##VIDEO ID:JqKG4iKPviI## [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] good evening and welcome to the Greenfield Public Schools school committee meeting for Wednesday December 11th 2024 um uh this meeting is being recorded by gctv if any other persons present are doing the same you must notify the chairperson at this time seeing any um secretary Jive would you call the role sure all right um secretary Den I'm here Vice chair Martini here chair Johnson mad here mayor dorer okay member Goodwin here member seon here member Childs here all right we are all here and other than mayor dorer and we have a quorum great call the meeting to order at 6 PM um for public comment we'll start with people who are in the room um if there is any public comment okay is there anyone on Zoom who would like to make public comment not seeing any um we can move on to the report of student reps to the committee I do feel like this is record time like startup meeting to me doing this this feels weird um okay so without further Ado then um beginning with student council um the last month the student council partnered with the local Boy Scouts for their annual scouting for food initiative this year we more than doubled the amount of food collected in the prior year in total we collected 4 700 lbs of food which equates to just under 4,000 meals this filled 85 crates and seven bins and to put that into perspective last year we collected 2100 lbs of food so again more than doubled thank you to everybody who helped our community who generously donated we ended the month with our traditional Spirit Week events um it was great to see the staff and students who dressed up on each theme day they included Celebrity Day throwback Thursday country vers Country Club senior dress up everyone else dress in pajamas teachers dress as students and students dress as teachers and of course class last color day there was fierce competition during penny wars and all the money that we raised this year will be used to support the NHS adopted family Spirit Week ended with our Thanksgiving pep rally and the lip sync theme that we had for this year was decades this pep rally was full of surprises and helped the students create positive memories and Foster a sense of belonging the lip syncs sorry the lip sync results were fourth place for sophomores third place for ninth grade second place for the juniors and the seniors took first place this year looking ahead for the first time ever we are entire in sorry we are inviting the entire Community to help raise money and awareness about the power of inclusion with Special Olympics every year the student council participates in the Polar Plunge in March at the cape while we will still do this this year we are also inviting to um sorry we are also all inviting you to plunge in a mobile tank at ghs on Thursday January 30th it will be open to the community from 2:30 to 3:30 we will send out more info soon in the meantime start spreading the word forming teams and prepping costumes registration is now open members also helped out at jinglefest this past weekend and they dressed up in costumes and helped the GBA promote the events downtown um a little plug for project 351 and our ambassador um project 351 is a transformative leadership development program that cultivates a new generation of changemakers Civic leaders and social entrepreneurs by the effort and example 351 leaders forg strategies and solutions that build a more just inclusive and Equitable world we want to congratulate eth grader Janessa fent sorry Janessa Fuentes for being selected as the e8th grade um ghs project 351 Ambassador well done Janessa Key Club helped pass out gifts at the Salvation Army dinner and tomorrow they will be heading to AAL to reach out and teach Cooperative games to Children um fall sports are hot and he or sorry winter sports now are hot and heavy at the moment um get out and go support the Green Wave Nation you can go to arbiterlive.com to find schedules for your favorite teams and we're very proud of our many teams who headed into the postseason in this last fall Sports season and did a great what job to wrap up the fall season Spanish club had a fun time learning about and celebrating dios mortos this year with breakfast and face painting they also worked on a dance for the Thanksgiving pep rally but unfortunately there was too much planned and they had to put it on until the December pep rally which will be in just a couple weeks they're also preparing for an ice skating outing and a Spanish cooking night and they are hopeful about plans for their next trip to Spain for 2026 um for NHS earlier in November the NHS officers traveled to Holy Cross University to attend the Massachusetts NHS leadership ship conference our officers enjoyed workshops about leadership student mental health environmental projects and much more they came back with ideas to share with our members to enhance our program and better leaders NHS has been busy preparing for our adopt a family project we sold wreaths and holiday dip mixes to raise money for this project um sorry we are currently bringing in food donations and using the funds raised to buy gifts for these families in need the culmination of the project comes at the end of the first day or sorry comes at the end of December when we go to the church to help with the heavy lifting needed for this endeavor um on the first day people have adopted families bring in their donations and we will help carry organize and keep track of donations we will also distribute food donations and organize the free clothing store on Friday the adopted families will help come to the church to get their holiday presents and food on this day we will help carry everything out and help with cleaning up this is an amazing opportunity to be a part of a great organization that helps others and this will be the 15th year that the NHS has participated in this event um in terms of drama club the cast is set for the somewhat true tale of Robin Hood and the first table read will happen or did happen on December 3rd with the entirety of the cast they are excited about the talent and potential of this production rehearsals will be happening multiple afternoons a week leading up to Tech week and performance in the first weekend of April if you have any questions at all please contact Madame Hartman Miss Poe or Miss LAX um in the library this month on Green Wave reads they spoke with Kenneth an eighth grader and member of the student council and Library Club Kenneth is currently reading blooming to you volumes 1 through three um quote this series follows two female high school students Yuko and tuo nanami which I probably mispronounced in my apologies and the relationship that Den that develops between them as they learn more about themselves through their experiences together Kenneth explains that this series pertains to his interests as it is a manga his favorite genre book he especially enjoys the manga insomniacs after school he says I can relate to it um the kids have insomnia and I can barely sleep on my own Kenneth discovered reading when his friend uh recommended graphic novels because he noticed Kenneth enjoyed picture books he picked up his first manga in Middle School reading books like delicious and dungeon he likes to call these silly books goofy manga while Kenneth loves words and pictures on paper he can appreciate a good manga to movie his favorite movie adaptation is Comey can't communicate it's kind of like the first day of school everything is new and it becomes difficult to communicate the character struggle to communicate lastly Kenneth told us that he enjoys reading in the ghs library's long Booth chairs however if he isn't in school he reads during the night time with the comfort of the dark Kenneth hopes to continue to read great manga and someday read the whole series of insomniacs after school uh wishing congratulations to the ghs band for their wonderful evening of entertainment at the Winter concert on Thursday December 5th and concluding with the students of color club uh the students are currently presenting their lesson plan in December to eth graders during their advisories on how to effectively address slurs or racialized language in school they will continue this important work through January with e8th graders and move on to the Middle School in February if you are interested in joining this club students can contact either Devon Brown or Nate Woodard or Miss poy and Miss Paige that concludes what I've written here but I can gladly answer any questions you may have any questions thank you so much all right thank you have a nice day I had uh someone joined on Zoom who would like to make public comment so we'll go back to public comment you have h two minutes Doug two minutes goie um so Doug selwin Greenfield um good evening to all um given that ballot question two has passed um that means that high stakes testing will not be um happening in the state so I have three requests related to that related to The District number one is to carefully monitor what's happening at Desy and the legislature because they're already trying to figure out how to get around the will of the people so I hope that the school committee and administration will be hooking up with other districts and um and those interested to make sure that the the will of the people is not endured secondly I hope that there is as the district thinks about what are we going to do um that they don't that you don't that we don't turn to another one-size fits all assessment approach which could include simply Mass Corp but instead to take this as an opportunity to think carefully about what we really want for our students and what kind of assessment setup we want to um develop that will really support our kids to be the sort of creative and caring and critical and um growing adults that we hope they will become so it's um ballad question question two being passed is just step one and now what do we want it's an opportunity that I hope we take full advantage up so that's it have good holidays all and thanks for your work thank you Doug um before we move on to um the reports of the administration um I'd like to uh take a motion sure why that's happening um a motion to move the um consent agenda Item B vote to approve Greenfield High School Spain trip 2026 to next on the agenda and remove it from the consent agenda so moved second all in favor I I I any opposed any extensions the motion carries let's move on to that Tara okay thank you now I hear myself um hi I am Tera cluder I am here to talk to you about my hope for my next trip to Spain with students in 2026 um this should be my 13th trip in in 24 years to Spain um I've taken three to Puerto Rico with groups almost all from Greenfield High School one from Smith Academy a really long time ago um I just want to start by saying I appreciate being here myself that hasn't been the plan for the last few years and so um thank you for having me um you should have the information I believe from passports um we're looking to start early this year to save money for our students and hopefully have more time for fundraising to include more students um one thing that was awesome in the trip that I took last year is that the GFA um funded a scholarship for the first time and it seems like that might be the way that's happening to keep including more children um in this exciting opportunity and um you have the information I don't know how much you want me to to talk about um or do you have any questions for me any questions for Tara thanks for taking the initiative and for doing it all these years as we could hear a motion to vote to approve the I move that we approve Greenfield High School Spain trip 2026 there you go is presented seconded and any other discussion all right all in favor say I I I I any opposed any abstentions motion carries unanimously thank you muchim gracias all right thank you okay we're back to the order um so it let's see if Andy is here we might have to change the order a little bit Andy's not here he's running a little bit late he had a family conflict so we'll um move on to the presentation from the um where's the director of people Services Dave messing update thank you Dave good evening folks good evening welcome just to make sure I can share this for the folks tuning in great all right so I'm grateful for the opportunity to be here um again I think there's a lot of interesting conversations related to what's going on in people's services and certainly as it relates to what's going on rest of the district in terms of effective use of our time tonight I thought a way to start would be just some Department vitals uh and really set the stage for some conversations both this evening and then into the future uh I think a couple of things that are uh likely of interest to both this body and Folks At Large and are certainly directly relevant to our decision- making and our planning in terms of the lived experience in schools uh has to do with both enrollment numbers what that means for Trends over years past and then where that brings us you know at this point this year and at this point of the year uh but then getting into some of the work in terms of how students with disabilities are currently placed specifically that has to do with how much of their day is spent within um the general environment which is generally thought of as the least restrictive placement and some of the work around that that's being done uh on the other end of that it's the trends in terms of the number of students that are supported out of District placements uh which is to say students for whom our Continuum of services isn't necessarily um have having the capacity to meet needs uh which is not unexpected and also less we forget you know the breadth of some of the work that the people Services office does you know touching base on where things stand for English language learning you know a multilingual program as well as uh some other selected populations specifically you know homeless or underhouse students uh as well as some the related impact so in terms of that uh and all of these are a SN shot I think it's instructive to think about prevalence of disability U specifically there's a lot of things that that can help us tap into specifically what is happening in terms of both uh enrollment in terms of either prevalence of specific types of disability are there practices related to our identification either over or under identification of students with particular profiles and more to the point what does that mean for the impact on students learning so it's not just about students that are presenting with one or more qualifying disabilities it's about the degree to which those disabilities are educationally significant and what I mean by that is uh one of the things that we can dig down deep enough to and have some Nuance conversation about is the way in which our current instructional program and some of the related supports are more effective or less effective at supporting students with particular learning differences sorry to interrupt Mr messing I wonder are you muted on your computer indeed oh you are okay both the microphone but also the output okay great thank what I can do I mean is there another is this the sole source of input or is it picking up on all these as well any good so does that I'm just thinking about where that Echo is coming from how's that well all right sorry about that so in terms of to get to the point you know when we talk about rates it's not just about number of students enrolling although it is important for us to know so when we think about the 328 folks we're starting it close to the number of total I APS that were in District back in like fy21 right so the 2021 school year uh what isimportant to knowe there is overall enrollment was much higher at that time right so you know we think a lot of reasons for that and certainly the comparison that we want to make even as we're careful about that comparison is Again State average and what I mean by that is is any discussion about overidentification of students or something related to the work we're doing in Greenfield Public Schools or the demographics of our students and their needs in terms of being identified for special education as compared to State average we also need to be thoughtful about that state average is a little bit of an arbitrary number right um because across the state there's some contextual differences that are very very different so for our purpose here in town the fact that we are slightly above State average should be of no to us and should be a sort of cause for us to be U thinking about why that could be and in what ways the work that's being done you know not only in terms of last year and up until this point but this year and into the future is helping to address that right um because there's a variety of factors that go into disability identification and that prevalence and it's not to say that just because we are above State average that there's nothing wrong but it should be an indicator that we're keeping tabs of and having conversations about if that's fair um so certainly those trend lines are important um both in the global piece but then also as they relate you know to particular clusters of students where those students are grade level bands and that sort well beyond tonight's conversation but something that I'd like this may be thinking about especially as we talk about the work right and how it informs the instructional program especially with the alignment between the work that's being done in our instructional programs from the district perspective um that you know has been underway in the last couple years and how that's directly tied um to the work of the special education certainly as well as some of our other um diverse groups of subgroups of Learners similarly when we think about the uptick in Section 504 uh the reason this isn't compared to other parts of the state in the way that you'll see our special ed numbers are as we don't have you know as straightforward access to those but again we see this slow low rise in percentage right and why is that right we would expect for a variety of reasons there might be better identification of disability there might be uh more streamlined identification which is to say you know is it that we're over identifying folks or is it that students who may for one or another reason not have been identified appropriately previously are now being uh identified what the take-home messages at the end of the day for our purposes tonight is there's an increasing number of students for whom their presentation in the school environment is slightly different in some way and requires consideration that becomes really important for us when we talk about ensuring that more and more of our classrooms are able to support a wider uh group of Learners right because if the more of our environments that are supporting more students you know uh a rising tide raises All Ships if you will so for me these are the types of uh comparisons that I find super instructive and one of the things that the department of Ed has done at the state level to support districts is help make it easier to draw some comparisons uh again we always have to be cautious about any comparisons we make the each district is very different um all of our buildings in this District are different so I want to be careful about uh drawing more generalizations with affl just because they happen to be out our way as well uh and certainly as we get to other parts of the state what we do care about is size right because some of the the groupings are similar some of the scale is similar some of the systems and structures look either similar enough for us to draw some in some lessons or make some decisions the reason I thought this was really instructive is it's helpful to see that we are not all that far out of whack in terms of our disability prevalence rate in terms of end of last year you'll see so unlike the numbers I just shared with you that are as of October of this year this is essentially last year because we have reports from uh all of these other comparison districts so we are over State average so keep in mind State average for this year essentially last year the 2023 2024 school year was about 20% Statewide just over and uh currently we're at 23% some of the other districts in our comparison districts you know are as high as 25% to give you a sense so uh we're not all that far out of line with districts of a similar size some of whom are in our area you know navigating a lot of the same challenges both as the organization but also uh supporting some of the same type of student demographics that we are um and