We're recording, please go ahead. Good evening. We have a full house tonight, and we want to welcome all of you that are here with us in person and who have joined us on Zoom. It is September 26th, 2023. This is a special meeting of the town council and the two remaining members of the school committee. The temporary provisions pertaining to the open meeting law have been extended. This allows us to continue holding meetings remotely without a quorum of the council physically present at a meeting location while providing the public with adequate alternative access to the meeting. This meeting is accessible in real time by Zoom, by phone, and is live broadcast on Amherst Media Channel 9 and live streamed by Amherst Media. Given that we have a quorum of the council present, I'm calling the September 26th, 2023 town council meeting to order at 6.05. I'll call upon each councillor and by name and at that time you should unmute your mic and say present. This will indicate that we can hear you and we can and you can hear us. Please remember to mute your mic after saying present. Shallonee Balmilton. Present. Pat DeAngeles. Present. Anna Devlin-Gothier. Present. Lynn Griesmer is present. Mandy Jo Hanneke. Present. Annika Lopes. Present. Michelle Miller. Present. Good, we got connection working. Dorothy Pam. Here. Pam Rooney. Here. Kathy Shane. I'm here. Andy Steinberg. Present. Jennifer Taub. Present. Alicia Walker. Here. At this time, I would like to again welcome the two remaining Amherst School Committee members to the meeting. Seems like we've been getting together a lot. When I call your name, please unmute your mic and indicate that you can hear us and we can hear you. Irv Rhodes. Jennifer Schout. Present. Because there's no longer a quorum of the Amherst School Committee, I have not asked the committee to be called to order. Hold on. After public comment, I will also be checking with the candidates to make sure they can hear us and we can hear them. There is no chat room for this meeting. If you have technical issues, please let Athena and me know and to make a comment or ask a question, please click the raised hand button. If technical difficulties arise as a result of utilizing remote participation, we will decide how to address the situation. Discussion may be suspended while we address technical issues and the minutes will note if a disconnection occurred. I will be monitoring counselors and school committee members' connections and if necessary, we will pause the meeting until you are reconnected. There is no change in the order of the agenda as posted. In announcements, we'd like to state the following. It is personally my sincere hope that we will complete the process to fill the Amherst School Committee vacancies this evening. At the close of the meeting tonight, we will determine if the interview and or voting process to fill the vacancies for the Amherst School Committee will continue over to October 2nd. The following candidates for the vacancy for the Amherst School Committee have withdrawn their names from consideration. Sarah Marshall, Gaylord Salisbury. We're going to move on to public comment. Point of order, Lynn. Yes. Sorry. I have a correction request regarding the memo that was attached to tonight's meeting and I'm not sure when to bring that up. Oh. Why don't we go ahead with public comment and then do that? Okay. Okay. Is it something regarding public comment? Okay. We've identified this time for public comment. Encourage anyone who wishes to speak to make comments related to the qualifications they feel are important for those who will fill the vacancies on the Amherst School Committee until January 2024? If you are physically in the room, please sign in with the Clerk of the Town Council. She's over here. If you are on Zoom and wish to make public comment, please raise your hand at this time. Athena, has anyone signed up for public comment? We have one. Okay. Hold on. I am not seeing anybody on Zoom with their hand up and that is the way, oops, I now see one person. Is there anybody else? Because I would like you to raise your hand now so we can estimate how much time we're going to be allowing. Okay. Let's start with people in the room. Okay. Residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes. The committee will not engage in a dialogue or comment on the matter raised during public comment. I'm going to ask, we have one person in Zoom. Please bring Renata Shepard in, state your name and where you live. Hi. Renata Shepard, Justice Drive in Amherst. Go ahead, please. Thank you. In 2014, my daughter, Juliana, who was recently a member of the Human Rights Commission, had a crazy first day in fourth grade at Crocker Farm School. In the morning, the nurse called me to say she was okay, but she had been stung by wasps in the playground. No worries. After lunch, the nurse called again, but this time, she and her friend were bitten by a poorly supervised pit bull while happily swinging at recess. I tell you this because I was surprised to see Mr. Viscit O'Connor's statement on the school committee candidate list. I have to speak up. O'Connor knew both the caretaker and the dog owner. Whenever I came forward and ultimately