epartment meetings around this issue we haven't had that much time so in January we are planning a large professional development during our early release time in our department to work on this specifically and we will continue to do that throughout the year yep that's what I'm saying about that another theme that came up are these problems of the week so in middle school they have problems of the week they're a little bit more prescriptive than ours so what we're trying to do is longitudinally develop problem solving skills so our problems of the week are a little bit more open-ended which is uncomfortable right you got to figure out a way to get in it and um students didn't really see the importance of them so what we're trying to do is emphasize the importance talk about because there are pieces of mathematics, mathematical content that are taught in those problems of the week so that's another piece of it and then how we're developing their problem solving skills throughout how to make sense of the problem how to get into it, look for patterns make some sort of generalization and then finally the ultimate is proving that your solution is the correct solution within the situation so they work a lot on proof and justification in the problems of the week how do these problem solving skills assessed in standardized exams so the new SATs and MCAS have incorporated the practice standards and one of them is the problem solving skills so we've always done this but I think we've made more of an effort to really start them in class students get traction on them they support, they get support on them so I walked by a classroom today and there must have been 40 kids in that one classroom after school today having a pow party we call them pow parties and we bring in snacks and kids work together they collaborate, they use the board, they talk about them so trying to create a little more excitement around them and so another piece that came up was students wanted more practice so and also they weren't, they were hearing oh we might not be ready for the standardized test so we wanted to alleviate that stress but we also know that mixed practice is a great idea for learning so keep bringing back past topics and not saying oh today we're going to revisit Pythagorean Theorem it's like here's three problems see if you can remember and we'll support you through them because that's how standardized tests happen just like here's a problem remember your stuff and you gotta apply it so we decided to make sure that we did this through SAT questions PSAT questions and MCAS questions so sometimes we pick MCAS questions directly related to the topic so they can clearly see oh the curriculum is matching the state standard and it makes sense and other times we mix it up so they are getting the past practice in them so we'll continue that and we'll get better at it and that's not the only thing we use for additional practice problems you know teaching is very organic so when something comes up in your class oh those kids need some more practice on that you know we do make sure that we adhere to that and do something for that so the other pieces were kind of around the textbook like oh they didn't you know the objectives aren't right there there aren't a lot of example problems so we've always had note templates so we've just made more of them and we keep getting better at them and that's for students to have a set of notes in their notebook they're colored the color is the color of the book so they stand out in their notebook we also we've done it for a while but we again we keep referring back to them the learning target so at the beginning of each unit we give them a sheet with the learning targets on it and then we keep referring to them throughout their unit so if we've done a section of inquiry learning we've done the notes we can say now how do you feel about that learning target and they can kind of self assess on that we've also test they felt like they wanted some more review before our end of unit tests so we've made sure that we've developed more thorough end of unit reviews and practice problems for them and then make sure that these people have access to these so we try to make sure they're on our google classroom sites so I think I have one more yep they kind of look the same yep that's fine so just how we're implementing the PSAT SAT MCAS questions we either do it as class worker homework we make sure that we highlight the content in the IMP so students can see the relationship between what they're learning and what's on the standardized tests we analyze and talk about them in class so it's not like just doing for homework here's the answers good luck we go over them in class to make sure they understand them it may vary from teacher to teacher but that's generally our construct for those types of things and yep student I have a general question about how we help kids transition once they're done with IMP 4 and then they either go to XOB calculus or assistance making that transition one of the themes we're hearing from some of this feedback is anxiety or concern about preparedness for the next step and so I really like the approach overall about the long term approach to continuous improvement so I'm curious about what we might be doing to help students this year because when I think about the spring 18 survey one thing it doesn't catch is that cohort that had just finished up IMP 4 and that is right now in whatever course I find this an interesting problem that we conjure a lot of this type on school committee where we get anecdotal feedback and evidence from email or from talking with parents and I have two kids who have gone through the high school two kids are currently in the high school they wish they had gone through that who interface with IMP at different points I remember working with Ian Stith six years ago at the very beginning of math flex and we were talking about this cohort that's now arrived at senior year and so as we're doing this long term planning we're sort of wondering about those kind of supports so I'm teaching calculus this year so I have some of those students and a lot of it is around anxiety so I've taught calculus before IMP so those students also had anxiety some of it is just a different type of anxiety so we used to give a summer assignment where it was like jam packed go back learn all these skills be ready for calculus and they'd come in and they'd be given a quiz and then they would completely bomb it and it would not be a good situation so that's happened before so we're well aware of that what we've done is made adjustments to our year four for the next cohort so when they come it's not so much that we need to teach new stuff it's just making sure it's fresh in their mind for when they transition into calculus so the cohort that we're working with right now we're just making sure that we teachers are after school we are the AP college board always suggests that instead of reviewing everything up front even though every calculus textbook or a lot of them have the review up front the first chapter what they really recommend is review as things come up so we're really trying to make sure that we're doing that and I know we can get better at that so that's sort of where we're at right now with the transition for those students so I've just said a lot to that so I appreciate you asking the hard questions with this I think what I'm hearing is a willingness to understand where things might be going wrong and not just assuming that it's all going to be hunky dory and flowers and unicorns I do wonder if maybe you already have access to this or maybe we do it together is just to reach out to other communities and other districts that have already done IMP maybe for longer and to see if there is you know if anyone has been tracking progress for students who are going into college and what that looks like coming back not that I think that is a perfect translation to what would happen here in Amherst or at our region but I do think that might be some more information or more context anyway because you know I think that all of that can also help our learning right and just to understand if there are when this consultant comes back in the early spring or late winter and provides us with more you know a point of input I guess for us to use and corrections that we can make it'd be great to be able to compare that to other places that have also been doing similar kinds of work right and to understand you know are we sort of an outlier are we kind of in the middle or are we falling behind right and I think that this is just a practice generally speaking right for all sorts of educational practice but especially with something like this where there is maybe a crisis of confidence potentially or you know people are feeling really insecure students families and the community it might be helpful to hear other you know sort of where we are to attack on a related question would be what was what is or what was the peer learning that went into adopting this curriculum what was it in other words we're not alone and there's got to be and also particularly unless I'm wrong the materials we were given earlier identified this is also an outgrowth of changing national common core standards and approaches the 21st century skills which sets a context particularly with the increased emphasis on critical thinking and problem solving things like that this absolutely isn't happening in isolation it's happening in a much broader context in districts and so it raises the question of what we can learn from that what have we learned from that that would be relevant obviously for our district, for our families, for our practice a related question is the adoption of the IMP program a current trend are we a leader, a follower so the original curriculum materials were put out in the late 80s and they were funded by the National Science Foundation so they there were started sort of in California and so they had pockets of places that really used the materials and then