again this is helpful because it helps us have conversations around comparisons in one way or another U to some of these other districts as we are thinking about how we're doing in our class um similarly another thing that's helpful to think about is how it breaks down so we look at of all the students in uh Greenfield that are identified uh for special education what what is the what we think of as the primary disability category uh this is something that's increasingly going to go away with the new IP format that was rolled out this year um a lot of times we're sitting around a table with students who may be navigating multiple disabilities and there's some conversation about which is the primary right which uh is having the most impact uh at present there is a current one single primary disability identified as well as you know sometimes secondary and tertiary disability so when we look these numbers start to speak for themselves uh and like all the data points in tonight's conversation these snapshots it's helpful only in that it gives us an opportunity to have some real interesting conversations about it right specifically autism right there's this by far um we see you know we're going to see high communication uh impairments because the number of young children coming in who receiving speech either through EI or not those are going to tend to fade the longer kids are in school uh and get speech and language therapy especially with the speech and language therapy that we're fortunate to have in District but when we talk about the autism numbers we say why is that okay and of course be much beyond the scope of tonight's conversation but something to be thoughtful about is how is it that this number of students is being identified with Spectrum disorders and more to the point is there something that even for students who may have an identified autism spectrum disorder that we are doing or not doing or could do more of or adjust in a certain way to render the impact of that Spectrum Disorder for for that individual less educationally significant which is to say ensure they're still making educational progress they're still making gains having a productive experience in our schools every day so that's the type of thing that I hope we're thinking about when we're talking about this group decision- making when we're getting into budget planning we think budget priorities when we think about the connection between and integration of the work that's being done in the instructional program as a whole and then the particular ways in which some of our students are impacted to a greater or lesser degree that's the type of thing that I hope people are thinking about when they're looking at these numbers uh the tragic piece about the number of emotional impairments here you know we talk about some of the students that come to us um for different reasons who may be you know in different places uh and certainly when we think about the number of students that enroll in Greenfield uh whether it be for the Emergency residents in town or some of the other things um and what you'll see is there's a pretty even spread throughout the rest so of all the 13 disability categories there's a pretty even spread most of them I referenced the high number of communication impairments that we see especially with young children uh developmental delay some of you may know uh is up until eight you know uh for students for whom there isn't another identified disability so when we look at this and again I hope that this isn't the end of this conversation I hope this is the beginning uh and certainly creates opportunities for us to talk about how we can make decisions and support the work um to impact students in a positive way I hope that folks are thinking about this and and trying to ask some question about what does that mean for us um even though the the some of the factors may impact kids similarly and some may be a little bit different uh I imagine you know my time's running short I going to take up all the air in the room about one of the things that I want to drive home is how students in our district are supported across the spectrum of what we call least restrictive environment uh and the way you'll see these numbers when we talk about full inclusion that's a student who is in the general Leed classroom about 80% of the day or more right um there are students that might come out for speech as we've identified or physical therapy occupational therapy uh or specialized instruction from a special educator for example or a counselor um for students for whom that is a small part of their day we consider them full inclusion their day is not considered to be meaningfully uh impacted by the amount of services they're receiving when we start talking about students that are out of the general classroom more than 21% specifically that's 21 to 60% uh and you can do the math you know in a what six six and a half hour day the number of minutes that that uh represents but for students that's more than a fifth of their day right so now we're talking about an hour plus so maybe they're getting reading and writing maybe they're getting reading writing and math maybe they're getting uh Speech OT PT and counseling right now those numbers start to add up those students are going to be identified in our partial inclusion and why is that important for us why should that be something that you folks should care about the stakeholders watching should care about because it tells us a couple of things one some subset of those students absolutely need that level of support right so the increased time out of the general education environment to some degree should be thought of as increased intensity of service right the anytime we're not providing a service in the general classroom there should be a good reason for it right so that these supports can't be satisfactory provided in the general setting uh or would be inappropriate to do so right in the case of a speech session in some cases or a conf iial counseling session of course but then also we should be thinking about are there some of these students that the services could with a little bit of lead time some thoughtfulness and you know configuration as the work continues over this year and into the future we can increase the amount of these services that are provided effectively in the General Ed setting uh that becomes most strikingly clear when we're talking about the number of our students that are currently supported the bulk of their day in substantially separate settings and what I mean by that is you know these students that are considered uh substantially separately placed are out of the general environment 60% of the a day or more um and in a lot of cases that's absolutely appropriate right these might be students that are receiving discret trial training for a majority of their day they might be students for whom a large group even of 12 or 15 kids is wildly over stimula right uh the uh expectations in an environment of that sort render it uh really in compatible with learning or being available for learning so we don't want to be worried or concerned about students receiving that intensity of support and we want to celebrate the students that we're able to support effectively in our community schools there is a direct connection between the number of students that we are supporting in our substantially separate programs and students who would otherwise have to be supported out of District which in and of itself is further away from what we're trying to do at the same time we need to be very sober about our approach to making sure that we're not just shifting students from these more intensive settings into the General Ed setting for the sake of doing so right for example um the audit of our programs which you know has since been called tiered Focus monitoring and it's now continued you know monitoring Improvement identified that 20% of our students with disabilities are supported in substantially separate programs as compared to the state average of something like 133% so even as we are skeptical of State averages right because they don't do a great job Mark Twain said there are lies there are damn lies and there are statistics right so we want to be very skeptical about those averages and what they mean at the same time we want to understand that those differences mean something we are supporting more kids in more restrictive environments than we probably should that's the type of thing we could say when compared to State average as a result of that the work that we're doing is to increase our ability to support kids effectively in less restrictive environments and that becomes really important when we're talking about budget conversations when we're talking about instructional planning conversations when we're talking about policy conversations because it isn't just about moving a student into a gened classroom it's about what is happening in that General classroom what supports are available what does the experience look like as we roll out high quality instructional curriculum and materials as we spend a lot of time focusing on like high leverage practices that support all students and then we talk about about the ways we keep tabs on kids over time the way we identify things early we talk about implementing some of the the recent learning over the last several years in Reading instruction at the early levels those types of things are very important for us because then we're able to get out ahead of it and make sure that we have the infrastructure and by that I mean the decision-making capacity the identification and the tools to put interventions in place in a timely way so that students can have experiences that are productive and positive even if they may be navigating some uh disability challenges for example or in the case of multilingual Learners uh cultural or linguistic challenges that with some configuration hard work and and getting some traction we can minimize the negative impact on their progress and that really is the most important thing in our work when we talk about special education we talk about English as a second language instruction in working to Ure that students don't need those Services by the time they're graduating um so I had some concern about including the early uh education programming numbers here because it's nuanced I know that I'm short for time um and I'm not great at being brief so thinking about it is absolutely critical to ensure that students at this age some of whom have never set foot in a uh group structured educational setting before have access to their peers right it is super important that we are able to provide students exposure at this age you're talking about kids that are coming to us at 3 um some of whom we might have the benefit of having for a couple of years in our preschool access to age level peers and yet in some cases whether there disabil in some cases whether it's disability related or not we have students that are in those settings that need tremendous support so I'm skep you know I was skeptical of of sharing these numbers because of how they might be interpreted without the ability to talk uh about them but one of things that we need to ensure that we do is still have opportunities to support students in uh highly intensive settings in our preschool while also ensuring that everything we're doing is intended to support all kids in an integrated fashion um and that's a really interesting conversation for us to have certainly at a at another time similar in philosophy uh to our K through 12 programming but in some ways uh unique because of that age level uh and and students coming to us turning three uh this is what I was getting at before so I won't dwell on it it really has to do with a couple of the areas in our current um progress reporting to the state right so of all of the ways the state uh looks at our work as a district there are several special ed Criterion the two that are related one is they just call it right out least restricted environment how many of your students are you educating in the general environment um the that is the most basic version of of that conversation and again I hope that folks will will understand there's a direct connection between our ability to support the average General educator uh in being able to create and maintain uh a classroom environment at any grade level that can meet the needs of a diverse group of Learners you know it's a reasonable to say that these classrooms are are more diverse in their needs than ever before uh and we know more about how to teach at a high level in some of these high level practices that are happening so similarly when we talk about 34 this cont of services it's just what is the array of services offered by the district whether that be related Services you know teachers are visually impaired you know teachers of the deaf or counselors or speech pathologists for example or when we're think about special Educators the different types of specialized instruction that they provide so um continuing to both you know ensure that those are codified effectively that everybody's clear and that we have consensus that there's both a vertical so K you know prek through 12 but also horizontal alignment right as we look at redistricting ensuring that each student in a third grade classroom has a similar experience and similar access to the same types of supports that's you know really critical as we move forward um and I touched on before you know but again a message that I hope to leave you with is the need to and the impact of educating uh diverse groups of Learners whether it be neurodiversity uh or cultural and linguistic diversity in General Ed settings and being thoughtful about that and always holding that lens up to our decision-making process um and how we're doing our work one of the flip side of that and I expect I'm um running over time now so I'll be brief but the number of out of District program placements we have uh again it's going to always be part of our Continuum certainly the 18 through 22 um populations these are students that may be in uh a variety of settings there is a direct connection between our ability to support students our continu of services that I just talked about in District and how many students need to be supported in uh out of District placements that ranges from students with particular types of learning needs whether that be for example uh Clark's preschool um that supports students are heart of hearing that was in Northampton up until recently or other schools serving students who heart of hearing for example like lyly Ross or you talk about particular programs that support different cohorts there are schools that specialize in providing High quality of care to students with intense um are intensely impacted by Spectrum disorders or have significant reading disorders that require you know really intensive and coherent and cohesive instruction throughout their day each of those has its place and is important and we will never no the public school district will ever be able to do all of it in the same way but we should be able to ensure that we are providing a high level care and instructional responses to students with those profiles so that we can especially it's the the ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure situation that we can identify and address it early independent of those areas so that students gaps and needs uh aren't rising to a level where they can't be supported effectively in our district uh and that's both important because we want to support our kids in their Community Schools in that least restrictive environment but also it has some some very real uh budget implications for this body that I think are are critical so it very is very important for us to think about the direct connection between how we're standing up our organization and putting our folks in a position to to provide high quality work to to folks in the way that we are now and these out of District placements um as well as there are some things just a a function of special ed law some of these numbers are kids that we never see or have opportunity to make decisions about right it's literally just if folks lived in Green Field right when they went into their uh went into foster care their rights as parents were terminated and they're there right so so always we always want to look at these with uh with some skepticism and identify how we got there uh the last piece I just don't want to lose sight you know we also look at the in people Services we also support the English as a second language program for multilingual Learners that's of note because the last couple of years are the numbers of students whose non-native English speakers whose language the home is not English has increased dramatically you know think about a couple years ago we were you know hovering about 60 high 60 year over year and then it jumped 80 you know last year jumped as high as 123 at one point now we're hovering about 100 right a reasonable person would expect going to be there uh for the foreseeable future and that has real ramifications both in terms of the the compliance side and the need to to ensure our program is sound in that way but also because of the very real scale of uh these services so for example the as the number of students across our buildings increases and the diversity of their level of English language proficiency increases you know the ability to group them thoughtfully in instructional ways that are both age and skill appropriate becomes uh different so we want to be thoughtful of that I don't want folks to lose sight of the significant number of the high school right which is why we added the position this year and again a reasonable person you know would expect we would need another position for next year to support this you know we get into those conversations in the months to come the district is doing some really exciting work work in terms of curriculum for ESL um as part of our work with the state uh very similar to the the work that's being done for high quality instructional materials you know in other uh areas what a lot of people don't think about is that uh English language is a core a core content area it's just that some students are doing math you know are doing four core area subjects for students who are um English language Learners they're doing five and I think the more we're able to help people understand that it helps understand and you know certainly some of the conversations I'll be having as we get into the year um and then again certainly uh reasonable person would take a look and identify the increase in number of students who are identified as homeless or underhouse is in direct uh correlation to the opening of a emergency shelter expansion site recently uh and again we expect that that will begin to level off as the numbers you know over the days in begin to shift uh and roll out in the you know the next year 18 months um but again all that being said each of these populations each of these subgroups experiences our district and their school buildings in slightly different ways and has needs that are both you know consistent with the needs of other learners but additional challenges that may not be a top of- mind for folks so I'm so grateful for the chance to to share with you tonight and I look forward to you know additional opportunities to have conversation because each of these can be thought of as a different facet right of of the gem that is our school dist District or a different lens to apply say how is one group or another advantaged or disadvantaged by the decisions we make um and I'm just super excited for the work that's happened last year into this year and uh and for what's going on um one of the things I really hope to get some visibility with is our two parent advisory councils uh we've had some traction recently getting uh additional core uh participants in our special ed parents advisory Council uh as well as continuing to ramp up our work with our English uh Learners parents advisory Council and both of those um are coming up we've got a meeting next week um so there's a a couple of things we can do certainly we can go to our website and folks can access that uh and we look to increase uh visibility of some of that to reach folks that might not be looking you know different places or might not catch it in some of our current communication threads um but there's a lot of exciting stuff going on and certainly the more folks can engage in those conversations um you know I think the the more robust it is so the both of these parent advisory councils are really important ways for folks to be involved um as