abandoned her dog, but he consistently refused to cooperate, causing my daughter and her friend to undergo unnecessary rabies shots and thousands of taxpayer dollars spent by police investigators and medical insurance costs. He decided to protect wrongdoers instead of our children, our school children. I urge you not to consider him for school committee, especially given so much controversy regarding the protection of students. Our family now is able to joke about that day and Juliana says she should probably have skipped first day. Her scars are healed and she still loves dogs. The day and couple of weeks that followed, however, were very stressful. I hope you can take this into consideration and choose people who show they can represent and protect students through their actions, not words. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. Based on the fact that there are no more hands and no in the audience that ends public comment. We're now going to begin the interview process, but I want to spend a little time talking about it so that we get anything straight. Yes. Oh, I had a request regarding the memo that you were going to take after public comment. Please go ahead. Okay, so the memo that's attached to the agenda, it's the memo revacancy and attached documents. It lays out the details about the search process and it's dated September 22nd. On page four, in the second bullet point, the last two sentences are there will be no public comment at the special meeting unless otherwise agreed upon. There will be no public comment and obviously we just had public comment, but I want to ask that those two sentences be struck and that the document be re-uploaded and that it be replaced with there will be public comment at special meeting. The reason it's important is that in the future, when this process needs to be undertaken again, the future council and school committee are going to look back at the documentation on this process just as we looked back at the documentation from the 2020 process to see what was done. And the way this reads, it looks like it leans towards not having public comment, but obviously we just did. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other comments from the council or the school committee? Right. First of all, I want to make sure that we welcome all the candidates and thank you for taking the time to submit your statements of interest. I'm going to call on each candidate by name. At that time, you should unmute your mic and say present. This will indicate that we can hear you and you can hear us.  So please remember to unmute them as well. So we'll start. This is in alphabetical order. Andrew Churchill. Present. Amy Cronin DiCaprio. Present. Amy, I think we need you to turn up your mic. Okay. Does that help? That helps a great deal. Thank you so much. Hugh Freel. Present. Laura Jane Hunter. Present. Bridget Hines. Present. Katie Lasdowski. Present. Did I get that right, Katie? Yes. Thank you. Vince O'Connor. Present. Thank you. Richard Rosnoy. Present. Carrie Spitzer. Present. Roger Wallace. Present. Gabriella. Present. Can you? Weaver. I tried learning to pronounce your name. Please pronounce your name for me. Gabriella Cornejo. Weaver. Cornejo. Thank you. Okay. The interview process, including the final questions, were developed by the town council and the remaining members of the school committee over a series of meetings that began in August 28. Consistent with the Charter and Mass General Law 43, Section 36, within 45 days of vacancies occurring in the school committee, the town council and the remaining members of the school committee elect suitable people to fill the vacancies until the first Monday in January, following the next regular municipal election. Notice of the vacancies were published for the required minimum 21 days prior to this meeting. Applicants were required and are required to be registered voters in Amherst to fill the vacancy. No person appointed for these vacancies will be listed on the ballot as a candidate for reelection in the upcoming election in November. A memo outlining the process, timeline, the announcement of the vacancies, a description of the Amherst school committee responsibilities, and the final questions is included in the meeting packet for this evening. This memo was provided to all candidates, counselors, and school committee members on Friday, September 22. The packet also includes each of the candidate's statements of interest and voter registration certifications. So here's where we get to the issue of how do we do the questions providing each of you with as much equal opportunity as the others. Each candidate will be asked to make their opening statement. We have asked that these statements be no more than two minutes. Then each candidate will be asked to answer question one. Then each candidate will be asked to answer question two, etc. So that everybody answers each of the questions parallel. Okay, I did ask in a memo that I sent the email that I sent on Friday that you work to keep your responses to questions to one minute. In light of the number of candidates and the desire of the council and the school committee to fill these positions as quickly