some people got rid of it, some people stayed with it it was used around here in a couple different schools so it's kind of been around for a while this one is the updated one that matches more the common core the only place I know around here that's using it is I think Mohawk just started to adopt it so my first question is the survey was done in June that sounds like the seniors missed it they did I think so so that's kind of a bummer because the seniors in 2015-16 sorry they were thrown into IMP as sophomores they didn't have his freshman but they had him as sophomores and yeah sorry we're having side commerce so we did have a cohort that had Algebra I in 9th grade and then we had phased out geometry so they went to integrate it too so can I ask you to say that perhaps differently so of the graduating seniors was it the majority of them who had that experience of entering IMP as sophomores or was that I just want to make sure I'm understanding things though okay thank you that wasn't my design well that's what I want to be crazy it was just it was the students that were Algebra I so we had students that were in geometry that finished the traditional track out of that same group students that came in in 9th grade in Algebra II just finished the traditional track so there were so it was a mixed cohort yes okay thank you that's what my recollection was and I'm just making sure I wasn't way off I'm sorry Mr. Silver you're right and I would like to say there's a parent of a student on IEP who has both math and writing issues and anxieties that IMP is not if the problem of the week is an excellent name for that because that's what it was in my house there's a problem every week I also the professional development do you allow the IMP teachers to meet just as a group and like discuss strategies between themselves as they figure you know as we get further and further to IMP are you allowing that group to just discuss among themselves the strategies that they have for teaching so we've worked closely with the special ed department apparently we need to do more work with them but yeah we're always talking about it, struggling at trying to figure things out to improve yeah so it's not just the IMP I mean we're all IMP and we had a math coach also it was teaching the course facilitating that communication but as with any cooperation in school we could do more no I was just curious as the teachers were doing a lot of the IMP were they meeting just like in a room by themselves and able to discuss among themselves strategies to help absolutely and then the last question I have is are you ensuring that the math teachers if they do get homework actually look at it and check it give it back so we do homework in different ways so sometimes the homework comes in we don't always collect it and grade it if that's what you're asking we do a random sample of that and what we're looking for is not perfection we're looking for how well done the homework is but there's always class discussion always asking students questions about the homework as a check for understanding so I guess I'm asking that as a parent who has a child who has spent three hours doing a math homework that someone else can do in 20 minutes on the bus and then it's not being looked at and it's not being there's no feedback from that amount of time that it spends so I'm asking that as a math department all the way through not just my student right I mean we do look at the homework we do walk around we do give students feedback do we collect every paper and grade it we just don't have time to do that 120 students every night we give homework yes in class we give feedback but do we write on their paper individual feedback only on the ones that we randomly sample alright so to circle back to the math program review and the consultants work this began as a discussion that Dr. Morrison I actually had going back to late winter last year and looking at the concerns and looking at the questions and looking at other things anecdotally that we had picked up on and it raised some broader questions for us and so we had several meetings over the course of late winter and early spring where it was Dr. Morrison I Mr. Jackson Dr. Bode Ms. Moody and Ms. Tibido who's the math curriculum leader at the middle school and also Mr. Blatner who's the math coach of the high school to brainstorm questions that we had about our math program and they actually were very interesting discussions and we came up with an extensive list of questions a lot of the things that you were asking tonight as well as many others and a decision was made to bring in somebody from outside who could look at our math program look at the questions that we had and give us some advice as far as what we're doing and really to hear about what we're doing well what we're not doing well what are some changes that would make sense that could improve what we're doing for our students and the school districts including here in Amherst routinely evaluate their own programs internally but something that is so complex as this and where there are so many opinions and things like that we thought it best to bring in somebody else who would have the ability to really take a critical view of things and then not to be flipped but leave town afterwards so what we did is I worked to compile all of these questions got some advice from other people in the field as far as putting together a request for written proposals from consultants and also got some advice as far as how to get it out there so consultants would take a look at this and so we followed the legal process around that and what we ended up doing was hired Looney Math Consulting that's Looney it's a memorable name and they're out of Eastern Massachusetts and it was much like a hiring process for a staff person we received proposals we had some telephone so almost interviews with them I was checking references with other school districts with the two different consulting groups that kind of met all of our needs had some really good conversations with curriculum directors assistant superintendents and so forth as far as moving forward from that point and so Looney Math Consulting what they've done is they've done three days of classroom observations meetings with teachers meetings with administrators meetings with families they designed their own student survey which was given in all of the high school math classes in late November I believe a parent guardian survey that went out normal communication channels and they're undertaking a data review whatever data they wanted to see from us and you'll hear more in depth from them when they come back to do their presentation one thing that I found interesting was that the consultant who did the site visits she made it clear in talking to us she said I have not looked at any of the data and I will not look at any data until I've seen what's going on in the schools and her counterpart was reviewing data at the same time so she wasn't going to be sort of blinded by any of the numbers she saw and it was amazing to me I sort of put together the schedule of classrooms to visit and she managed to see I think virtually everybody who teaches math from grade 6 through 12 over a three day period which is nothing short of impressive including Pelham school and the reason for including grade 6 I should clarify this is because grade 6 is typically a middle school grade in our community it resides in the elementary schools but math textbooks math curriculum is almost always when you look at it 6 to 8 and 9 through 12 so it was important to include that and in fact our six grades would use a middle school math curriculum and so they're looking at vertical alignment they're looking at inclusion practices student access options for intervention and support they, the classroom observations were to take a look at our instructional practices questions of in terms of individual teacher practices because of course that's always a question of looking at a curriculum how much fidelity do you have to that curriculum because that can affect what the outcomes are and so we're anticipating your February 12th meeting to have a presentation from the consultants and they'll be able to be here and present and take questions from you at that time Did the consultant have clients who have also adopted the IMP program? That's a good question I don't think I asked them directly but it's a good question, I can ask them that and I should mention this actually came up, I thought of it as we were talking that IMP is one program of these integrated math programs there are other names for them it's sort of like we use IMP that's like the Kleenex is to tissues so it's important to note that Northampton doesn't use IMP but they do use an integrated math program Have they ever worked with a different brand of tissue? The consultant? Yes That I know is that this I figured that was the next logical question and so then is the anticipated the report is our district going to be in any way benchmarked against other districts and forgive me, I don't mean this I just want to say this is the way you started out that if your MCAS scores or whatever better or worse than others and that's the be all and end all I'm almost not even really talking about that I'd almost actually say what are we in year 3? 