well as just exciting and really just interesting conversation so I would urge uh anybody even if they're unsure you know or think that they might not necessarily be able to participate I think you uh be surprised you know everybody's perspective is is not only welcome but but necessary so with that very interest thank you yeah any questions for Mr messing oh yes M so we get to see your bills so some of my questions are directly related to that and one of them is I was very excited when we got a school psychologist I mean that was like a big thing to celebrate but we're still pay for other outside Consultants to do special Edie BS the numbers seem kind of high to me do you need another school psychologist absolutely yeah yeah so at present you know with the numbers that we're looking at we would always expect to have probably two and a half or two and three4 case load in terms of if our school sites were doing nothing but testing uh at present we our school psyches do mostly just the psych testing which is to say cognitive testing and behavior rating scales and our special educators are doing at present the majority of academ educational diagnostic or academic achievement testing if you will uh at present we have one of the two budgeted School psych positions we have one full-time psych we're fortunate to have an intern uh whose workload is is capped at about a third or a half three4 of what we'd hope a full-time psych would be able to do so if a reasonable person would hope to get somewhere north of 70 you know evaluations depending uh not all evaluations are the same U but I would expect in District of our size with the numbers of initials and reeval that we've saw um we've taken some steps to you know to ensure we're uh not getting to a point of frivolous aows so addressing at the front end but certainly So currently last year for example we utilized the better part of half a dozen different cont contracted School SES which was helpful in terms of being able to get out of a significant hole in terms of you know I came on board in July of last year we had a backlog that was over two years old I wouldn't I literally wouldn't have believed you had I not walked into it I spent half of my career you know in this work I wouldn't believe what we walked into last year with a regard to the backlog of evaluations we're fortunate we just last week actually got caught up at the high school level uh in terms of being on Target and we are on Pace to be complet Cent you know for the end of this year right which is super exciting so when we're talking about standing capacity or expectation for School site specifically psychological evaluations absolutely I would say a district of our size we would expect two and a half two and three4 full-time equivalent so when we're thinking about where we stand now we have a full-time site who's great came through us an internship last year staying on board is is phenomenal we're fortunate to have an intern again doing some of that work and then what you see is effectively a full another full-time effectively contracted site and then we see some ancillary things whether they be bilingual all that um the last thing I would say on that is we've really leaned into technology being in Northern Franklin County we're always going to be up against it we are not the only ones that are short on school SES uh but we've really leaned into technology I was skeptical because of the pandemic uh what I had thought of at that point was people trying to do evaluations in remote way because of some of the other issues of the pandemic at the time we have leaned into uh an interaction with Lily Pad learning actually a startup um you know out the eastern part of the state that's partnered with a lot of districts and without a doubt not only are they doing high quality work and able to support folks in a timely way with high quality valuations uh and support teams in effective decision making for students but we wouldn't be able to come compliant uh and be meeting our regulatory obligations to either students families you uh or the state without it so in short yeah I I would certainly love another school psych I have no illusions that we can reasonably expect to keep on staff more than two in District you know salar school cyes so I would always you know best case scenario if we were able to have two uh full-time school pyes and you know nearly 2third of the equivalent I think that would allow us to be where we need to be um especially because the only other way to do a part-time would be if you had a retired you know somebody was retired and wanted to work the equivalent of you know two-thirds time there questions oh remember a good one so one of the things Greenfield Public Schools is worried about is attendance and one of the things I would love to see data on is the attendance in our special ed population because one of the things that in the past was never discussed at Team meetings attendance was never brought up so School psychologists when they did vows weren't talking about attendance it's really hard to learn if you're not there so looking at the attendance for these children who have five or six service providers who are pulling out their hair because the child's not there um that's something that I would love to see that data because when we talk about the fact that we're above State average how many of the children who are in that category are just not coming to school is one of my concerns other questions member Martini uh I wondered if you could briefly explain for folks what is the district's obligation when it comes to evaluation they are timelines that need to be met uh and what the repercussions are for the district if we uh don't evaluate in a timely manner and whether or not our lack of Staffing is considered an excuse yeah um so it's a a great question so all of special ed law can be thought of a civil rights law right came on the same time you know mid 70s up through you know most recently um the current version of it so the reason that's helpful is one of the things is this timeline right you think about districts can't stall families on these things so with regard to evaluation either if a parent makes a recommendation for testing you know has suspicions of disability or another Community stakeholder members of the school staff for example they go through they do the student sort of study team and they're you know trying interventions they have concerns as soon as that referral comes through uh the district is on a timeline where we have to send out an evaluation consent form that can be thought of as the permission slip any testing that we're not doing for all students and the way they do map testing um you know sort of standard Benchmark testing we need to ensure we're getting parent permission for so there's a timeline after which a parent either reaches out to us it used to be in writing it's now the state has blown the doors off of that which is another conversation entirely but we have uh a limited number of school days to be able to share uh with them a evaluation consent form for their consideration and then one of the options parents have is to then accept those evaluations and return it to us from the time we return that signed permission you know so if they bring it into the central office if they mail it in and it gets opened up we essentially have a 45 school day window 30 of those school days to get the testing done unless it's towards the end of the school year and then there's some additional pieces where we have to do it no later than two weeks at the end of the school year but essentially six weeks is probably the most helpful way of thinking about it to complete the tests that's a school psych doing their uh test testing that's a special educator doing their testing or related service provider doing their testing and then the additional 15 days are for which between the 30 and the 45 are for the team to come together review those evaluations at a initial eligibility meeting and do one of two things in the event that a student is not found eligible for example if student is not attending and they could have a disability they could be educationally significant but the reason for that uh Gap isn't the disability which is something that we try and do a better job of if I what's going on to speech member group point but the other 15 days between the 30 days to get the evaluations done that 45th day the district has to have met and done one of two things if the student is not found eligible provide written notice of that we call that an N2 or notice of no finding um it's essentially just the formal notification that they were not F eligible which in a lot of cases is great it means there's things going on that uh will allow the student to dve benefits Ben from their time agreement for public schools without the support or if they are found eligible and more uh in some ways more timely and certainly more time intensive is furnish an IEP so when we talk about a student who's eligible for special education at any one of our grade levels that work of identifying what their needs are planning for it drafting the IEP in the case of a special educator for example who's also juggling a host of other case loads other responsib ilities each day that absolutely matters and I would say to member Martini's point a lot of the findings from the previous program audit that we worked really hard to to come pretty close to uh getting compliant with has been our ability to furnish parents either an IEP in the case of a child find eligible within 45 days or a notice of no finding if they're not found eligible and uh to speak to the question that was asked the state is in concerned one bit about why it didn't happen they certainly aren't interested to hear that we don't have the capacity or that there are some exceptions if the you know the child wasn't available if they were absent consistently and we couldn't test them there are some things that the parent didn't make them available for testing so there are some exemptions but generally speaking the state expects us to meet that timeline come H high water so I think that's an important piece because we don't get to say you know we're doing our best and that's one of the interesting Parts about my experience is I look at staff that are working very hard each day and effectively what I'm saying to them is I appreciate that and yet you know the Train's got to run on time so that is a very important part of it um and it's not just Staffing but I think the timeline is is important um it's a also opens the door to a much larger conversation about people's understanding either this body or in general about the very real legal framework of special education and and English and second language more broadly thank you for that uh that is related to my second question is it okay if I go ahead with that or did someone else want to take a shot do you wna go ahead uh so my question is about um identification early identification I appreciated what you said about uh the need to intervene early with student students in order to prevent the need for more intensive Services later and I would like to see um at some point I'm not asking you this off the top of your head right now um but I would like to see um some data about how many of our students are being identified in or after the third grade and I would like to understand more about what the district is doing to uh coordinate between special education and general education so that we can identify students as early as possible and provide them the specialized instruction and accommodations that they need as early as possible so that we can address uh our longer term numbers uh in special education in the district uh so I don't know if there is anything you would like to um offer off the top of your head about that right now if so please um please do I I would say one of the things that certainly cuts across all disability profiles is early literacy right one of the reasons I'm so grateful for the work that's being done at present and the work that's been done even before I joined the district last July is without high quality early literacy instruction and without the ability to identify students that are not responding to that literacy instruction when provided when they're attending regularly and the ability to look at other potential options allow them to be reading or able to access grade level text you know at and Beyond third grade is critical um it's not just students with reading difficulties that may be impacted there are students who are are presenting a variety of disability profiles for whom gaps in Reading are only going to be exacerbated so you know whether we talk we know more now about how to provide um interventions of a variety of intensity whether we're talking about those that are these small snapshots to fill in small gaps uh in one aspect of fundamental reading uh skills or another um but when we talk about ramping up and getting uh I talked about vertical alignment horizontal alignment having consistency in the way our different elementary schools run their SST process of course a little bit different because each school is different has its own flavor and you know needs to to look a little bit different in the context of that building consistency where it matters in terms of how we are looking at regular intervals of particular uh indicators in the case of reading for example indicators dyslexia and then how we are making decisions about that such that a student presenting in the same way across our three elementary schools has an equal or Equitable opportunity to be identified and provided the same opportunities uh in that way I think it's also instructive because again a lot of the work to support students with different learning needs can and should be done before special that even comes into the the conversation if that makes sense um so that would be the one thing I would say now in terms of early literacy pieces and responses to that so there's been a little bit of of that work done one of the things I'm really excited to do is have more opportunities for the types of uh interventions that can be interwoven into kids programs without being overly disruptive uh and that's very consistent with some of the recent work as we've shifted into understanding more about the signs of reading how to have those particular uh therapeutic doses of instruction in particular skills and then being able to say did it you know did it achieve the result or not and then do we keep doing it until a student no longer requires it or shift you know to ensure that they're getting an intervention that is effective member ston I have a few different questions the first is just a numbers clarification are the IEP students and the 504 students mutually exclusive no that's a great question uh generally if a student isn't in most cases the only reason you would have in generally speaking uh where we see students having both IEPs that are active and 504s are things like medical needs if you have a medically significant allergy for example uh or similar uh that's because it's reasonable that the IP related pieces might resolve and this other piece would still uh be there um I would say generally speaking the overlap is pretty small if you were to say you know what is the number of students who have both an active IP and active 504 I would say likely single digits you know pretty pretty small um but no not mutually exclusive in that way which is to say having one doesn't preclude you from the other I would say in most cases where a student is on a 504 and then it's found eligible for an IP we'd be asking questions about what in the 504 would not just be subsumed into the IP and again that's going to be medical analogies things of that sort yeah mostly asking so that I can get a better sense of the overall percentage of our students are receiving some kind of something um another question is can you say a little bit more about how we are building the capacity that we need to be able to offer more inclusion as you you mentioned the wanting to transition from more substantially separate to more inclusive strategies so yeah so uh a lot of it is providing the opportunity for uh General Leed classrooms to have the ability to support a variety of of needs uh again you know people tend to shy away from additional adult support because it has the capacity to be utilized both ineffectively and U and inefficiently frankly um and what I mean by that is if we're talking about ensuring that a general education teacher at any given grade level has the ability to bring a group of kids forward for example if I'm a a high school biology teacher right I'm not teaching 180 days of cont I'm bringing a group of Learners forward from where they are on the framework of biology content through the strands and topics right the scope and sequence of the bio content forward how their ability both with the material instructional materials they have um ability to differentiate up or down but in most cases down and by that I mean making grade level Concepts right DNA replication for example a life cycle accessible to students might be operating a A literacy level three or four grade levels below their ability to do so within reasonable expectation of their PR teach are work in you know long hours anyway but being able to do so uh within the time that's one way capaity increased so for example as we look at providing resources or help them identify either practices teaching practices um that reach more students whether we provide them with M uh materials that provot students whether we identify uh the types of supports that students in their classroom might need so specifically identifying things that would interrupt or disrupt or interfere with a teacher's ability to run a classroom uh and that is where adult support is has a role and I don't mean to to say that adult support is everything I mean to say that there's a lot of interventions and supports both passive and otherwise um that can't be done by a single educator in a room alone um so that's one of the ways we can talk about capacity is helping have folks have clarity about what that looks like both so we as a group can be sure that adults that are identified so in this case for example PA professionals instructional assistants um uh both specialized in some cases uh and more generalized they are clear on the ways in which their support can support or constrain kids learning right so when we're talking about ways that we are increasing capacity to support more students in less restrictive environments a lot of it is perspective building right U some of it is winning the hearts and Minds right communicating uh whether it be the teaching to strengths uh type work that uh you know has been historical whether it be the leading with dignity work um that superintendent patot is bringing the executive leadership team through now helping win hearts and minds of the members of the school Community both School staff and otherwise to the ability for all students to learn uh in inclusive settings and then how what that can look like um being able to break down you know not to be cliche about this idea of silos but breaking down this wall between General Ed and special ed uh building a shared ownership of the success and progress of all students right they're all all of our students helping you know literally one of the most effective things I can do for the district is help build a shared understanding that if a student's identified for special education they don't become Special Ed's responsibility right there's nothing that a special educator can do that is going to take the place of a student having access to a high quality uh GED experience and that's true across grade levels across content eras so in the same way I don't just get to say oh yeah if only General Educators would do more right that's not it at all so it's arming them with the tools that they need to be able to do the things we're asking them right we're asking U both General Educators and special Educators do more than we ever have before as a as a field so arming them with curricular materials arming them with instructional understanding and professional development related to how do I support a student you know who may be navigating specific challenges especially in the context of externalizing behaviors so if I'm talking about an elementary student who may uh be academically capable but be unable to remain regulated you know at certain times what are some effective ways to identify that early what are some passive proactive things that we can do um that has to do with increasing our level of Behavioral support whether it be terms of