as possible. Finally, candidates will be asked to make their closing statements. We have asked that these statements be no more than two minutes. The order for answering questions varies among the candidates, so the same person is not always first or last. The question will be placed. Are we doing that? Are we going to place the question on the screen, Athena? Yes. At the beginning of each round, the order was determined by the Clerk of the Town Council using random.org. Are there any questions from candidates if, regardless of whether you're in the room or on Zoom, please raise your hand at this time if you have a question. I'll get my random sheet out. Hold on. So the first thing we would like you to do is to provide your opening remarks. And we're going to begin with, I'd really dislike using people's last names, with Laura Jane Hunter. Thank you. Would you like me to start right away? Please. Okay. Thank you for having me today. My name is Laura Jane Hunter. I use she, her pronouns, and obviously I'm an applicant for the Vacancy on the School Committee. My identity as a queer cis white woman, a social worker, a parent of two children in ARPS, and a supporter of the Educators in the Union all inform my desire to serve the Amherst community. My husband, who is a 17-year educator at ARMS, and I bought our home in Amherst because of the schools. I have volunteered for the schools every year I've lived here, including serving as a treasurer for the PGO at Wildwood, and now at ARMS. I am a licensed clinical social worker, and I have a master's in public health. I have extensive experience with budgets, with supervision, and with making decisions informed by research and best practices. My collaborative nature, along with an authentic approach to communication, and years of experience on hiring committees, including one of the successful searches for the president of Hampshire College, makes me an excellent candidate to work with the current school committee members. I'm committed to support the interim superintendent, to assist with the search for the new superintendent, and to help develop a student-centered budget that allows all students to thrive. As you may be aware, I am on the ballot for the school committee election in November. I decided to run for school committee because I believe in our schools, the educators, and our students. I felt compelled to serve after witnessing the experience of the families in the district, and I feel compelled to serve now. Meaningful collaboration with the educators union, with the families, and with the students is possible and is necessary for healthy schools, and for a rich learning environment. I want to serve because I believe I can support the students, the schools, and the community. Thank you. Thank you. Perfect timing. I hope you all notice the clock and it turns red. Okay. Richard Rosnoy. Thank you. I would like to just encapsulate the letter of expression that I submitted to all of you, and not repeat it basically. Clearly, there have been some difficulties recently, and they have resulted in some problems that need to be addressed, but there is also a large mass of students who have been watching and observing what's happening, and their education is important also. We need to make sure that the administration oversees policies that have been in place, and that the Board of Education adopts policies and administers the policies that are already in place. As necessary, if they need to be changed, that needs to be addressed. I'll be addressing some of the more specific issues as we get through our questions, but basically, I think we all need to focus on the education of all of our students. Every student has a right to a free and appropriate public education. If there are minority students who need to have special services, then so be it, but it is the role of the majority to make sure that the minority students, and I include that in all sorts of minority students, that the majority ensures that the minority's services are met and satisfied. Thank you. Thank you. Bridget Heinz? Good evening. Well, first, I just want to thank everyone in the room for, especially the town councilors. I've been watching over the last few weeks, and I just feel grateful for your time-intensive dedication. I also really have a deep appreciation for all the volunteers for the position tonight. It's so heartening to see such a highly qualified group of candidates step forward, and I just say I can see the advantages of a strong interim candidate who isn't running for election. Yet myself as a candidate, I can see the advantage of consistency and continuity that starting sooner would bring to the table, especially given the types of challenges ahead. I submitted out of a commitment to help the schools move past this dark chapter. I come to you as an educator and an administrator with a career dedicated to breaking down barriers to education and building inclusive communities. I oversee an MPI on a million dollar grant, and that's federal money, and so I'm familiar with working with budgets, maybe not as large as some people in the room, but I know how to look at line items and make efficiencies and also help to build