4? Yeah, we're in year 4 I would love to know of every other district that implemented whatever form of Kleenex this is I have found out that in year 3 and 4 parents got upset basically and they did some sort of I'm not making fun of this I'm actually very serious are there in fact a predictable set of implementation challenges that are consistent across the number of districts and there are in fact responses to that and better or worse ways of doing it it's not an issue of an excuse it's about actually contextualizing what continuous improvement would be not for the students but for the staff on the district and figuring that out I think you probably stated it in a much better way than I did before but that's exactly what I was getting at previously so I think that the context of what other districts are doing is just important information for all of us to have in order to be able to better assess how successful this program maybe is or could be because if there's area for improvement which I hear all of you saying that it probably is I would expect that there would be given how young this program is and how we're still learning a lot from it that hearing what other communities have been doing through this process and what challenges they've come up against and all that is just really helpful for us and it's also got to be a way within the context of a shared objective to optimize the program as best possible and improve outcomes across the board all the different grades it's also a way of being able to communicate that well I guess I'd say two different ways analytically you'd find out whether there is something unique about our district and if we were now I'm saying it seriously I'm just saying it objectively and I'm saying it in February and said there's certain elements of the program that are people that are far worse than other districts even though that's not great news I'd love to know it and I would love to know how we're going to improve it if alternately the answer is we're sort of in the middle of the pack maybe even doing better than some districts in the learning and challenges that go on but here are the kinds of things districts have to deal with here are the kinds of things we see you just dealing with and here's what the response is the challenge is if it happens in a vacuum and the only thing you have to do is compare yourself is yourself then people are left to sit back and say well basically they're going to leave with the impression they walked in with if they came in feeling like things were in the right track they're going to say awesome and if they came in feeling like it's settled to say that only makes me feel a little bit better anyways I'll leave it at that I would anticipate that some of what they talked to us about will be from some comparison of districts and I think you made a good point that's it's a problem in this profession in general sort of isolation by where you're located so I would anticipate because they do have this sort of broader view that that's going to come into it but it's something I made a note of it that I can check in with the consultants about as well so then in terms of next steps we'll have the results of the math program review which will then lead us to say alright what do we do now and this is something I met with the math department faculty about a month ago as this was getting underway and that was we sort of had that discussion and teachers rightfully were very direct they said alright what's going to happen with this report and are we going to be included and my feeling is absolutely because it will be the math department faculty grade 6 through 12 that are going to be crucial to where we go with that and how we implement recommendations and how we choose which recommendations to implement now and which ones to sort of look at over time to develop a plan for I mean things that might be minor adjustments, things that might be bigger changes and just because we're looking at half of our school district, grade 6 through 12 I imagine there'll be a combination of the two and then a continued on journal evaluation continuing to ask these questions because as we implement any kind of adjustments we're going to need to circle back and see if they've had a positive result and is there more training that we need there are other components of the curriculum that need adjusting over time let's go to the next question I'm so used to someone else asking first is this something that likely whatever you learn is close enough to budget neutral that you don't need to plan in any resources for support next year? So I know the way our budget process works it'll take 90 seconds but it's worth I think the 90 seconds is that our building administrators share with Mr. Magano and myself and Ms. Cunningham we requested ads and cuts and I'll be honest we don't get many administrators recommending cuts before there's any numbers we always have like we'd bake for if that happened just put it out there at 9.30 and so there is a request I'm going to answer directly even though it's an internal quest of having a placeholder for whatever results from the math review then it feeds into our larger budget process but Dr. Gramacchi did include a placeholder for that because we want to keep an eye on it not that we know actually how much money would be needed or what would be needed but she was thoughtful I wasn't looking for the big reveal but I would be upset if you didn't put a placeholder in because I mean if everything ends up being free meaning no revenue neutral but no budgetary impact that's an awesome problem to have but when does that ever happen, right? I mean at least there's like a workshop that needs to happen or something across a couple thousand bucks so I'm glad you hear that Yes, I didn't want to leave this discussion without saying that I actually talked to a number of kids who are thriving and enjoy IMP and I think one of the issues we struggle with at school committees is that there's a natural selection bias of anecdotes that come to us that skews to the negative and we don't get a lot of people saying hey, I really like what's going on I have nothing to tell you but that's okay because we embrace the process of continuous improvement so I wanted to say that and just that I think it's important to be responsive as much as we can to the resources that we have to support the kids that are currently in the pipeline and be supportive of teachers I can imagine from the perspective of a teacher who's gone through this level of change and then being told at the end of last spring hey, do these five or six things because parents are complaining and you need to make IMP work that could be a little overwhelming and I can imagine there being maybe a range of comfort level from teacher to teacher depending on how the implementation went about managing that whether in the IMP pipeline but being able to be responsive to that this year I think would also be important just on that note and Mr. Sheen talked about this a little earlier Mr. Sheen was very intentional and I think we were very intentional collectively, the people were sitting up here of trying to make sure that their view process felt authentic, it was honest but teachers were an active part of that process there's lots of bad examples of view processes where the people who are closest to the work are the subject to the review they're not actually a part of the review and I think that the firm that was chosen had a very holistic viewpoint that not that everyone's going to love what they say but that everyone's input was really authentically seek and gathered as part of the review because I think the process part really matters however you feel about the outcome if you weren't part of that process or don't perceive that you were part of that process or classrooms weren't visited in the way that has a really different how people will feel about the outcome I think is markedly different Can I just say one thing I would be negligent if I didn't say how dedicated the math department is to A plus math education here at the high school and they've been working since the 2013 working on this to make it better for everybody and they continue to come in every day and go at it so they're an impressive group of people that are really working hard to give everybody access to a high quality math education so appreciate your time Thank you You weren't even first on the agenda Stamina Stamina Persistence Persistence, that's right I thought that was great This is an incredibly productive meeting I think it is awesome though that out of one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine ten items we've now completed three of them I'm going to blame you Mr. Nakajima you said we were three minutes ahead of schedule on the other hand you yourself apologized at one point and said I know you want to move the agenda along So there you go I will split the blame Okay, master building use committee composition no less important, a little dry Yes, hello everybody so we hired architects you all hired architects to conduct the high school study the architects have asked that we have some sort of committee form to provide them feedback as they form their the options and they're going to need just sort of information address back to them on their questions that they wouldn't know so we put together sort of a sample committee what it could look like I'm sure you'll have thoughts on maybe expanding it or changing the roles it is a regional committee one of the ones we've seen at the elementary level so we'll probably want to have some sort of representation from all four towns in one of these roles but this is what we put out there and welcome your feedback or thoughts I could add to what Mr. Mangano said just to for some committee members who may have been involved in the selection process something that seems analogous I just want to cut a distinction that this is a building use study it's not a feasibility study it's not a building committee and so it's not looking at huge educational implications that might happen after this this is very much more it is focused on how do we use the buildings we have, what grade levels where do kids fit, what would those models look like so as opposed to some other processes that either have went on or are currently going on in our member communities this is a little more narrowly this is more narrowly focused than some of those other efforts yeah it's not looking at renovating the entire building for example now there may be some parts that are actually more creative in terms of alternative uses and things like that but in terms of sort of the scope it's a little more refined kind of a commitment do you anticipate meeting from folks I would say probably at