the two District bcba positions whether it be the desire to have registered behavioral technician positions in the elementary schools that work where they're talking about the you know adjustment counselor work there's a lot of both Staffing capacity instruction resource capacity professional development and then a lot of it literally it's just perspective building helping build a shared vision and understanding of what the general environment can and should look like and what that can mean for different students uh another thing and you know especially as we think about like curriculum and instruction if you think of the desire of bringing that group of kids forward I use the example of the biology teacher if we can help give teachers an understanding that look your job is not to cover 100% of those strands your job is to bring a group of kids forward meaningfully and thoughtful identification about the power strands right the power topics within that or you know making effective decisions about use of time so that you're being thoughtful about reducing the impact on students learning of that there's a host of those so um in short it's well beyond the time that I have I appreciate the question there's a variety of things um that we're doing it really has to do with arming folks with instructional materials professional development uh and messaging andv visioning about how to do so um and sure I have like one and a half more questions go ahead um so this next one requires a bit of a pre but I was thinking about those 87 students that were identified as un or underhouse and you had mentioned that you expect that number to shift slightly as you know we know that the the state is making changes to the emergency shelter um policy Etc but I'm I'm curious about what we might be able to offer those students even once they find Semi or permanent housing the experience of having been under underhouse does not leave them um and I'm and that is sort of true I'm sort of wondering for students who are not directly part of one of these categories but who we know are experiencing things that could impact their ability to show up in a classroom and be ready to learn um or to be receiving education effectively um what can we do for those students and does that fall under your opes yes am uh yeah I think it has a lot a lot of the things that we can do have have already been done the superintendent support support for uh Transportation options for students that might not otherwise be able to do it you know again certainly not all students that take advantage of the additional Transportation uh solutions that the superintendent has you know has authorized to allow more students access are homeless or underhouse but it's certainly not without impact um again when we think about creating spaces where students are able to come to the average setting whether it's a cafeteria whether it's Library setting whether it's a classroom setting certainly and not have the additional barriers um that they don't have the bandwidth right uh we talk about the backpacks right all of us have backpacks some students have heavier loads in those backpacks um a lot of times which are invisible so when we talk about the things we can do it really starts with just creating and maintaining environments that are clearly communicating to students that they are seen welcomed and safe and not in a Kumbaya way right not in an abstract way but in a these are things that we do to be very clear and explicit in sharing with students that uh we have regard for them you know that uh the classroom environment is a place where uh we welcome them and want them to be that they are missed when they are not there um it has to do with the way we talk to kids it has to do with the way that we respond when kids talk to us in ways that we might not always appreciate um you know people talk a lot about about uh being trauma informed they talk about the impact on early you know early development and all of that often times what gets lost is some of the ways in which some of the folks that you're talking about are impacted their experience is is because they don't show up necessarily not only on uh metrics that we're reporting to the state but they might not be visible right they don't have these indicators over there you know over the heads that say hey please be um please be gentle with me today you know I used all my bandwidth uh so I would say more than anything the things for us to do are ensure that we are creating environments and communicating with kids in ways that uh are sensitive to that but also are pro not just being reactive to to students that may be vulnerable or having some difficulty but really proactive in communicating you know the sense of comfort and safety and regard you know in our schools there's a variety of ways we can have conversation about differ of opin ways to do that um you know in the technical side of it but more than anything I'd say that's it and that's the through line between any of the initiatives that we look at that needs to be clear um because the absence of that serves to undermine any of the particular things we might try and do whether it be getting kids to school whether it be outfitting them whether it's food security whether an on down list that's the through line that we need to focus on because we can sort of add technical elements to the other first order needs but if we're never addressing that feeling safy I think we're missing the boat my half question is um just the first part um what do you and your staff need from us to be able to best provide the education that you're wanting to provide for these kids yeah I think it's you know a a reasonable expectation of you know the organizations functioning you know uh we're fortunate to have a situation in District now where the focus of the district as a whole is more consistent with what is good for the needs of our momal Learners than in a lot of districts um and what I mean by that is the district's current instructional Focus the the priorities of the district as a whole are consistent with the types of improvements instructionally uh and otherwise that will you know to do better I think anything we can do to improve uh you know consistency or um you know we reduce you know churn whether that's policy whether that's Staffing you know those types of things are going to be important but I would say more than anything ensuring that we're not uh discontinuing or disrupting you know current initiatives that are are proving effective um and that we're raising up the visibility of the impact of certain decisions that might be made uh or not made uh with an eye for that I think that for me would be the most important thing it's not just oh you know we need Staffing we need this or that uh we're actually fairly um we've got a lot of protective factors we got a lot of reason to be encouraged in District here I would think if this body is taking into account how decisions advantage or disadvantage particular groups of students that would be the main thing because there are particulars that are going to be different in time um but I think that's the the main piece I would look at you know what is the tip totale experience of a student at any grade level and how decisions that this body is making impact that either the the building unit analysis the classroom of analysis that's the real way if that's fair thank you any other questions for Mr Messing good one can you tell me how many instructional assistants we have off the top of my head it' be interesting I'd have to think about you know in the different buildings looking at the different vacancies you know uh depends if I include you know the two that I have to submit you know in terms of at some point in the future um but no I wouldn't want to give you uh a number today without the context of where some of those positions are you know I mean I came from a meeting earlier today that informed forms it there are a couple of plans that are in process that are going to inform it that's fair other questions member Martini I uh wanted to Carry On from Member Sexton's question um or last half question because that really gets at um the reason why I asked for this presentation previously which is about student achievement um is something that uh this committee has uh talked about periodically not enough in my opinion um and uh in our accountability data that was recently presented by uh the assistant superintendent uh we saw some nice gains for certain groups of students but the one group that really didn't have any gains was our students with disabilities and I'm also keenly aware that um a tiny teeny tiny percentage of our students with disabilities are able to meet expectations on the mcast in grades three to eight for example uh and are uh otherwise showing indicators of not making uh what probably many of their parents would consider to be meaningful progress uh and what the law asks us to do for students with disabilities is to prepare them for uh higher education and employment and independent living so um I I appreciate um all of the data that you provided tonight and the discussion um about the having students as much as possible in the least restrictive environment planful so that they can receive what they need um that cannot be delivered there uh and I would also like to see a lot more data uh and information about the achievement of our students with disabilities um that's uh that leads me to um my questions which are uh probably too too big for this evening but um I would like to know what are the biggest gaps what are the biggest needs what would be the most impactful things that the district could do to improve its uh capacity in special education to uh to serve our students in order to answer those questions I think we would need more um information about where uh our students in different disability groups for example are falling when it comes to achievement so I would love to see you back here at some point in the near future with more information about that yeah and even the question is even the question is worded right I think it requires each of those pieces to be teased out you know because the differences aren't necessarily going to be similar across achievement areas you know across grade level so I would want to make sure we were able to give that due sort of consideration and certainly well beyond this but each of those is important and thinking about for all the things that might be common contributing factors or root causes u in some ways what's more instructive the differences in the ways kids are impacted whether it be by disability profile or an achievement area for sure any other questions from the committee I guess I have a a thought I don't know if it's as much a question but maybe you can respond um I'm wondering given how expensive that out of District um placements are if there was a way to we had some more found some way to invest more resource in you know for example years one and two and it resulted in year three having one fewer person and an out of out of District placement it may have been well worth that investment that's not exactly the way City budgets and school budgets work but um I wonder if you have any thoughts about what that investment might look like that might help us to reduce those placements yeah that's certainly a longer conversation that we have done for and again uh I'd love to have that convers in Earnest uh when we have you know the full breadth I would say in short what we're likely to come up against is what are legitimate limiting factors and what I mean by that is if we were to lay out the types of investment you're talking about that would result in decreased need it is very likely a reasonable person would expect that we would be hard pressed to make that manifest even with the blessing and Goodwill of this body just because of structural factors which is to say if I were to to identify particular areas of growth and we were to think that if we were able to provide more adults to provide a higher dose or intensity you know a more of a certain service in a certain area that it would do so a reasonable person expects that we be likely to fill those additional positions for example um I think that would be the one thing that I would want to be concerned about uh and yes you're absolutely right there is a perverse incentive in a lot of ways you know talking about the different layers of government and all of that for people to not be future planning in that way I I certainly understand the uh Val time value of budgets you know in terms of this year's budget as opposed to future benefit um so that you know that's new want in a lot of ways and of course there's a lot of uh particular conversations around that but I think what we would want to include in part of that conversation if we were having it in a really candid way and comprehensive way is with the full boore what are the parameters that are going to be constraints and that leads us into how do we how do we reduce the impact of those barriers for example in what ways can we leverage technology to overcome some of the uh reduced access to to labor force for example for talking about uh you know language access for low incidence languages for example interpretation and translation we wouldn't be able to do the work we do if I wasn't able to reach out and get an Albanian interpreter you know from somewhere across the world right these loans we don't have a lot of Greenfield residents that speak Mano dialects right like that sort of stuff so those that's part of the conversation is if there was a desire and a good faith effort to invest that intensity of resources to achieve what you're talking about achieving what are the other ways that we'd have to look at actually making that so and then more to the point I think one of the things that I would want to make sure is that we were ensuring it was sustaining so that it isn't just benefit this year or next year how are we taking those steps to make an investment that have lasting benefits on students that are if it was a certain grade level if we said hey we we care a lot about grades K one two that students students this year that were in K next year that in K the year after in K so that's it's lasting right so we're not feeling as though the benefit of any investment whether monetary or otherwise is uh fleeting you know that it's lasting and we can feel really um as though we've been fiscally responsible in investing in a enduring way thank you you're your part of your answer made me think that part of it may be a conversation with our legislator about how to try to address some of that um the pipeline of of workers and what is going on at the state level to try to increase the number of candidates for those types of positions because you're right that's something that's kind of beyond the scope of this body and and of your work but it's the environment that you're hiring within that is creating a lot of the obstacles that you're talking about thank you all right thank you very much really appreciate your time and I guess we'll be seeing you again soon thanks all right um Andy pad has joined us Andy if you are ready to sure thank you uh you have in your packets the uh December 24 fi25 budget update uh we did as a requested uh I've attached a a narrative summary regarding the highlights of uh the budget reports for the grants and the local budget so I can just walk you through that and then answer any questions you might have as the practice has been in Green Field you know we charge the expenses to the local budget and then uh we work with the city come into the year and do our final rec classes to the revolving accounts uh to make it easier as far as a one-time adjustment so as I referenced in the middle of the uh Report with uh as you know there's some uh turnover that experiencing on the city Side so there are encumbrances from the last payroll that have not been reduced we wanted to be able to get the report to you in time to review so I've in a sense had to reduce that when I walk you through the I'm going to call it the true balance available uh so there's $674,000 of the last payroll that uh for hitting a local budget that in a sense are double encumbered it's in hitting the expense line and also in the encumbered for the respective salary lines so when you walk through that along with our other funding sources from when we built the budget as to what we're going to use uh as of this day uh we're having what is I'm calling a preliminary Surplus of$ 384,000 47.72 which is only 1 62% of our fy2 budget I will refer you to the presentation that I did this is actually a good practice um in the sense that you know having 98% of your budget encumbered Andor committed uh is is you know it's a good internal control to make sure that you don't overspend the budget even with the fact that there are some expenditures some of the normal year-end expenditures that might not yet be encumbered uh so that 384 will be reduced but again uh Administration we feel that we're at a comfort level regarding uh ending the year in a positive balance uh similar issue with the incumbered in a payroll there are some revenues that haven't been posted yet on the revolving account so I've summarized those uh there um all that means is that you know as of right now when you look at the revolving account report uh for those accounts in particular school lunch circuit breaker school choice and transportation we actually in better shape than what it is that's shown so this is like the standard narrative that we uh provide uh but without further Ado I can answer any questions you might have or attempt to answer any questions you might have regarding their update questions for Andy remember good one are we encumbering salaries of people we haven't hired yet say that again sorry are we encumbering the salaries of people that haven't been hired yet there are positions that are unfilled uh we I have to go and review those Mo most of the times we don't but if there is a position that was left mid year it could be a timing issue where those salaries could still be encumbered okay other questions thank you very much Andy and thanks very much for the narrative report I found that personally very helpful and appreciate the members who advocated for that and Susan Farber who did some research to help us deduce there was no apparent um conflict with school committee policy uh that would prevent you from doing that so thank you no problem moving on on to the assistant superintendent Mr salivan good evening everybody excuse me okay so everyone has my report last month um I actually shared that we were kicking off the reading CH the stick to reading challenge with the Springfield Thunderbirds um and wanted to follow back up up on that that we did launch the stick two reading challenge um on Wednesday November 27th there are pictures in this uh in this update again as Boomer the Springfield Thunderbirds mascot attended each of our schools Turkey Trot um superintendent and I along with Boomer and some of his handlers made our way around the town on that Wednesday half day um and I think we got to all the turkey trots one school he was able to visit some classrooms because um they had gone inside but again just encouraging students to find joy and enjoyment in Reading um I've seen some teachers talking to students about the reading challenge already I said to students and teachers that the idea of this was to encourage students to find enjoyment in Reading at home but if they're doing it in school and they're enjoying it then they can certainly fill in their log um for their right to a free ticket to the Saturday January 25th game down in Springfield where they will host a Greenfield night we will be in touch with some more information about tickets um and reaching out to families if they're looking for transportation um as well so looking forward to that in late January I also included it's t it's probably difficult you won't be able to do it on your hard copy but in the folder there is the press release that we had sent out on that um so a little bit more information about that and comments from the Thunderbirds as well couple of Grant updates in terms of the Innovation career pathway we had to submit a part a application um by the end of October we submitted that and found out um I think December 2nd we got the email that we were inviting to do the part B application so the next step of the Innovation career pathway work is underway um essentially the part B application is a more in-depth application where we're providing um potential course sequences courses that could be included in the Innovation career pathway recruitment materials