cool and calm and collected what is that's not a huge surprise given where you've come from what was a shock and exactly what we needed and just this perfect fit for us was your ability to instantly create these really authentic personal connections starting with you know your cohorts and control office down to the leadership team admins teacher faculty and staff families and parents I want to say a brief aside we certainly have a cohort of parents who are struggling with some issues that we take seriously that we have not solved yet I think all of us have theories on the Genesis of those issues I think they predated your time here and I think they will probably exist after you leave we hope to make continued progress there but on the whole that tangible Improvement in the morale people desire to get up and come to the district to speak positively about the district to work I think was critical given what we were coming off of and I'm honestly I feel bad for the next I have concerns we might fantastic candidate but there's this tiny little piece of people that's gonna feel a little let down but we'll see we'll see how it it's an incredibly High bar so appreciate and I want to reiterate what Nicole says there are four categories when we look at the overall summation of this and it's like unsatisfactory needs Improvement proficient and exemplary and honestly the average of everything would have been it was touching exemplary in every category um it just you know we didn't have that that wasn't an option so that will all be made available hopefully by week's end anybody else have any other comments on the evaluation or about Maring in her position question so does this whole document get made uh public for people to who are viewing we're gonna put it on the website we're gonna do here's what I hope to do what will absolutely be public almost immediately will be the summi of evaluation which is that amalgamation of all of us and all of the comments that were contributed what I also would like to include would be the individuals I just have a couple questions for our legal adviser just to make sure that that I assume that's fine but before I make that public yeah so that's my intent is to put the whole thing forward and then have everybody imagine in their minds ey me with all the printouts on my bed and check marks on sheets of paper because I can't work an Excel spreadsheet got there um if there's no other comment about that we can move on our next meeting dates um is later this evening um the way this will work we have a regular session that we're sitting in right now we're about to briefly adjourn into an executive session we will then be coming back quickly to the regular session to vote on that item discuss an executive session we'll then adjourn that meeting we will move upstairs at roughly 6 p.m. for a scheduled work session which is also available to the public if they'd like to join us in the second floor rear conference room after that we have another work session scheduled for July 23rd and then two regular session meetings on August 13th and September 10th um so with that we would um I would entertain a motion to move into executive session a second oh wait sorry you Linda thank you Sam so we're gonna roll a call out Sam Hunter uh here Ben here Linda here Megan here Laura Scott hi okay so we are going to mute and shut the camera on turn it back on as soon as we complete executive session where is the mouse there move no no you're fine and R in okay okay welcome back everyone that was a quick executive section meeting um we discussed the renewal um so we did just recently receive a desie waiver for uh interim superintendent banetta to remain for an additional year through June 30 of 2025 um and so in light of that her contract expired on June 30th 2024 so we just met and discussed briefly the renewal of that contract uh and we agreed and by unanimous vote approved for the contract to move forward with a 2% Cola increase in a 2% increase to the superintendent's travel steny is traveling daily from Worcester County um with that I would take a motion to adjourn a motion to adjourn second all those in favor exensions great meeting aded and we'll beginning at 6: PM upstairs in the rear conference room if you're planning to join us from the public walk carefully because there is a very large zba meeting in council chambers thank you night e