least once a month and I think it's going to be a four or five month process by the time it's all said and done maybe more as they get closer to the end so a couple hours probably yeah so is this a it's funny there aren't at least some analogies absolutely we're thinking of composition and stuff I assume any meeting group we do is a public meeting for the purposes of the public meetings yeah I think we'd want that but is this like a working group or is it a appointed committee where there are I guess I'm trying to think through quorum issues because like for example most people would say oh but wouldn't I mean I shouldn't say most people a reasonable person might say the more representation the better let's have four parents from each four towns and let's have four commuters from all four towns and then all of a sudden you realize you're never having quorum ever like not even for the first meeting so do you have any I'm not trying to tell you a joke about this do you have any guidance on that I'm not sure I mean my first impression would be we would treat it like a full committee so you would want to have quorum of the committee we'll keep minutes we'll post the meetings and things like that I think that's a safe way to go I don't know from a legal perspective we technically have to do that because this isn't a full building committee like for the MSPA I think to be safe and transparent we probably want to treat it like that we will treat it like that yes by the way I'm entirely in favor of that just with the admonition that the committee is probably under some sort of normative bias against adding too many slots that make it really hard to get quorum I'm still a little unclear as to the actual purpose of the committee so you have the consultant that's doing the building you study decidedly not an educational study although there might be a little bit that has to come up and so like what is the committee doing is it like an advisory board is it voting on a set of recommendations is it just there to give like feedback in case the consultant needs some information what I heard from the architect is it's more of a sounding board feedback type of role much like the elementary feasibility study this isn't going to result in one option it's going to result in multiple options and cost ranges and things like that so what I heard from them is they need more of a sounding board like is this even possible what are the logistics around this much on education but there will be some piece of it that we set up that we'll meet with staff Mike so one is on the quorum issue we spoke already and when we do advertising to gather these roles we want to talk to the architects beforehand and set the meeting schedule so that people know on the front end so this group is going to meet Thursday afternoons from 4.15 to 5.45 I'm making up that's not actually the real time but I think that would go on being able to do it because Thursday afternoons is the day that they're off doing whatever but I think one of the challenges that all these groups face is if they don't know Mr. Doniz's question how much time commitment is being asked but also logically when this group can meet and architects are working on multiple projects all the time we know that the hope is what we're planning to do is ask them what's a reasonable meeting time that you can keep consistent and then as we're communicating to all these groups for membership we're being honest about this is when this group plans to meet on the topic that talking about in terms of Mr. Doniz's question about what they do I think that is most of it but I think they'd be interested for instance if 7th or 12th was being looked at how do different stakeholders feel about how quote unquote sequestered middle school students need to be from high school students that's not a large scale academic educational question but that's something where it's an example of where they would want community input even at this master plan level because some schools, some 7th or 12th schools for instance are very integrated some are like literally geographically as separate as possible so that not that they're making decisions but they want to have some level of feedback and they're not independently making decisions with no community input as a framework so a couple of thoughts I mean I'm wondering if we've listed one parent representative I know you're looking for feedback on your composition so I'm wondering if it would be beneficial to have both a middle school and a high school parent represented here and then the other thing is I am particularly sensitive to the environment of which we are asking a lot from our community and teachers and others and a lot of building committees regionalization questions and all sorts of different things and I'm wondering if it's possible for us to maybe approach this slightly differently so that we create maybe two or three opportunities and maybe we ask that it's the same people that show up but we say right off the bat it's three meetings a commitment is three meetings and they come to those three meetings and there are a set of questions that the architects are proposing and that allows for input that you just described but it's much more controlled and it's not just this open-ended big commitment because it does feel more manageable in some ways like we've had you think about bringing in focus groups or people that you bring in for very specific points in time to get their input but it's not an extended protracted process so I'm wondering if maybe we could do something like that and if we articulated that way I could see a lot more people being willing to participate in something like that it's easier for us to promote too I have a thing too is that unless there's a particular reason why it must be and I haven't heard one yet I think I might even call it like a building use advisory panel or something like that and to be honest with you I would go by open meeting law I'd have it be totally transparent I'd have all the results I'd do a video if we want to do video but also dispense with this need to have votes I think once you because there are two reasons for this one reason is this is the very very very beginning discussions of getting good information around what we might hypothetically but don't even have any idea we might do in the future once you call out a committee and by that I don't mean like we wouldn't follow open meeting law what I'm saying is once it looks like a duck and walks like a duck there are going to be a lot of people who look at this thing and say oh so this is the initial group that's making decisions or how I'm unmerging the middle school and the high school right? and so if the actual driving impetus behind this is that the architects say boy we really loved how a panel to get feedback from on this that as a composition in some way reflects the different stakeholders who are involved in this so we can ask them questions and let's create that for them instead of the other thing along with what she said complementary I think so I like that idea and this isn't me playing devil's advocate it's just trying to think through what I think is a really promising idea which is the other thing they need from and this is more district staff than it is enrollment projection there's some functional logistical things they need they need to have facilities director walk them around so I think the only downside that I can see of having it more as an advisory more open advisory like I'm imagining because I like the ideas and the way we're thinking about it wouldn't necessarily have to be a set group of people it could be here's three opportunities and maybe there's some people who gather who are in charge of facilitating that we wouldn't close access for people who want to offer feedback but there is some functional logistical things they will need from district staff and you know is the committee comfortable with us doing that without having other people around the table so I want to put it out there as so we can at least have that level I actually I'm happy for these meetings to be open for broader public stakeholders to be involved but I wasn't actually saying that what I was actually saying is I was taking where they would show up and they would provide feedback to this group of designers but the scope of what they were being asked to do would be more limited which also might make it both in terms of time commitment but also in terms of what they're actually being asked to provide and it's still super meaningful and in fact it's not only more meaningful but it's super bound in the idea that if somebody said hold on a second wait a minute at the end of something I have to make a vote to decide I don't know see look it's not even a committee it's a panel just a quick comment I mean I think that your point Dr. Morris about having district staff I mean I would honestly expect that anyway I don't know how the rest of the committee feels but I think you know there's multiple projects for you guys who are advising consultants and professionals so there's certain areas where I actually expect that that would be the role that the district staff plays your facilities director who ends up coming in right you know there's going to be roles that we can't fill or that the community frankly can't probably fill very easily you know so I think from my perspective anyway I think that makes a lot of sense that's helpful, thank you yeah absolutely I mean if the committee and the community can't trust the school administration to provide basic information like enrollment data and walking through the facilities without it being suspected of something else or voted on by a committee yeah right so the main comment I want to make is I'm 110% with Mr. Nakajima's comment about let's not dress it up like a duck if it actually isn't meant to be a duck right so plus one I'm not combining the words building and committee in another thing in town try to be creative if you look at the name of the committee it's very so I think you