and such so uh the career pathway team is working on that and we're meeting with our partner from Mass higher Matt Allen um next Thursday afternoon for an update and the part B application is due in early February since we last spoke I had um the acceleration Academy Grant was a grant that we had applied for when I spoke in O when I spoke in November we have since received that Grant as well that will allow us to offer acceleration um the second paragraph is more about what the acceleration Academy should look like and that allows us to offer these in February and April so there's a meeting for Grant recipients next week that I'm attending and then I'll be working with our um principles to get this rolled out and begin to start identifying staff and students to participate in the acceleration acmy and then finally I wanted to share um this was not a grant that I had mentioned last month but the m cultural Council Council creative projects for schools Grant we pursued a grant for all three of our elementary schools um to have essentially an artist in residence for a period of time this winter and spring and we found out that we received um 5,000 grant for all three elementary schools so we're partnering with local artist Sarah aern belare um and we've titled the project hand in hand and a mural to connect our community and the idea is it will engage every student to create a large scale mural inspired by abstract quilts um we've also thought that this these murals at all three elementaries will be movable um so if at any point in the future schools come together or anything like that we'll make sure that the murals can also come together um it's also focused on includ inclusive and collaborative art lessons students will Design individual um quilt squares that will be combined into the mural that will be displayed at each school um and we're very grateful to obviously Mass cultural Council and Sarah Hearn bmer for supporting this meaningful project superintendent we'll do questions together for you to thanks uh just a quick update that the desie district site review was the week of the November 18th through the 22nd um the data collection folks that did all of the site visits the stakeholder interviews as well as are compiling our preliminary report have been in touch with Stephen and I the last week or so just to get some clarification on some fact finding issues that have Arisen and hopefully we will have um some um initial reports soon and then once those findings um are in its final form we will report back out to you what they have delivered to us um redistricting don't forget still happening um we have been working really hard though uh to talk to every family who is affected by the redistricting lines and redrawn street addresses for 2526 we did initial site visits to lien Woods in in Oak courts we also did a virtual information session for all of the families um we sent out letters and we had about uh 40 or so families that were not responding so then we did backpack letters when we've done personal phone calls and we've been following up this week so that every family has the opportunity to make the choice for their child um as of my report time it was 10 families we were still waiting to connect with but I'm Happ happy to report today it's eight so I'm going to make sure we get those other eight to respond to us um our next step though obviously will be to coordinate with travel CZ and talk about Transportation needs for our three elementaries in the 2025 26 school year because you did vote to provide transportation for those folks who chose to age out of their current homeschool or transfer to their new so we will be working with the bus company um I had a meeting this morning with the high school folks and we talked about scheduling because the students have selected their coursework for 2025 26 so we've been working on enrollments and class projections there which will create the waterfall effect down to the middle school and then down to the elementary I will be meeting with that Administration in the coming days and then um we'll meet with our union leaders and talk about uh potential staffing needs and changes for the 25 26 school year so um please know that all of that work is going on behind the scenes and we're constantly in communication with families affected as well as the staff in uh short time uh Staffing updates unfortunately we accepted the resignation of our director of Behavior Services Katie Miller Murphy and our district and state data manager Deborah Coons for personal reasons um so they will be finishing up their time time with us shortly um we are actively searching for replacements for both those positions and the jobs are posted so if anyone knows anyone please send them our way um we happily welcomed Carol Jacobs to Newton Elementary as our interim principal last week on Thursday December 5th she hit the ground running and is certainly happy to be back in greenfields um and we're really happy to have her on board she joined our e team yesterday and um was really just a positive influence on taking over at Newton so we appreciate her efforts um we are still looking for instructional assistance custodians and food service positions and all of those positions are on school spring if you're interested and we also continually encourage volunteers parents caregivers school committee members if you want to come and help out if you have time at our elementary schools lunch and recess is um definitely in demand and we would appreciate your time if you are able um there are some capital updates based on some information that's been uh unfolding as of late the Federal Street elevator the project did go out to bid by the city uh we had one sole bid which was nv5 which came in at previous allotments in the total of 181 989 so we are um short obviously a deficit of 4,679 so my proposal um this evening would be that the district allocate school choice funds to fund the diff difference so the dis District can complete the Federal Street elevator project can we maybe get the whole report then do questions then come back to the Motions for things like that sure um the other Capital update is the Middle School fire panel project in October the school committee approved a capital expense submission for 150,000 for FY 26 which was submitted to the city when the capital uh requests were made and then after that the district received an additional site visit from Fire Equipment Incorporated and upon their further inspection the upgrade is obviously going to be exponentially higher due to the fact that the GMS system as they called it is quote unquote obsolete so um the struggle is really finding replacement parts that are no longer available um so in order to fix all of the components and upgrade at GMS the new estimate is $315,000 um there is a little snafu in that as well though that there is some talk of future state requirements from the State Fire Marshall that any upgrades to new um fire alarm systems may have to include a voice over announcement instead of just having a fire alarm sound it's not currently in effect but it could be coming down the pike so the facilities director Mike brro just wanted me to add that potentially by the time this project would go through capital and actually get bid on and be implemented there could be an additional 100,000 if we had to include the voice over system so um currently the increase would be 35 but the potential could be 415 at a later date um we have had a request from Member Goodwin in the P for enrollment updates so I decided to include them in my update thinking it would probably be easier than just reading the numbers and that way you can compare what was from month to month so I will just continue to up update those each month but those are um obviously uh you can read on your own uh we currently as of December I think it was 9th it was run we had 1366 in District and then lastly I just really want to um if you haven't seen it my parent update or haven't been uh part of the project with your students that are in our district I really just want to let the community know the unity initiative that we've rolled out as a December 2nd um we're really trying to unite uh students staff families community members into the important role that they all play in the lives of our students each and every day and how you all are uh very valuable members of the green wve Nation we want to continue to support all of our students except diversity welcome all of them care for them um and make sure that they know that when they enter our Halls that they are uh part of our community which they belong to and that we love and care for each and every day so what we've been doing is launching some Unity messaging every morning and having days of the week where we can start to build stronger relationships with one another and really incorporate um some great chances for students to really get to know all those members of their Community whether they're adults or other students that they don't talk talk to so we have an ongoing initiative each day of the week um and you can talk to our students and our staff about maybe being caught being amazing so we are taking a a be kind initiative we have shirts and stickers and wristbands and uh announcements and you will see the picture I shared was the Federal Street students who were caught to be amazing and they got the reward of having lunch with their principal so all of those students you see there were very excited to eat with Miss helin so I encourage you to uh join in on our initiative and really uh celebrate our community and shine a light on all the good things that Greenfield Public Schools do thank you uh let's do any questions related to anything besides the capital items which were the elevator and the fire panel for either Mr Sullivan or Miss patod yes member Martini in regards to the stick to reading event I wanted to know if uh we are able to provide transportation to those students who win those tickets it may not be able to go if they don't have it yes so that's something that we're working on and we're planning to offer transportation to those who wish to go to the game but might not be able to to get there on their own thank you and um slightly another question related to the same um topic are the announcements and information related to that program um going home to parents uh in their primary languages yes they are primary languages and we're also looking into purchasing some tickets for families who may wish to go but may not be able to so so transportation and tickets were thinking about and working with the Thunderbirds member ston I was this is regarding the enrollment update I was wondering if you had any information about where some of these students are going and why the majority of our moves have been due to some of our folks in the days in who have been actually housed so the majority of the moves you see are because they've moved to Sunderland most of them have gone to the name of the apartment conflix is escaping me right now yeah so no Dave yes Cliffside thank you sorry is that what she said Susan I'm sorry yeah Cliffside yeah so those moves have happened and thankfully for them and they are having a a great experience being housed other questions member Martini in regards to Staffing um what is our current rate of successfully finding substitute teachers when we need them uh and uh I mean having an actual substitute as opposed to using an IA or some other member of our staff to cover that we have a very low substitute population pool so that creates a very big strain on building operations every day on average um district is seeing between 20 and 40 absences across six schools um and we have about four solid Subs that report to duty every day so um it is definitely a strain on operations it's a strain on the current staff that are in school it's a strain on our IAS it's a strain on our principles other questions thank you okay um oh can I just say Wednesday is help each other out day so if you were caught helping someone out today you could get a sticker before you leave just want to share that you all deserve a sticker you are here you got double stickers superintendent um all right so the first is um the elevator so I'd like to hear a motion to use um $ 4,679 of fiscal year 25 school choice funds to fund the difference between the allocated C Capital expenditures and the amount of the nv5 bid for the F Federal Street School elevator project so moved second okay discussion yes please member Childs uh so important we get this done quickly our staff over at Federal Street School having to haul heavy things up and down that stair those stairs it's a safety issue for them as well as an accessibility issue so this has gone on for way too long let's get it done any other comments this is a question I intend to vote Yes but I do want to understand what are the possible implications of moving these monies and are there any potential negatives from not having that 40K in that school choice account def that um May I yes may I answer yes uh no there would be no negatives um we as we proceed through the year uh there have been some uh changes as far as honestly between vacancy savings and also uh some additional funds that come in as you remember when we build these budgets we build them a year in advance and uh so when we built a budget on some of the grants that we are anticipating receiving we actually got more than we had we were conservative in our budget estimate so again I refer back to the presentation that we did where I refer to I believe the the the legitimate shell game of moving expenses to then free up the funds to be able to do this any other discussion mayor so you're taking the we want to move that from account 1521 that is correct thank you any other discussion or questions remember goodwi so I'm flashbacking I've been hearing about this elevator for decades how many times it's been repaired before so I guess as we go through this process if they fix it they better fix it I mean it's been fixed a lot I will let them know that other questions or comments okay all in favor say I I I any opposed any extensions motion carries unanimously all right for this one you say Choose Your Own Adventure I would hear a motion to either increase the FY 26 Capital request for the GMS fire panel from 150k to 315k or if you want to plan for the possibility of uh voice uh requirements then it would be 415k so when you say you're making the motion just say 315k or 415k I will move to increase the FY 26 Capital request for the Greenfield Middle School fire panel from a 150,000 to $415,000 is there a second second second from Member ston any discussion mayor Disorder so um I was just sitting here thinking that I wanted to ask the um fire Chief if they knew if they put that law into effect or do you know if um usually there's a term and there'll be you know as of such and such you'd have to do that I was I was going to advocate for 315 but um do you have any knowledge on that soend um Alex is who was talking with Mike buo about that just saying it could be coming down the pike but I'm not sure um the ifs and when and if you had more information or could find more or we could certainly reach out to Chief Strahan about the potential but um I guess it's looming in the State Fire Marshall U Arena which is why they just wanted us to be aware with regards to this project so I'm I'm going to I'm not going to vote for the 415 I'd vote for three I would um make a motion uh a counter motion to go for 315,000 if we need to come back for that I would certainly be in favor of it I just got a lot of news today that were all capital things that were going to be very expensive um as we're we're preparing to uh be moving City Hall so I I uh for short term I mean for short term because of uh line collapses some water and sewer so um so I would say 315,000 to and we would come back and certainly vote for that if we get more information about it but um i' look forward to hearing from you as well if you feel strongly or all of you feel strongly the other way I you know I'll go with whatever we decide can someone share a little bit more about the capital request process like if we put in 315k or it seems easier to put in for 415k and find out later we don't need the extra 100K and then just say oh we don't need that as much as we asked for how does that work mayor so I I will take that one because I I understand that many times you come through with an estimate of what you think it's going to be sometimes it's less and sometimes it's more generally people over you know they may overestimate a little bit but if there's a shortfall on whatever it is at the time we come back for another order for whatever it is I mean we did that this year already um something will be more than it is but the hard part is there's so many departments with capital needs that you're sitting and looking at at every Capital need like this this person will I think we have four or five trucks or cars and in DPW that are you know they're like 20 years old with 150,000 miles on it so you have to make a decision and although it might not sound like it that 100,000 would be something that you'd say well we're absolutely not going to do this this year because you have so many asks so if we don't know right now that that law is not in effect I'd say well we do know it's going to be 315,000 that's where I am um certainly if if when it goes out and it comes back and we have to do that you know um but I guess I'd like to take get a little bit more information on it than putting it up to 4:15 but it's the will of the group other questions or comments or discussion about the motion member Martini I'd like to ask the mayor a clarifying question and I'm sorry if I'm being obtuse um say we request 315 and that is approved and then come July uh this new requirement comes out then would we not need to go through the following years's Capital process in which case we would be looking at the next year like waiting an additional year year in order to get that approval or no yeah member mayor Disorder so for example this year we paved the DPW Yard and um the cost of Paving went up so we had approved that project and then it ended up being more than it was so um we did the project in that year and then put in an order for additional funding and when you say an order for additional funding that means go you go to the city council for for that okay yeah it isn't that you make that project wait another year it that to to answer um my fellow teammates uh question you you don't put the project off for a year but um we had two things that I can think of another thing that came through we were just an IT project that we waited 6 months and the bid was higher and you know it had been approved by the capital committee and but the dollar figure was higher so we put an order through for more than it was so for example if we put that order through for 315,000 and we know six you you know you have it written that way and we know five or six months from now or whenever won't be five or six months it will probably be May that we would be voting on that and if we know that for sure then the order that we' put forward would be for um a higher amount it's just that there are so many capital requests this year that that that's just my thought on it thank you other discussion question from superintendent uh is this the type of um project that can be done in two pieces can we uh do the project that we were expecting to do and then should this voice uh requirement come through is this uh system in which that capability can be added at a later date easily or no um I don't know that answer 100% but from my discussions with our facilities director the wiring capability at the time has to be programmed for voice over so I don't think it can be done in two parts but I don't know that for certain um I certainly can get that information for you other questions or comments discussion I guess I wonder if they do change the law I imagine that there would be all over the state there would be a need to upgrade whether the state would factor in at creating funds for Town buildings school buildings to do they're just going to do it as an unfunded mandate you think well just a just a thought um yes member child's so from this it's for new fire systems installed that means if we were to try to rush in under the wire and start the install and then this unfunded mandate came down then would it apply or not it seems like we just need more information on what exactly the rule would be when the rule would happen uh and then even the technical like would there be a way that we could have it installed with the voice add-on in the future