can building advisory panel or whatever it is and again you can make it as open as possible because it's meant to be as open as possible you can have people sign up to be the seven people that sit at the front of the room even though the microphone's going to be open for two hours to anybody who wants the same thing they want I think is great and that way you avoid you know the worst case scenario of people feeling closed off or nobody showing up at all and not having a sounding board what does everyone else think does that look good to me because you realize the three of us can just keep talking it's not going to help the rest of the committee at all I crack myself up so I got the feedback on the composition though again not calling it a committee but a panel does the committee want to vote on it or do you just want us to form it send you who we pick I mean or do you want to vote on the composition of the panel because we'd like to get informed soon so the architects can get going on it so one I actually really do want you to take the word building I I like the name you can call it panel advisory high school middle school planning study I got the gist of it yeah anyways so you're okay without a vote just proceed with the feedback need a little bit more affirmative conversation from the committee before we do that actually people say something no vote no vote okay you're okay with that thank you that sounds great I think the one thing we'll follow up and it doesn't need to be decided tonight is that I think having a school committee representative on that is critically important am I happy to volunteer for that if nobody else wants to I really I really enjoyed those interviews with the architects for myself I'm so happy to see that through that's awesome thank you honestly we've made progress on two things not just one thing okay in that case we're going to move on capital process partopical yes so I think this agenda item was just to go over the capital process so we have a separate item on the I was going to say this is a euphemism for the roof and no it's not so I think it was more that when we come back in January I think this is going to be very brief not just because of the hour just because it's intended to be brief that what was a little echinistic was that we presented some capital information at the 410 meeting that we hadn't shared at the regional school committee and it just made sense based on timing so I think this was an opportunity if the committee had any questions about what was presented at the 410 meeting which was around the middle school roof you'd have the opportunity to ask us any questions about where we're going from here or offer any feedback that was a different setting than the committee you mean on the capital not on the operational 4 towns or even on the middle school roof because that's the next item on the agenda exactly so two questions on the roof one can you talk a little bit about how that 3 million was arrived at like what estimate it was based on if there's any fudge factor folded into that and then also so this kind of came up at 4 towns and I tried to address it but I don't think I really did that well so say we put a new roof on the middle school and then at some future date the region does not need the building any longer I would imagine that the transfer value or the resale value for lack of a better term is higher with a new roof in other words there's this idea that we don't want to waste money by putting a 3 million dollar roof on that the school isn't going to use and yet there is some sort of asset value too Mr. McDonough, before you say anything I literally meant what I said any questions on the the item we're on is capital process is there any question on the capital process before we move on to middle school roof awesome there isn't the answer is question so we have an architect an architectural report analysis that pegs the cost of the roof right now at about 2.5 million Mr. McPherson used a different method to estimate the cost of the roof and he came to about 3 million so I think the actual amount is going to be somewhere between 2.5 and 3 million what I said at the four time meeting I think is that ultimately what the towns pay for is what the actual cost will be when we get quotes and we hope it comes in or when we get bids and we hope it's much lower than both of those numbers but I would say 3 millions if you're saying where does that fall in terms of on the conservative side for the roof and your second question so just two additional pieces on that one is that I know he shared that the work would likely, we'd want it to happen while students weren't in the building and sometimes there can be a surcharge because it will take a larger group of workers to do it in the relatively small amount of time we have in the summer it can be done, some communities do it but it has smells, it has noise it can be not to have it happen while students are in the building and the second part was also that oftentimes with capital projects because of when they get approved they happen the summer not the summer that happens after the vote but the following summer so he included some escalation clause that in case we're not able to get the funds in time to get a contract and bid and the work to happen in the summer of 2019 that work actually happens in the summer of 2020 that could increase the cost but I wanted to add those two specifics and the other thing that I actually got a really good presentation from students at school I think it was last spring there may be a push also to put solar on the roof which is not explicitly included in this cost but it's just something for the committee to be aware of and that we'll probably have to go to the towns as well there could be a push for solar if we put a brand new roof on that's sort of the ideal opportunity to do it again we come back to the building use and would you want to put solar on with a 20 year commitment if you don't know you're going to be there for 20 years and then your second question you put $3 million into the building you don't use it anymore in that situation it's only a complete waste if we knock the building down which I don't think is really on the table but I think that's something we can ask the architects when they do the building use study because one of the things they're tasked with is looking at alternative uses in the middle school we can try to have them fold that into their analysis of is there a return on this investment and what kind of return is that if we actually sell the building completely to another entity like the town or somebody else so we can try to get that information from the study Mr. Angana I thought when we did an analysis of the middle school roof the consultant said that we couldn't put solar on the roof without providing some structural support that's actually in the architects report is that to put solar on this sure if there would be an upcharge in terms of what they estimated at the 2.5 number we have to do structural work to the roof to make it support it so you know what that number is? I don't offhand but I think there was a percentage or some sort of estimate in the study so I'll try to get it for you I think if we know there's a conversation that's going to happen we're better to get in front of it in terms of what the budgetary impact should look like regardless of what the committee I think personally we could find a way to do it and particularly if it reduced operating costs over the long term it'd be great to consider it sure it's one thing to consider it if that means our bottom number is 3 million dollars instead of 2.5 and then it might be a little higher it's another thing you could tell us it's going to be 5 million and then that may result in a different conversation I find it difficult to imagine putting 3 million dollars into a building and then selling it off as scrap I mean it's almost I mean it's just hard to imagine an alternative to the middle school it's built as a school imagine it twice in the same town right? we've got two of these things we have no choice just maybe a maintenance expenditure rather than a capital expenditure yeah and I'll just quick update we did do funds in the budget for patching higher professional level patching and we did that last month and so so far so good I think the time we really want to check it is in the spring when things start warming up and expanding but we're going to keep an eye on that too I mean if that stuff works really well maybe that gives us some more time and also is something we want to look at for Fort River as well so we'll keep you at the price of that too spend the 3 million dollars and it has a short term life and the school agenda item is about the MSBA and yeah we need to take a vote if we want to sit down I don't think this vote will be on the actual submission but it'll be just do you want us to it could also just be like a confirmation go like yes you want us to look into the MSBA for this the vote would be once we come back with a statement of interest I just don't want to be presumptuous no it's not going to be but I wanted to I don't really think it's helpful for our dialogue around the middle school publicly to be getting radically out in front of all the planning that we'd actually should be doing or need to be doing it's a theoretical construct or exercise that we think while paying down the bond on a roof improvement that the middle school will never be will not cease at some point in that life in that period of paying off the note will cease to be used as an educational building there's actually no basis right now for making that statement there are a number of hypotheticals that would suggest that it could happen but then there are counter hypotheticals that say oh well maybe we'll move this class in or this would change enrollment in this way or have this other use I don't think it does this any good the roof needs to be fixed if we start playing around with decisions that aren't even posed right now I consider that to be a dangerous place for us to be and I'm sorry to throw that out I'm just throwing it out I forget who brought it up to you today your acknowledgement or someone else's acknowledgement that this would be a potential risk is an incredibly useful thing to raise because as an issue of towns paying off bonds and all the rest they need to know that risk sort of like fiduciary responsibility to have the taxpayers in the towns so I get mentioning it but I think if we as a group get caught up and caught away with that conversation we're doing everyone in our community as a service because also it feeds in to the note we just had this conversation about a panel versus a committee versus the middle school and the high school and the entire message you're trying to send is there's absolutely we even talked about the possibility that the outcome of the planning study might be that you need to build an addition on to this building to house additional upgrades not that that's definite but it's possible okay so if that's true you're talking about an entire another funding planning and decision making process to actually go about building an addition on there right so it's way hypothetical if you lay out all the risk but it's a risk from a financial perspective but I'm sorry to belabor this I'm only doing this because rumors begin and then start just like spreading like wildfire on the basis of well you know the school committee was really concerned the other night about whether or not you know the middle school stop using as an educational use right I mean it's sorry to worry about what statistics you have in your desk drawer that you're sharing with the DLS because then it moves anyway sorry to go off but please I hear that concern I do however feel like there's a complimentary responsibility that we have on the committee but we're talking about spending a lot of people's money and so it's not in a total vacuum that we're just throwing out the possibility that at some future date we might not use the middle school building as an educational building and we're doing a use study potentially moving the middle school to high school so it's out there and we have towns the biggest town in our region has serious capital stress so I think the challenge is in correctly framing that discussion and that you know the decisions haven't been made and but I think that's the more open messier way to do it when you sort of parse open all the things we're considering and you watch how the sausage is made then there's an increased possibility of misinterpretation but I think that's just something we have to manage is it honest? I was going to say I think I'm very concerned about rumors and I actually don't I don't agree with us going down too far with hypotheticals because I do think that's how the community starts to get signals from us but I guess for me personally I'm more interested in the potential resale value as Mr. Demling had previously stated or the value just generally that making those kinds of inherent improvements to a building bring right because for whatever purpose this building will serve either now or in the near term it'll need a roof and so unless again as you said if we're going to playing a demolishing which we're not building like this this size would be used in many different ways if it were not to be used in school which we're not saying but in any case I do think that something like a roof is something that can show immediate need and if we can find a short term solution perhaps for the next year great from my perspective I think we're delaying the inevitable and I think it's actually better use of our time to raise money and resources to think about the long term about how we make those improvements now so that we don't end up with a bigger problem for the down road Ms. Victon? Just two things so even if we do the roof we still have to do the short term repairs because it would be a year and a half basically. Yeah we'll have to monitor this year but are we discussing whether to look at the roof and include that in the capital plan to apply for MSBA to bring that cost down? The second piece I mean this specific agenda I mean obviously we'd only apply if we thought we would do the roof but In January or March actually we'll vote on the capital plan so at some point you will vote yes we want to put this project on but tonight it's more do you want us to apply to the MSBA to see if we can get that cost hopefully in half and our roof is a really good candidate it's 25 years old 24 years old so I think we have a strong chance from that perspective but so yeah. I think one of the things that would be useful I wasn't sure you know to me the number of scenarios which result in not being used for any educational purpose that the MSBA would deem approvable is I think really limited I think if you come out with one of those scenarios then the entire point about transferring an asset that's held by four towns in common to an alienated either to a third party entirely or to one of the subsidiary towns means you've got to include in the sale price the transaction cost the cost of the roof that becomes part of the purchase price which means effectively if one wants to push this analysis and figure out what's the underlying risk what you've really got to figure out is what's the value of the asset what's the likely it is going to be transferable or saleable at a price that would allow you to recoup the cost of the debt service on the roof and any other outstanding debt service you have and that's the point the risk to the district the risk to the school district I don't actually think is super high because there's for two reasons one, I think the number of scenarios you reduce it down to in which it's not actually going to be used for an educational purpose that would be subject to reimbursement is the likelihood of that outcome is there's no reason right now to think it's particularly high it's certainly possible but it only is pretty high the number of other inputs that would go into that decision are substantial including possibly making other substantial capital improvements elsewhere to do that and then the third point is the district would always, in the member towns would always seek to recoup the cost of the debt in order to recover it in the transaction so the question for me would then be if we're going to bother kicking the tires on this more before we look at an MSBI application is we got to kick the tires on what will be the process of alienating this asset the cost of any outstanding debt that would be acceptable to the towns and I suppose the issue would be if we think the delta is significantly high enough between what we could essentially charge for the transfer of this asset and the increase in the cost of the debt if that makes an appreciable difference in the value of the asset then that becomes a dubious decision to make because you're then essentially saying that the district itself would have to make good including potentially towns that are no longer enjoying the benefit of the building on the remaining debt and what that debt looks like so if we want to go through that exercise then we can I think I'd like to just submit the statement about but I think that exercise is the one that again I think we're going to ask the architects to do to sign up where it's before so the window for the statement of interest I believe is it's going to be released in January and we'll probably have to submit in February or March I think on some level we probably on some level it would be helpful if they did do that exercise simply because this is the the can we keep picking around of what does that building end up being if it's not what it is we've got good numbers on the insured value obviously that's not going to translate to what we can sell it for it's going to probably be much much less well I mean it's what you can sell it for and then the question is I don't know how it's governed by law that if one of the underlying member towns wanted to take essentially possession of the use of the building how do you resolve that joint ownership outstanding debt and for the member towns are is there is there a value to the asset that's appreciable that's bound by law to be compensated want it I think what I heard from all of you is maybe wait to answer those types of questions until after the study in terms of getting out in front of this too much all good questions but I think we'll keep track of them and try to address them once we have the data from the study are people okay with them preparing your paperwork thank you interlocal agreement tips good so this is my last item tonight so tips is it stands for the interlocal purchasing system it's sort of like a big collaborative that started from basically a collaborative in Texas but it's grown to be national and it's sort of it's like a state contract it gives us another place we can look to for pricing so right now we can look to our state contract we can look to the mass higher ed consortium and this would give us a third option for pricing and so what they do is they do a bid process they bid out services for their members and then they get prices on those services and goods and so to access them though we would have to vote to join them we're already a member at the elementary level we joined three or four years ago when we bought cameras for all the school buses that was a big purchase and they had a high quality vendor that was on their state contract that wasn't on the that was on their contract that was on our state contract and so the things that we probably buy from them in the future would be things primarily computers but we could also look for other things that we typically would buy from a state contract here we can at least compare it and see what the cost difference is if we join these are automatically approved contractors from as far as the state is concerned I mean we still have to confirm that they haven't been disbarred in our state but in terms of the procurement process they've followed the