as a possibility I have so many questions that I feel underiner is coming down like this they are doing it for some kind of safety reason that it was it actually would might be in our interest to have the voiceover system this is my assumption I could be totally wrong um and so that's why I would support allocating us to go for that system now if we think that one it's coming down the pike anyway and two if it is actually the safer of the options available to us then we should do it that's my reasoning I am also wondering if we should postpone this discussion until next month so that we can get some of these questions answered do we have time for that if we delayed it I would love to ask the mayor because I don't know the time on that because we do need to think about um fixing this ASAP yes that that's a it's certainly a priority to do it the capital committee will start meeting in January so a a dollar figure should be put in there um and but if Capital committee approves this for 35 and we find out by the time we're putting a financial order in which I would certainly prior prioritize this is something that is needed but if we know in a couple of months that the law is changing or it is necessary for us to do that um the financial order that will go in would be higher than what the capital you know committee had approved that happens as well that happened with um we have a figure something changes because of cost increase so a few months later is a few months later and you know more but you put the dollar figure that you know at the time what we know right now for sure is that it's going to be 3155 that's what I meant I'm all for safety as well but what we know now is this dollar figure I just was hearing the first time you know there may be there may be a law that is coming do you know what I'm saying member Den I was going to say the exact same thing that member seon said about potentially postponing it until we gather more information um if the if they're meeting in January and we're also meeting in January if our meeting happens before then we could Scuttle over some numbers in time might be worth postponing for a bit to gather inel our meeting is um January 10th um so uh I don't know when the capital committee's meeting how like how late in the game we can get things to you the other piece is that we may be looking at a special um school committee meeting an extra meeting getting scheduled before the end of this year so maybe we'd have more info by then but um I guess it to me it seems like we may we probably will not have the information about whether the system is actually required before January 8th so member Martini uh I have another question for the mayor can the capital committee not uh approve a smaller amount than was requested if the committee requests 415 they are given the context they approve 315 for now they'll approve the dollar figure that you know it's put in front of them they'll do an up or down approval or disapproval of the of the whatever number is put forward that's a good that's a very valid point wait when you say it's a valid point we you you mean it was a good question but the answer is no it's either it's an up or down vote on whatever number we put forward okay I'm seeing you nod okay um let's see I guess we are we ready to vote could let's see what happens so uh just a reminder the motion was to increase the FY 26 Capital request for the GMS fire panel from 150k to 450 15K uh well the mayor the mayor advocated for 315k that I haven't heard the um a request for a friendly Amendment or an acceptance of a friendly Amendment so the original motion was 4:15 that's what's on the table now I move to make a friendly Amendment for it to be 315,000 member Martini do you accept the friendly amendment I would like to hear the views of other members as to whether they would want that Amendment okay discussion M good one the word obsolete fire panel I think we get this in the pipeline at 315 knowing that this is a priority because it's a safety issue and knowing that it's children and a safety issue knowing that the city council would bump it up if it comes in higher I think the sooner this is in the pipeline the better I think waiting for some law in this world is just every day is different but if it's on paper in front of people at 3:15 and it says obsolete fire panel I think it'll get get done that's my gut I just want to say I appreciate member Goodwin's point and that is why I would like to uh vote on one of these two amounts tonight not put it off to our next meeting okay uh anyone else want to speak to the uh request to member Martini to for the friendly amendment to reduce the motion from 4:15 to 3:15 member child I have a question for the mayor so what is the Practical impact of asking for the 415 but then needing 315 versus asking for the 315 and then having the money later added on if needed is it something that's better for the town on paper or something that there's more projects that you know that you could fund this year and certainly I I saw this one for the school it's a priority that it's just math you have to add all of the things that everybody has requested I'm already looking at the list and this far far the requests outnumber the funds that we have um I there's no question in my heart that the safety ones come first so I would as long as capital committee approves it I would put that order forward but you have just so much to spend and I'm starting to look at them now and thinking there's more than we have the expenditure for on paper right now so if we do the 315 and then that extra 100,000 we're not asking then but we later need would that have already been allocated somewhere else had we make sure we could still get it if needed so it actually generally works out we have one one thing that's coming up tonight a big um I mean one thing that's coming up very shortly and you you cannot purchase something unless you have allocated the the funding for it and um but you don't pay for that until it's received so it's really so I I know of one big thing that we probably will be approving and we won't be expending that funds but I do have to do the math and it has to add up and but it's really the number of projects that you can approve that's really what it is and I just know the number of requests can I yes member Martini I'm sorry I need to ask another clarifying question I think correct me if I'm wrong I think what member child's was getting at is what's the likelihood um of the possibility that we request 315 we need 415 and then we're not able to get the additional 100,000 because we didn't request it UPF front I've heard the mayor say and correct me if I'm wrong mayor but you're pretty optimistic that an order could be put forward to the city council and they would fund the extra 100K right it frequently happens that things cost more than you might think and it frequently happens that things are less this one I just I was just listening to you know how this was presented tonight and I thought well it it it sounded like what we really knew it was going to cost was so much so that would have been the number I I would have put in that's all um but this just happened with an IT project it was six months later and a lot more you know I don't know 30 or $40,000 more you've already committed to do that so I don't see an issue with that I would just rather take the number that we knew what that we knew for sure that it's going to be this much the other one was a law that had not been written yet do you know what I'm saying um and I know how long a law takes to write we've been you I think you probably do some of you do as well we were rating for a you know chared change and we you do your steps here and then you send it into the state and it was a year and a half later and so if people are talking about that it just we had a little bit more research to do even by May the time that we were putting orders in we we don't I we don't know factually anything about where that is um I wouldn't put an order through five months from now for a dollar figure that was inactive accurate either if the law had changed it's frequently something gets through one committee and the numbers are a little different for one reason or another thank you any other discussion I'll share my view um I while I respect it probably the um voice is a uh optimal way of alerting people of a danger I just have a hard time imagining a situation where all the alarms are going off and someone is somehow threatened because we didn't spend 100K on a on a voice alert system and since as the mayor said the law hasn't come down yet to say that we are required to do this I don't I I guess I do feel better putting it forward as 35k because that's what we actually need today so in your deliberation member Martini about whether to accept the friendly Amendment that's my view thank you I just wanted to hear other people's views um I will accept the mayor's friendly Amendment so the motion is now to uh change sorry let me do this again to increase the FY 26 Capital request for the Greenfield Middle School fire panel from 150,000 to $315,000 second wait uh there was already a a second to that motion so whoever second it needs to accept the accept Stacey okay member ston accepts the friendly Amendment as well as the second is there any other discussion before we vote okay all in favor say I I all opposed all extensions motion carries unanimously thank you everybody it's now 8:10 you are entitled to a f minute break during which I suppose stickers could be administered [Music] n [Music] [Music] n [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Music] a [Music] n [Music] [Music] n [Music] n [Music] [Music] oh [Music] n [Music] all right we resume our meeting we are up to the consent agenda which now has one item on it approv minutes of full committee meeting November 13 2024 is there motion to approve the consent agenda so move second second discussion all in favor I any opposed extensions motion carries unanimously uh report of the chair I have no report budget and finance subcommittee okay so uh we met recently and discussed two things uh we uh had a discussion in regards to the process of approving warrants which was sent off to budget and finance uh to discuss and uh make a recommendation about and uh we did discuss the fact that we have a policy about this and uh we're not certain that this ought not to be in the policy subcommittee and not budget and finance uh however we went ahead and discussed it anyway and uh arrived at a consensus suggestion for our warrant process uh because in the past we required a quorum of the committee to approve warrants and that process was frequently cumbersome uh and resulted in last minute approvals that were stressful for the uh administrators responsible uh being the reason that we went to one member signing uh we did not feel that going back to a uh Quorum signature requirement would be advisable however we do want of course uh members to feel like they are able to ask uh any question that they would like to ask about warrants and to be able to bring a question uh if they're not able to get an answer that's satisfactory to them to the committee so uh the suggested process um that we would like to put forward is that uh members ask their questions related to the warrant at least a week ahead of time before school committee meetings the superintendent will uh take every effort to answer those questions and if a member has a remaining question that either wasn't answered or there was not an answer that was satis Factory to them to please bring that question to the attention of the chair for uh the agenda at the following meeting uh am I saying that correctly okay M child's I feel like I'm forgetting something uh closest thing to forgetting it's not so much forgetting as a clarification uh this is bringing the warrant for discussion not saying that we're not signing the warrant or not paying our bill it it's more of so the questions might be asked after the warrant is signed if needed correct so this would make no change to the uh process of signing and approving the warrants but would provide more codification to uh the asking of questions and the uh getting answers to questions that's the other thing I forgot uh we also wanted to suggest that the uh chair put uh warrants as a standing placeholder in your uh meeting planning template so that should a member have a uh unanswered or in their view unsatisfactorily answered question ahead of a meeting that you already have it in your uh in your planning template for meetings and it does not get lost yeah we can definitely do that we can't I mean with the recent kind of changes to what the town city clerk's office will approve or not approve in terms of our agendas we can't just like well somehow this got on there the report of the chair but in general they're wanting more detail from us about like what exactly we're discussing so if there aren't any questions or comments it won't appear on your agenda but it will be on our template to jog our memory to add things if they come up with the process that you described yes that's exactly the intention um there my understanding is that the uh advice that has been um coming out over the past few years in regards to open meeting law is that agendas do need to be quite specific uh and so we shouldn't have a kind of bland agenda item that's on there every time but if it's in the planning template and there is a question uh then you already have a spot in there to plug that specific question in for the agenda great thank you um the one thing though that does need to to change about our current processes we um need to have a particular person or a particular role who is designated so that was kind of not done exactly correctly when we um we were following the guidance that was given to us but we've since learned that we really need to have a designated person or role for example the chair or the chair of the budget subcommittee or someone some specific person who will be doing the approval on behalf of the school committee um so the motion I would like to hear then if we wanted to kind of follow the um the recommendation of the budget subcommittee is um a motion to designate um you could name a person or name a role to approve warrants mayor disorder can can I ask a question about that be before sure so I actually haven't been to one of these yet I haven't been to one of your um the budget subcommittees um and I I I get those on email you know I get the like I'm sure all of you do you get all of the on email so do you go over them in the meetings do I know I'm supposed to ask the chair do can I my question is do they go over those in meetings the warrants the warrants are not together no the warrants are not gone over so we have meetings we have warrants every two weeks we don't have any committee or um subcommittee that is designated to meet every two weeks to review the warrants together yeah please and I'm not suggesting that we did I just was thinking it took me a while as the mayor to figure out because there it took me for a long time to go through the the warrants it took me forever because I was making sure on each one and this one you know there's there's things that I figured there's a lot of others who are looking at that so I took me a while before going through them like one at a time I feel like there's still some things that that I didn't know so I I assumed that I know that the superintendent's gone through it and uh the business manager has gone through it but on ours on our end I don't know does anybody else do that any differently on any other um I guess I just was asking about the process and thinking about it you've been doing this for a long time some of us who haven't been doing this school for a long time there were a lot of things that popped up that I didn't know what they were for what that's wor yeah exactly and that's why i' I found the superintendent and the business manager to be incredibly accessible for any questions that I've had but I think what the budget subcommittee has done is basically put forward a procedure so that if questions aren't addressed to member satisfactions they can be addressed at the full committee level May member Martini um mayor it sounded like you were um wanting to ask what other committees do how do other people do this and I did do a bunch of uh research on that going into our recent um budget and finance meeting so um as you'll recall uh uh the Massachusetts Association of school committees now has a database of policy manuals and everybody who has updated their policy manuals gets to post it on there and it's searchable so that was a very useful function when um trying to find out how other committees um handle their warrant approval uh and it's really all over the board um so by far the most common um approach was a single member signing um I think it's sort of odd that the advice is that there needs to be one individual because that was definitely not the case in a lot of these other committees policies but uh in any case I um and bearing in mind there are many committees who are not on this database yet but uh of the ones that are um I counted 41 that had a policy um similar to ours and it's a one member signing policy um there were the next largest group was 20 who left their warrant signing process unclear in their policy manual believe it or not so we're apparently actually ahead on this um and then after that um the next uh largest group there were uh like 11 that um have an either or policy where warrants are either approved by the school committee which end do do say how or by a subcommittee of at least three of the members and I would add a couple of other committees on there that specifically have a warrant subcommittee that that's their job um there were just a handful that have a majority of their school committee required to sign warrants um one of them said it was a majority of the Comm committee or the chair or the chair's designate um there was a similar handful um that was like f six that um approve their warrants at their meetings and those are committees that meet every every other week basically um and so there's language in there that um if the committee is only meeting once that month then the budget and finance subcommittee is supposed to approve the warrants sounds complicated to me um then then there are other committees that designate a certain person so I found one that designates the secretary there were five that designate the chair um and there were uh there was one that designates the chair of their budget and finance subcommittee uh a couple of school committees have their own Treasurer as an officer who whose job it is to approve warrants um there was one that had three members required to sign on a rotation and the budget and finance chair gets to pick who's on the rotation and has to notify them um and I think I've covered all different like I said it's all over the board so oh and there were a couple question it's the budget and finance subcommittee so we can do whatever we want basically there's not like yeah it was just our our repit mask who had kind of given me the impression that we were out of compliance by only having the one member rule but maybe we can check with our attorney if that's actually accurate you know I mean if there's one member who wants to like raise their hand right now and say I want this responsibility every other week then that's great but I just feel like that's not really fair so that's a lot of work so member Childs I would also be concerned about having only one person doing it because what happens if one week uh they're traveling and their laptop gets destroyed and then what happens right I I like fail safes all right well if it it sounds like the recommendation was to kind of keep our our warrant signing process as is and why don't we do that until our attorney tells us we can't so does that sound good um um I would be good with that I would like to know from folks um if they like the more codified approach to um questions and um how to put uh certain questions if necessary on the uh School committee's agenda and um this is obviously something that would go into our school Committee Member handbook but um if members have other ideas then U please chime in yeah any so okay so we have two items basically the the warrant signing process and then this uh discussion of Warrant questions and problems so but can I can we resolve first the warrant signing thing because we're just on that is anybody object to us just leaving it the way it is until the attorneys tell us we can't okay great so now now back to your proposal about the process anyone discussion about that member Goodwin