procurement process that's needed Chairman I move to authorize the district to execute an interlocal agreement with the Region 8 Education Service Center it's been moved this is your second any further discussion seeing none all those in favor the motion has read please signify with your hand carries 7 to 0 thank you the calendar so we talked about this last month and since that month the APEA surveyed their members and at every school they preferred the pre-labor day start which is on your back page which we sort of suspected last time the change that Mr. Doniz suggested in the month of April you could see has changed I got confirmation from the APA they were comfortable with that change otherwise nothing else has changed from what you looked at last month and there was a broad endorsement at every school in the district all the schools in the district around the pre-labor day calendar that looked like this as opposed to the post-labor day start is there any questions or discussion we need to vote on this one any questions or discussions Shelma sorry I don't recall what was the change that Mr. Doniz suggested for April isn't it the 10th was the 17th so the half day I think was the week prior the week of the 8th just in moving it to the following week because it can be incredibly disruptive for parents when they have a half day and then day off that they're content with in the same week any anyone have a motion on the one offer oh I'm sorry I was looking this direction I withdrawn my hand I moved to approve the 2019-2020 school year calendar second any comments to date seeing I was in fear of proving the calendar carries against 7-0 this is awesome now that I needed my editorial approval on top of the vote location of meetings do you want to introduce the topic so a topic of conversation between Amherst media and district has been there the town hall building in Amherst which has been outfitted with new technology would be a venue to have our meetings in I'll finish by Mr. Doniz and I spoke today and she had some feedback from Amherst media that she could share but so the other part of that is that we haven't been able to do live meetings because the cameras our IS staff has been in touch with Amherst media it's about $8,500 or so to replace the cameras which we can do but we wanted to at least have the conversation before we just felt like fiduciary it was good to have this conversation before we expended funds on technology for this space are there other meetings that use this room the that are taped I just wanted to be able to use the cameras the Amherst school committee meetings are the only other ones that I'm aware of that are taped in this space are you suggesting that the Amherst school committee meeting as well as this I'm suggesting it's a conversation that the committees might want to have I'm not making a recommendation are you including them in the conversation not in this conversation because that would be a violation of our meeting this is awesome follow the law be clear about it sorry anyone have any thoughts on this topic so basically the gist of it would be that the regional school committee would be meeting in Amherst town hall on the other hand if it would be more accessible to more people is that the issue through the live streaming is that what the I guess I'm not quite understanding the camera so we could place these cameras there's a cost to it but I think the advantage of the new space my understanding is that it has the technology is better it allows multiple people to be projecting and see things there's more individual screens I know Mr. Demling and Mr. Adonis may have more information specifically on that and the other piece which Mr. Adonis can speak more than I can is just the feedback I've ever heard from at least one employee of Amherst media is just since they're already set up there there's an auto record feature there's some other pieces that might be different in that setting with the technology even if we replace these cameras yeah so I you know from in my capacity as a chair for the Amherst school committee have a conversation with the executive director of Amherst media at the direction of the committee to find out what their thinking was and you know they have made it very clear that this was not a request it came from Amherst media this is actually from the town of Amherst has suggested it and it was specifically around technology and I think the benefit to Amherst media is both the technology is new technology that will be in the town hall that we don't have here we've had continuing problems even predating when the cameras failed completely there's been technological problems I think even just accessibility of communication between Amherst media staff you know the interns often that are here working the cameras but also the staff that are back in the Amherst media headquarters and there's just been a lot of problems that they've had for several years now so they see this as an opportunity to actually you know fix all of that and have better accessibility and also I think that the big consideration is there's a lot more people that are definitely watching these videos stream live on you know online as opposed to watching through the television you know through public access but there is still a subset of the community that is watching through public access TV and so all of that would be benefited by the move to the new that was my question without incurring additional expense okay it's 6.30 on a Tuesday one of those nights you can't possibly find a parking place in downtown Amherst I don't know who's qualified to answer my questions that's wrong here I think midnight to midnight is what you're well it's dinner time all the restaurants are at full speed it's Tuesday so I said so a couple other issues just to consider at the regional level so we don't have all four towns represented here but so the biggest issue I think for the non Amherst members is that it's the town of Amherst town hall right and the region is supposed to fairly represent all four towns and so to have what is essentially a separate legal entity the regional schools at the seat of town government for one of the member towns presents at least the appearance of not a conflict of interest but it looks odd perhaps to some I think that would be one one of the concerns that I think mostly the members from the non Amherst towns would want to weigh in on Susala? As a member of a non Amherst town as long as the 13 member town council was not sitting there with us on the line the other thing I would add is so we had a similar discussion at the Amherst school committee and not to speak about so I was expressing a similar sentiment to you that I feel like being in the school gives it a schooly vibe it's cozy and we do sort of think about accessibility in terms of uncomfortable people feel going to certain spaces being said I had a meeting with another board a couple weeks ago and I had a chance to walk in and see the room and I was surprised how the space looked I was expecting it to feel a lot more austere and disconnected and it didn't so we haven't yet finished the discussion at the Amherst school committee level but there was the idea of possibly having a test meeting there to see how it went or holding some meetings there and some meetings here but we haven't had those conversations which is a quick a quick observation as a Pellum person I'm with Mr. Sullivan it doesn't really matter it's a space and if it's a more congenial and a better equipped space I'd be fine with that but yeah just in talking about having the school the only thing that came to mind tonight is certainly often student groups come in and to the extent that it just feels comforting or welcoming to them to be in their own space that would be the only consideration in terms of having it at school or not it's an interesting thing to meet it I haven't been in the finished space over a town hall so I don't know how it looks I do know that I just can't think of the number of people who've mentioned to me how intimidated they feel coming to these meetings and and that's in this setting where if they're a parent they may already be familiar with this setting certainly I'm sure they're familiar with the cafeteria the auditorium and stuff like that and so this is a setting that already feels should feel hopefully more accepting and opening and comforting to them and yet when they're coming to this space before us they often feel really intimidated really uncomfortable really stressed out and nervous and I don't like the idea of creating another space where people may feel even more that way but I'm open-minded on it I really think are the members of so we're others of us some of us a subset of us are members of the Amherst committee are you all members of your town committees okay that's how it works right I mean I sound dumb I'm just sort of processing this through Audra's not here she's obviously a member of Leveritz committee I would really love and I could send the email out where you could but I'd be happy to to all of you to go talk to your town regular your town committees go back to your towns talk to the other members so like a member who might say what will happen this coming spring but if any of you left there might be a member who's already sitting on a committee there who'd be joining us you know this coming spring and I really I'm sort of echoing something Mr. Deming said for me personally I'm saying this is the role of chair I feel massively uncomfortable picking and also because I'm from Amherst I guess I feel massively uncomfortable moving the venue of our meetings to our town hall for you guys to schlep to and come visit unless and it has not to be a vote but I'm saying if you come back in January and say no no no we've talked about it and our committees don't we don't care the technology is better we can either do it or we can do it on a trial run then I think that's great but I would feel much more comfortable knowing that you've talked it through with some of your