I think my concern was that we weren't being allow I felt like we weren't being allowed to ask questions and that was concerning for me um because we chartering the course I mean they made it really clear we all are responsible um when those things get signed not just one person every single one of us sitting here um so if we have a question about something we should get it answered I mean that's really the issue um and I like the fact that the idea of it being on that template so that if there is some question even if you've made phone calls and you're still not sure that you get to ask I think what I liked is we were all asking questions and we were learning from each other because as you asked questions about different line items I felt like we lost that uh in the process and I would like to see that back we need to be asking more questions I think mayor S I just want to say for myself I was new to this and I'm gonna kind of look at the other new members when I first saw these warrants I had so many questions not not like doubting anything it there were so many things that were unfamiliar to me me like on the warrant there would have been like 40 or 50 I know what it's like to be the mayor and I can only imagine what it's like to be the superintendent I wasn't calling with all of my questions because our superintendent had a school to run that I mean that really I didn't call with every question that I had because they were all things that were foreign to me the names of the schools and everything I mean maybe it's just me but um so am I the only person that felt like that there's a whole list of things and nobody else had any questions but I didn't want to you know burden anyone with all of the things that I asked and I don't feel like we actually discussed that part I don't I I always when I was on Council I always had aund questions but this things on that and I thought who signs it have you I have not signed it have you signed it I mean can we ask can can I'm usually the person who signs sign it often okay you you sign through everyone and yeah okay I have signed it you've signed it okay I've never signed it has can I can we ask could we ask chair is anybody else signed it on the other side of the room I don't want to we're not supposed to be talking back and forth no it's fine yeah I'll read them but I defer and let the more experienced knowledgeable people do do the signing remember Den I think the reason that this is coming up is because when when we first got on the three of us like no there is no class on warrant sign like nobody comes to talk to you about this in fact I think it was like day two after getting my email Vera's thing pops up in his like warrants and I'm like what what is that like and it kept popping up and she's like desperate to get a signature and I'm like I guess we're supposed to just do this like I don't even know what it is so we didn't have any training or discussion about it and I can tell you that the word warrants never came up in the first two years of school committee like no one it was never discussed in full committee ever once ever about anything so just us talking about it is like a baby step experience so I feel like we kind of can do whatever works for us and probably should come up with something that we all like and that feels you know as good as it possibly can for all of our schedules and time and desires but that also leaves us the flexibility to ask the questions because real quickly I learned oh we're supposed to be talking about this but the Avenue was closed until now so we should make our path is how I feel however we want it and make sure that new members that come on feel like they can ask the questions they need to ask and understand what it is because there's really no information for us about that and it's a big part of what we have to do and it's a lot of pages and like 90% of them are all pretty self-explanatory and fine so it's just we're talking about like tiny little things that we may have questions about so and I think our our dispute was not so much about whether people could ask questions I I don't know me unless there is a huge communication uh error I think I've told everybody as often as I could anytime you have a question about an invoice feel free to ask the superintendent or business manager like that is I I think I feel like that's been a pretty consistent message for me but I'm not sure given the conversation whether that really got through I will say the superintendent and business manager have endless question endless patience for questions from school committee members about warrants and invoices and don't feel like you're bothering them it is your job you have to understand what's going on in those in those warrants but I definitely concur with the idea that our Orient school committee orientation could use a lot of beefing up including the aspect of the kind of process for how to get questions answered about warrants and what are they and what is your role um and I really appreciate the kind of codifying of the the process you know that really starts with uh well maybe you can summarize again what the process was that you all came up with okay uh so the process is when members have questions about warrants please get them to the superintendent uh as quickly as possible but definitely at least a week before the following school committee meeting if you want to potentially address it at that meeting the superintendent will take the next uh four days to do everything that she can to answer your question questions if you have something that's left over it's not answered or the you weren't um satisfied with the answer that you got then um ask the chair to put your question on the school committee agenda uh three days before the meeting and the reason it's three days is so that we can meet the posting requirement for the meeting um and uh if you have a question that falls after that timeline still ask it it's just potentially going to go on the next school committee the agenda because we need to be able to post things on time for our meetings so that people know what we're going to talk about yep and I would say if we can adjust the timeline just the Thursday before the meeting then the superintendent I meet on Friday morning and GNA get all the agenda ducks in a row we're finding that trying to post on Monday is um not workable given the bounce backs we've been getting from the city clerk's office at times so all right any other discussion about warrant thank you and thank you very much for uh taking on that project in spite of thinking maybe it should have landed with my committee the policy committee I just have one other request yes please um I think this does um need to be sent to the handbook subcommittee so that a new section can be created okay so let's see uh motion to take the recommendation of the to send the recommendation of the budget subcommittee about the approval of warrants and questions about warrants to the handbook subcommittee so moved motion from Member Charles is there a second second second from Member suon discussion the handbook subcommittee will gladly add a section if you wish thank you you member Den our living document will live on mayor dor I'm going to vote in favor of that but I want to thank member Martini for doing all that research and looking through all of those to give to this committee thank you yes thank you any other discussion all in favor say I I I opposed abstain motion carries unanimously member Farber I think I spoke kind of quickly did you get my motion okay great thank you ah we can now move on to policy and program sorry discussion that's right go ahead member Martini sorry you can Piller me later we have one other um topic that we addressed in budget and finance um which is the feedback that we received from our recent Outreach um in in the community about the development of the FY 26 budget so I wanted to share that feedback with you if I can find it here it is okay uh this is a summary of uh the information that was um or or suggestions wishes uh views that were offered to us um by attending uh pto's as well as the ghs school council and the CPC and the elpac so uh boiled down into themes the number one across the board uh thing that was brought up was the need to improve Staffing no surprises there uh we especially need to improve our staffing of substitute teachers and IAS as well as special education teachers uh and that's something we've touched on earlier this evening we uh last year did approve an increase in our sub rate but unfortunately we are still greatly struggling to attract adequate substitutes and that is impacting uh some of the other positions for which we already have staffing issues like IAS um if we have an IIA who's being pulled um to substitute because we don't have a substitute then that individual is not able to provide what they are supposed to be providing in the classroom and I would like to um add that some of what our IAS are providing are things that our students with disabilities are legally entitled to receive so if they don't have their IIA they may not be receiving the accommodations um and services that they require in order to learn so it's a big issue uh and that was um certainly the thing that was spoken to the most and uh there is uh support in the community uh of course for maintaining small class sizes uh we have uh the second most uh frequent issue that was uh brought up was the need to support social emotional learning uh and uh the well-being of our students in that area so uh there is a lot of support for continued um seal for students and teachers uh including things like anti-bullying program access to counseling ensuring cultural and linguistic capacity in counseling uh professional development for our IAS in this area and and uh that aligns very much with what uh the superintendent shared at our last school committee meeting uh that was gleaned through listening sessions from last year uh and uh is definitely well understood to be a front burner issue um in the district there was also um happiness expressed with our high quality instructional materials and a desire to continue to support them as well as the need for a consistent K to5 science curriculum um and instructional resources a desire to bring foreign language instruction back to Greenfield Middle School and a desire for additional Arts and Music opportunities in the district such as bringing specials to a funding for Instrument Repair music nonperformance electives and uh vertically aligned Arts extracurriculars so that we um have students building um skills in those areas from early on uh for later uh there is a across theboard desire to have more in school enrichment activities um as well as more field trips and those I would say constitute the um the big ones the ones that were brought up the most frequently uh there were additional things that were brought up less frequently but are still important um including Tech needs uh such as the elevation platform to support our English language Learners as a wish uh the need for things like Prometheans and smartboards document cameras iPads and laptops there uh is interest in supporting our libraries and making sure that they have uh more books and more Librarians when we're um able to provide them a desire to support developing parents' capacity for understanding their rights in special education uh and desire to support lpac to elpac Intergroup activities um Transportation uh was brought up as a need for Co-Op Sports and extracurricular activities as well as specifically for the elpac uh in order to provide transportation for both intra and Intergroup activities and uh there is a wish for a volunteer coordinator or Community Co coordinator and community resource support for parents uh those are all the things that I think are pertinant to the operating budget there were also a number of um needs brought up that would be U perhaps more pertinant to Capital sorry mayor uh there are a number of um issues that were brought up at Federal Street uh the elevator of chorus is top of everyone's mind and uh I would just reiterate what member child's said earlier about that um also there were um issues uh with stair flooring and railings in need of repair the sidewalk in front of the accessible entrance in need of repair the brick wall on the playground and Door and Window issues and there were some additional um problems like that at a such as gaps in the fence and the need for uh play structure and cafeteria tables that are actually sized for 3 to four year olds oh and there may be an heat issue at Four Corners because we evidently have a staff person who's not able to turn the heat down in their classroom thank you for the Outreach and for the report would you take questions and comments from the committee anyone thank you you're welcome right great thank you very much to policy and program subcommittee so um these are what's in your agenda as first read um our process is basically to share with you uh provide an opportunity for discussion and then at the next meeting to vote on on on policies um so um any discussion of either policy jica dress code or policy kbg parent advisory councils okay we'll bring those back to you next month for the vote if you have any questions or comments that come to you in the meantime um you can let me know as chair of the policy committee um we can try to address them before the next meeting on to the community engagement subcommittee yeah uh we met three-ish weeks ago now um and the two items that are before us we were brainstorming ways that we could make meetings even just slightly more accessible to families and parents in particular and one of the things that we discussed was actually moving our start time for these regular monthly committee meetings to 6:30 to give parents and families an opportunity and I would also add committee members an opportunity to have dinner um or do other activities but if they wanted to come here it is a struggle to do all the stuff they need to do by the time they're done with work and get here by 6 um additionally it would make us consistent with City Council meetings which I think is just a helpful so that's one less shift that you have to keep in in your brain um when you're thinking about when you might want to participate in your Civic activities so that's something that we are making a recommendation um and would entertain a vote on if we wanted to do that um the other was more of a discussion about Committee Member participation in school community activities and being a visible presence so that we can also be available when people have questions about policy or when they want to give us feedback about budgets um when it's even not budget season perhaps um and so the the and y'all y'all might not like this but we're gonna say it anyway is to see if we can put some language in our policy manual that asks us to show up to things on a regular basis and it's not just the community engagement subcommittee's responsibility to show up to stuff um and we're talking things like athletic games baned stuff um other community events maybe the Comic Con you know and that we right like there's so much stuff that our that our kids are involved in and that our schools do that if we just one or two of us went and made ourselves available and made ourselves a visible presence we think that that would go a long way to saying we're wanting to be where you are and maybe that will encourage you to come to where we are next time when you have a question or a concern or want to talk to us um as a way of sort of building additional connection and Rapport so the the idea there and i' love to hear yall thoughts on this would be to actually add language now keep in mind we did ask um this would not be legally binding or enforcable and we could not kick you off the committee for not doing it but it's more of a statement of this is an intention of how we would like to operate this is what we would like to hold ourselves to as Greenfield school committee members that we want to be engag and active and visible members of this community and that this is sort of an expectation that people can have when they're running for the position well of course like I said we can't enforce it but we can make it a norm thank you so I think I heard uh possibility of two motions in there the first would be a motion to change the school committee meeting start time to 6:30 p.m. is there a motion to do that so moved is there a second second discussion is there anyone for whom if it was changed it would make it impossible for you to attend the meeting okay I have a question yes mayor um so that's fine with me either way but um did the did that come from parents or do I I'm just yeah it is it has previously come from some parents but it has also come from some other committee members and their past experience thank you okay any other discussion let's vote all those in favor I all those opposed abstain I'm going to abstain so the motion carries we will change our start time to 6:30 p.m thank you and then I think the other motion would be to refer the incorporating the expectation of school committee members to participate in school events in our policy manual okay and also the handbook probably because those two things should be hand in hand and the handbook okay um so maybe we would start though with the policy and then refer to the handbook for guidelines on implementation so motion would be to refer the expectation that school committee members participate in school events into our policy manual is there a motion so moved member Martini is there a second no second okay discussion member Childs I have a clarifying question just because uh the the language being vague you're going to have some members of the community who will expect full school committee at every single School event that they go to and then you might have school committee meet members in the future who think going to one or two events a year here is sufficient to count so I'm trying to figure out what the intent is and if we can make that a little clearer and I would welcome the support of the policy and program subcommittee to put actual language to this but the intent is not that ever that the full committee is at every single event that is impossible um that is flatly that's not going to happen um but that is we make an intention to have at least one school committee member at many like I can't even put a percentage on it necessarily because there's lots of events that we don't don't even know about honestly um but that it's maybe more akin to like three events per Committee Member per semester or something like that or per year so oh remember Den I'm just remembering remembering from our meeting that what we sort of said was at the beginning of the year or when we have a calendar of events we sort of all divvy it up and if one person has more time great if another person doesn't fine but each person should expect to attend two or three events a year nothing nothing that would make it too difficult and um something that would be able to disperse it fairly evenly among us depending on how uh thick the calendar is other discussion M Childs so the other thing I'm like thinking already like into the weeds of this because we've got our monthly meetings at the elementary schools and then we've got our PTO meetings everywhere and I would hate for a situation to develop where one school has uh school committee representation every single single month while another school only once or twice at these routine things if you are there as an official school committee person as opposed to a parent and even then there's that little bit of messy overlap sorry I'm just trying to pick out every possible way that this could cause us trouble in advance so that we can prevent the trouble and keep the good sorry it's late thank you member Martini well my comment relates to what member Childs was just saying um school committee members already devote a great deal of time to the school district we are here every month for meetings we are responsible for things in between meetings like everyone should be looking at the warrant um and we have subcommittee meetings to attend on a regular basis among other things so um I'm not opposed at all to committee members attending um school events and uh I think that we should but I do want to be cognizant of the fact that not everyone has the same capacity to do that um especially people who are um working and parenting um parenting kids' special needs um and I wouldn't want to create an expectation that discourages people from uh running for a school committee or wanting to serve on it because they have constraining factors like that