neighbors there's a symbolism of having a school committee meeting in a school there are books here there were students in this room five hours ago it's a school committee it's not a town government five hours in increasing as we talk I feel comfortable coming to the building would you remove your high school course load if the presentation had been done I feel comfortable here Mr. Minino you have your hand raised you're just moving in your chair okay so let's just talk about this in January also I'd like Odger to be here or at least be aware of the conversation all our towns have to buy in on this if we do it we have a gift for at least one gift I don't know does anyone like to be is it on this move to accept the following gifts anonymous number 142 to support family center gift drive for homeless students in the amount of $500 Amherst tritons tritons tritons association incorporated number 5034 to support lean lines for swim team $500 and that's for a grand total of $1,000 is there a second any discussion seeing none all those in favor of the motion is read see if I have your hand it carries 7 to 10 probably there's any comments I want to make upcoming topics before we adjourn this meeting yes I was reminded recently that because of Amherst change in town government actually a required wording change to our regional agreement and therefore requires the approval of all four towns that will have to work through some sort of process so at some point should be on the agenda anything else school choice hearing OPEB trust documents and law adoption budget guidance we'll get back to that in January clearly we didn't have time tonight editorial choice we'll come back to SCTF fee review location of meetings is there a motion to adjourn and to adjourn is there a second vote carries 7 to 0 thank you Amherst media


Hey everyone, welcome to Higan Iruthil and this is another dev blog which dropped Almost 24 hours ago It was actually nearing. I was actually asleep already when this dropped. So I'm sorry and but this morning I was able to read everything and trying to You know gather my thoughts first because Let just just hear me out first I think this is Too good to be true in terms of the first part Gonna discuss this first because this is a main problem that we have been giving to the devs in terms of feedback. So they're Giving us ways where we can we can generate more enter Okay, so enter it for those who don't know what it is It's the energy that we use for the game. So for for the stages for whatever It requires energy. Okay, so they're giving us basically ways on We could generate more enter. Okay, so hear me out. Okay, so that's go one by one Okay for the merchant who sells items in the mesmerizing labyrinth the refresh rate Will be increased to a hundred percent Before this was a less than a hundred in terms of energy. So you don't get the full energy I'm not sure when this is going to be taking effect. There is no date. Okay, so I'll well I Seem to not sure if I noticed this earlier, but again, I'm not sure when this is dropping Probably today. So or they have a date probably at the end but again, so the total amount of 400 enter can be bought. Okay. The keyword here is bought with 160 W ostels each day. Okay Once you reach endgame like I have I'm ready past chapter five. I have a I've you know farmed all of the W ostel Not even in chapter five all the other Content permanent content. I already farmed the first clear Dobry Ostels. So basically I'm done with the Dobry Ostels the problem with this one is that Where will we get the Dobry Ostels each day on the events? It would be okay if there would be an event every week That is ideally that should happen because again if we don't have events This is not going to be of use to us because you have to buy this Okay, instead of giving us this they should have thought about increasing the cap of of Energy that we get every day. So that would have been better. This one This is giving us at this point. I feel that they've given us false hope In terms of buying Dobry Ostels, they've you know, they've increased It 100% but again, we still have to buy it. What if for those who are free to play? What if for those who are low spenders? They cannot maintain this every day Okay, so that is one of the things that I think they should revisit because again Once you once you reach endgame Dobry Ostels are very very hard for unless if you buy them Okay, so next is a lucky week, which should be held each month. So this is only a week Which is now It's it's available now Fan super fusion check in daily during the event up to 1,400 ether over seven days. This is nice But this is only for a week. Okay, this is actually super nice because they have upgraded this before it was Doesn't contain energy. It only had an item now. It has energy, which is nice and This one a happy weekend Will be held at times at times. It's not even every weekend when the drops are double for our task stages Okay, so what if you know what if We we don't know how is it going to be every weekend again, they have to be clear about this surprise rewards will be in will include large amount of it there in special locations such as content update celebration or Milestones and holidays. Okay guys. Don't get me wrong. I'm thankful for this improvement But I'm looking after the whole player base here including free to play of course free to play low spenders They cannot really You know by Dobryostal Just increase the cap guys and also make sure that the regeneration rate is actually good We're not asking for all of this at this point. We're asking is that we increase the cap you increase the regeneration rate That's it. That is all you have to address This one. I'm not sure Probably you've addressed the issue For me, I think it's only 50% of the issue Probably 70 at most you still lack that little bit. So again guys, thank you for this. I'm not saying I'm not Happy I'm not grateful. But again, is it really enough? That is actually my question in the thumbnail. Is it enough? Is it enough for everyone? Okay, so I'll leave that to you comment in the comment section guys if you think this is enough If you think I'm wrong if this is enough then tell me in the comments next up. We have Other updates upgraded drops in mesmer and mesmerizing labyrinths. So they have a new five-star play just this bow Will be exchangeable with outlands mark in shop Which is nice at this count of the first time exchange applies to all three pieces of the set, okay Excuse me. Sorry. So this one is also nice. This one is a good addition I'm a more difficult labyrinth that drops a new five-star place will be added after molten magma While the rate to get five star place in molten magma will increase too But this is a nice add to the game a mechanism will be added to support clearing a labyrinth once with two Data reminisces garnered double drops. Okay. This is a nice add to mesmerizing labyrinth So it gives more difficulty gives us more rewards Optimized directors show down the situation where there was an abnormal settlement in is ready fixed in the maintenance in April 20 New mechanism will be introduced to trigger the automatic resending of points and rewards in mail under most anomalies Okay, soul essence Queen will be exchangeable in the single fight shop, which is nice. We could farm Queen There miscellaneous currency gain in thematic events can now be used to exchange all kinds of items Instead of being used to draw currency in gotcha machine more Experience stages featured by more diverse gameplay will be added most character outfits will have their exclusive visual effects drink battle It should be because again, it's going to be a different, you know different skin. So next up Okay, let me just enlarge this enlarge this Sorry, so glimpse of future gameplay and content. This is what I like because Right now Some players are actually aren't any games Including me. I play in Vanguard. I play in a pack Vanguard is actually in a very end game Vanguard a pack is going there. So all new rogue roguelike gameplay wonder fantasy In the upcoming versions roguelike gameplay Which is vastly different from mesmerizing labyrinth will be introduced in wonder fantasy you can choose different affixes Take note affixes. I'm not sure what this is to keep enhancing your enemy in ways you like What? enhancing your enemy and Defeat them to win rich event rewards. Okay, so this is very vague affixes enhancing your enemy and rich rewards Very big very big it it won't cause it there Which is nice and event currency can be used to exchange character development materials commemorative items and so much more This I have to see no no no comments on this at this point, but I'm glad that there are new comment and no comments new Content coming in union feature, which is the guild system Hopefully an union will be unlocked in one of the upcoming versions join millions of fellow directors challenge powerful Be serious enemies that's right. This there is going to be a boss that arrive at well and win utmost Loren grid prices for your union. So Definitely, there's going to be a boss fight for the union For the guild gain union currency via daily and weekly interaction is changed a great deal of development materials in the union shop The weekly union beds also promised a chance to win tremendous items.  Anyway, so again come back Powerful anima character a powerful anima character who appeared in close beta will make a come back soon as union is unlocked Who could this be? powerful anima character Who could this be? This could be yori actually so Probably the next character of the yori Who knows? Probably do a featured yori Okay, so that is it guys. That is your glimpse of future gameplay and content and More or less those are my thoughts on the energy Solution that they gave us so again, I you know, I welcome all your comments Hopefully you can you know, we can discuss the energy crisis in Higan Irukul Thank you very much guys for staying the smart take care stay safe. This is the warden and I'm out of here