in their life um I think we should just um give some thought to potential um systemic bias that could be in a policy like that uh that being said I would happily see uh a norm or a statement of encouragement or something like that um to do things like this in the school Committee Member handbook uh just my thoughts thank you other discussion remember Goodwin I told toally agree it's it's more of a a norm than a policy because I don't think you can make it a policy because everybody comes to this committee with different time restraints but just even a a statement that says um that school committee members are welcome to attend various school you know events I think that's um because there's always this in the back of your head you have the conflict of interest video in your head but I think of all the things that even just even when we're invited like whether it's to the band or to different events um that we represent not just who we are whether it's a parent or Community member but we're also representing school committee and I think that's why it probably belongs a lot in the hook um that when you are in that public situation you are still a school committee member I'm thinking of that video with forget the guy's name where he was like at some game and he was being bad so um but there you know in the training it basically says to remember as you attend those things even though you're there for another reason you're still a school Committee Member thank you other discussion is it okay if I resp respond to some of that yeah um I am open to it being something that's included in the handbook and like I said even if we had a policy it's not enforceable so um I understand where folks are coming coming from with that I really do that you don't always have the intention but the real reason why the community engagement subcommittee put this even forward as an idea is not to give us more work to do just to give us more work to do but as an actual strategy for building relationship with parents we might not see or hear from often or all the time and to give that one more bit of like we are reaching out to you so that maybe you might reach a little bit further back toward us you know because I understand we're here every month I'm here with you girl but we don't always get the engagement we might want with folks um and so maybe if we are slightly more like yeah we're here we're at your game where at your whatever and we're not always expecting them to come to us at our forums that we go to them where they're at where their kids are at where what they really care about is that um that that might just be one way that we can build more Rapport and more engagement and hopefully just have more open lines of communication that's the real intent M CHS I wholeheartedly agree with the spirit to that I would just want us to add on some Comm communication component among us so that we can make sure that none of the schools fall through the cracks and end up under represented in our Outreach other discussion so I think I heard from you member seon a willingness to amend your motion to refer to the handbook rather than the policy committee correct and the person who seconded we do you accept that Amendment sure okay um I think I actually moved it yeah you moved it and I will accept the friendly Amendment great all right do you accept it yeah okay um so now the motion is that and I guess I have one uh I guess I'll add a little to the discussion I just want to really concur with what member Martini was saying that um I'm already concerned with the extent to which being on school committee is essentially there's a kind of a class divide in terms of who who could even run and participate in this you know um stipended position with all the number of hours involved and so on and I I really appreciate all the school committee members and the sacrifices you make in your families make to be here and I know that for some even running for this is just not doable given their their lives and then adding more to the expectation is concerning but I also agree with the kind of building the culture and the the kind of ethic of doing it amongst ourselves and I think the handbooks a good place I also would welcome the community engagement um subcommittee to create tools that might be useful to us in terms of that like if it's a Google doc with a table with different events that are coming up in a place where people can s you know put their name and say I intend to go here um might be useful to us in terms of being able to see who's going to what and um make sure as um a member child was it member child who was saying concerned about like not having one school that's left out so I think that'd be great but that's a big effort too so appreciate whatever you can do to help um make it even easier for us and I certainly appreciate um um all the communication from the superintendent and the different building principles and the PTO and so on to let us know what is going on um because it it definitely is possible to to know what is happening given the communication that we're receiving and I appreciate that so any other discussion all right let's vote all in favor I I any opposed any extensions motion car vares unanimously thank you very much we're on to Old business and I'd like to um move to take from the table the motion postponed at the November school committee meeting to create an ad hoc subcomittee to research and present a proposal on whether to set a goal of constructing a new Elementary School is there a second second okay um so so all in favor of um taking that up I I I okay so now we're returning to our original motion which is uh to create an ad hoc subcommittee to research and present a proposal on whether to set a goal of constructing a new Elementary School discussion mayor derer when did this come up what what meeting was this at full full committee meeting last month okay was tabled pretty quickly so if you were thinking of that who would you be thinking would be on it just people on the school committee yeah it would be a school a school committee subcommittee yeah it could also be structured as an advisory committee there our policy allows us to have either of those um formats but that the advisory committees allow for more members besides just school committee members and um I think it oh thank you okay yes remember good one and then member ston as a principal of construction who survived um a lot of cities or towns have one building and sites group of people you know they're made of all kinds of different areas that look at schools in every building in the city so I don't know if that exists mayor um but that's usually where it all starts and then it brings in school committee members as part of that um but usually it starts with the city building and sites committee and then they those are usually the people who apply for the the money member ston if I'm reading the motion as worded correctly we are not yet proposing to have a subcommittee actually Advance doing work to get us a new elementary school what the subcommittee would do is decide whether or not we're even bringing the goal forward am I reading that correctly they'd make a proposal to the full school committee about whether to adopt that as a goal then at this time I think that it is appropriate for it to remain a subcommittee of us to decide whether or not and do some due diligence and then if we do in fact say yes that's a goal and we create another body that achieves that goal that makes progress towards it at that point I think it's time for us to bring in the other folks the other the other parties other discussion member Martini I think it's the responsibility of the school committee to look out for the well-being of the schools and if we do not push the issue then it will just continually sit as it has been sitting for a long time uh we and I will just briefly reiterate what I said last month uh we have three elementary schools all of which have problems uh our buildings are quite old we have known issues uh one of which member Goodwin spoke to earlier this evening uh at Federal Street School where what we are doing with the elevator is a fix and my recollection from our previous superintendent's explanation was that uh we were given to understand it is only a fix and there is the possibility that this thing will actually need to be replaced and at that time the estimated cost of that was a million I'm sure that it would be more now and a cost like that is exactly what led to the closure of Green River School and the chaos that subsequently ensued in the district moving grade levels around uh with the repercussions of which we're still dealing with and have not finished um with the redistricting process we're in right now so uh I would wholeheartedly support the committee doing some research on this so that we can be very forward thinking about the need needs of our schools um because this is definitely um if it is to happen a at least 10year plan other discussion um I guess one thing I want to say is um I think it's you know I guess whoever is chairing the school committee next year um will be responsible for providing the subcommittee there kind of a job description and I just think it's important with ad hoc subcommittees that there's Clarity um from the beginning about um when the ad hoc ends essentially and I think with this one it would be when the proposal was put forward to the um to the full committee um then the ad hoc subcommittee ends and if a new subcommittee gets created to advance whatever goal they put forward that's a different committee but I just think that would be useful for the school committee's functioning to have those kind of metrics of when a subcommittee's work is done ad hoc subcommittee's work is done um and I think just to say that I think because the organization meeting is on Monday the 6th and the first meeting of the year will be the 8th um the whoever is elected chair at the meeting on the 6th will have a quick turnaround to do assignment of subcommittees and so on but I wouldn't think that it would make sense to essentially staff this ad hoc subcommittee um before um January 8th so uh all right uh let's vote all in favor I I any opposed any extensions anain exstension from the mayor so motion carries thank you everybody all right we are on to uh school committee yearlong agenda um so I um gratefully accepted the gift from Member den and member seon um was a very useful starting point um for our work in putting together yearlong agenda I hope you like what I did with it um this version of it um the the version I I received had some specific dates for 2025 I thought this would be a good um template for essentially what are the things that happen every year um and then once it's adopted for a given year you could add in specific goals of the committee and specific timelines based on the calendar year and stuff like that but so think of this as kind of like your um uh your stand kind of standing yearlong agenda I guess and any questions or comments remember good one what is y l o uh what does it with engage legislative officials and it happens every year at the high school and it's the best day ever so you should go everyone should go um you get to talk to the students and the students get to tell you what they're what they're into and thinking about and want and so it's it's a wonderful wonderful Hands-On day um I love I love this I love your actions love it oh will this be public will this be on the website so that the public can also see what our work time line is um absolutely if the committee adopts it we can definitely get it out there wonderful and um and I think the recommendation was to to have it basically in a way that as the school committee is updating its year long work plan it gets a a living document that gets updated for the on the website as well any other discussion any changes or recommendations for the yearlong agenda remember mayor disorder what is the date of that yellow because it's December do we know what the actual date is H the superintendent's working on it I've been it is fun I've been a couple times yeah it's good Thursday January 23rd and then this the snow date is Thursday January 30th thank you um I wanted to say one thing about it a one change that I made to the calendar was to make it a July through June calendar um because I thought if you're electing a new chair in January it might help them to have you know six months to be starting to work on the one for the following fiscal year essentially so and they would come in with some work that's already been programmed by the by the previous subcommittee so hope that was okay seems like there's it's your gift tended you did give it to me as a made up dates so it was we needed you to fix it all right great yes M seed it for if when we post this if we post this online um can we add like a paragraph Preamble that's just like this is a template sure be on the lookout for actual stuff yeah absosmurfly I have a question may member Martini about the um annual tour of schools by City officials am I crazy or did this used to happen around January I and is there a reason that it's moved to August and does that affect what otherwise would be these schools whoour next month I moved it and I think because I remember tromping around in the in a heatwave sweating like you would not believe it definitely did not happen for me in January but maybe it got moved to January but what is most convenient for you uh superintendent for that to happen um it did happen in January last year because Christine um I think was sick because I gave the tour and we did it on no you're not great so um we did it on the PD day um in January but um I can do one in January we can do one in August it before school starts it's just when students aren't in the building that way folks can you know um go where they want to go see what they want to see and not interrupt learning so as long as it's prechool beginning or if it is on a PD day it is least disruptive okay so my preference would be to have that take place uh closer to the uh Capital requests approvals I I would like City Council Members to be in our school buildings seeing what's really going on with them right before they have to decide whether to approve our requests for a capital so January would be my preferred time to do that great can we do it in 25 great all right so so I'll um I'll make that adjustment so I guess maybe the then maybe we're ready I I wasn't sure if we would be so a motion to approve the um yearlong agenda template as presented so I mean sorry not as presented with the change of the school tour from August to January so moved I'm so excited motion for member Den is there a second second for member child any other discussion all in favor I all opposed any extensions I'll abstain motion carries wonderful um okay um I'm just G to breathe for a second okay on to self committee so school committee self- evaluation data presentation you may remember we had taken a uh this survey for our self- evaluation and we realized after we had taken it that there was yeah it was broken we fixed it and then you all then uh six of us retook it or some number of us retook it and these are finally at last the um results of it thanks very much to the superintendent and for the collaborative for Educational Services for um putting together this very nice report for us um I'm gonna say I have lost bandwidth for this discussion just because of the time of the night would there be any objection to uh revisiting this next month okay not hearing any any um problems with that great um so let's see moving um moving on um we have theou between the Greenfield school committee and the Greenfield Police Department superintendent will you cue this up for us sure um as we have been discussing on our increased um Safety and Security protocols and the improvements that we've been making districtwide to our systems um one of the things that we had discussed was allowing access to our live video feeds by the Greenfield Police Department um in certain instances uh when there is a emergency situation or an active threat um theou um was drafted and then finalized by our attorney and you are presented with the final umou to discuss and vote on this evening so that we can then engage with the Greenfield Police Department department and get it approved and in place so let's see where are my where are my motions motion to approve the mou between the Greenfield school committee and the Greenfield Police Department as presented could we have a few more minutes to look at it I only got to look at it briefly before is it okay absolutely but let's get the motion and the second on the table so moved is there a second okay great and while you're reviewing I'll just remind us that in our discussion of this we can talk about the general mou but we just have to be thoughtful about not um asking about or revealing any particular procedures or um things that could potentially put the schools at risk for for I think we should proceed to discussion member ston I have questions just to better understand the emergency alert system and like when that gets triggered who who actually does that because if that's the only instance where they actually don't need your permission I want to understand exactly what conditions trigger that sort of case that would have to be an executive session discussion okay any other questions for discussion member tenive this might be an executive session discussion one two but I was wondering if we could get clarification on the uh indemnification Clause where it says the um the GPD agrees to indemnify and hold harmless the public school district from any liability arising from unauthorized use or access to the live video feed I'm just wondering what the the unauthorized use exactly means because there should never be any unauthorized use I guess is why I'm standard part it may totally be boiler plate basically is saying that um they're they're holding us harmless um from any liability so they're not going to sue us basically is that what they're saying they're not going to sue us I don't know why they would sue us okay that's what I thought that's why I wanted to make sure I was reading it correctly yeah um but it's they're not going to sue us if they use or access it you're right that is a little bit confusing a little bit that's why I was like that's why I was trying to understand I'm sorry like that's just seemed odd yeah um oh okay great I don't want them to sue us but yeah um I'm wondering if we should maybe unless you have any superintendent you have any clarification on that maybe we should make sure that that language is actually correct because it doesn't actually now that I now you brought it to my attention remember it doesn't totally make sense to me I would presume that if it was being used with uh an unauthorized access and there was um some potential for I think I would prefer if we have this discussion in executive session because as I'm playing it out there is just um too many scenarios all right and what's the um time timeline how quickly do we need this mou we needed it yesterday or it would be preferred yes we can't we can't because it's not on the agenda um [Music] so you may oh okay all right let me pull up my the reason for the executive session and we'll do that're doing that tonight oh oh God okay okay like to hear a motion to enter um executive session to discuss the deployment of security Personnel or devices or strategies with respect there too moved second um any discussion secretary Den will you call the vote yeah hold on one second made the motion to enter executive session okay and Kate you second okay okay all right um Den I'm a yes Vice chair Martini yes mayor disorder yes I'm a yes member seon yes member Childs yes remember good one okay we were we are all in agreement and our entering executive session and we will um return to the um public session so we'll be back [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Music] [Music] n [Music] n [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] w [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] okay welcome back we're back from executive session um I'd like to let's see I think we're returning to our existing motion to approve theou any further discussion okay let's vote all those in favor I I any opposed any extensions motion carries unanimously minus the mayor who left when we adjourned for executive session and then we are on to request for future agenda items hearing none I'd take a motion to adjourn so moved is there a second okay uh any discussion all those in fav favor hi we are adjourned at 9:42 p.m. thank you so much stickers for everyone [Music] [Music]