partnerships that make the educational process stronger. I act as hiring authority and know how to bring together diverse teams and provide really strong oversight and accountability on those teams while also creating a community among them. I just want to say tonight that I pledge to act as a leader to guide us towards kinder, safer, and more welcoming schools for the students within them, and also for the school committee members to be a partner, a team member, and a collaborator who comes to the table in inclusive and transparent way. Time is up with you. Okay. Thank you. Vincent O'Connor. My name is Vincent O'Connor. I'd like to thank the council and the remaining members of the school committee for organizing such a fair and open process that I think has invited enough people out to volunteer for this three-month appointment so that I hope that the educators and the students of both districts feel cared about, artened by the public response to the situation, which I think is both sad and tragic, and that they will feel that whoever is chosen, that their interests will be taken into account and work for. I've served on a number of town committees, including the town manager search committee 2005 and 2006, the town hall building committee from 1994 to 1996. I recently served on the zoning board of appeals for a six-month appointment, and I think that, and was a town meeting member for many years, listened to and participated in the discussion of the school budget during that process, advocated for increases in school budgets on a number of occasions, successfully along with others. And I think I bring to the process the qualifications of experience, governmental service, work with children, and and immigrant families that will inform the committee's deliberations.  Thank you. Carrie Spitzer. Good afternoon or good evening. I want to apologize to the folks on Zoom that I can't figure out why my video is not on. Now I'll move over to the statement. So my name is Carrie Spitzer. I'm a long-time Amherst resident. I'm attended Amherst public schools, have three kids in the school district right now, and I've also served two terms on school committee. I've worked on as well as a town meeting member. So I didn't think I'd be back in this room so quickly. Quite honestly, it was a ended up serving two terms and during the pandemic and that was quite challenging. But I cared deeply about our schools for all of the reasons I just listed and felt like I had an opportunity here to give back to the community that I really care about. So I'm here today because I believe I can bring my experience both from serving on school committee where I worked on budgets, have a deep understanding of what the school committee does, and also in my own work experience, I'm a public policy analyst. I have degrees in public administration and degrees in urban policy and planning. So I'll bring that to the position as well if I'm chosen. I'm really heartened to see so many people here today. So I also somewhat surprised. So I would be more than happy to step back and let others take this role. But look forward to the process today. Thank you so much. Thank you. Andrew Churchill. Hi. I've lived in town since 1995. Both my boys went through the Amherst regional system pre-K through 12 and they actually found college pretty easy after the high school and they're now gainfully employed and living independently. So I'm happy. I previously also served two terms on the school committee from 2004 to 2010. And I chaired the Amherst committee for four of those six years. So I understand the roles and responsibilities of the school committee member. As a school committee member, I also served on the town's budget coordinating committee and participated in the annual four towns meetings. So I'm familiar with school and town budgets. My career has been devoted to education. I ran an education policy research center at UMass. I then got a superintendent's license and led a vocational high school and special education and other programs in West Springfield. And I finished my career co-leading a technical assistance team for the mass department of elementary and secondary education supporting underperforming schools and districts in the western part of the state. During my time at the department, I participated in year-long diversity, equity and inclusion training conducted by the national organization overcoming racism. I've also taken a multi-day course on culturally responsive teaching and the brain from national expert Zareta Hammond. I've become comfortable with the discomfort of wrestling with difficult issues of equity and anti-racism. I have a master's in public policy which has helped me look at issues and decisions from multiple viewpoints, including equity, efficiency, management, data analysis and communication. And I participated in town affairs in a number of ways, including as a town meeting member, as a board member for the Amherst Education Foundation, and on the elected Amherst Charter Commission which I chaired. I'm hopeful that my personal and professional experience can help the school committee continue their work during this interim time with little need for a learning courage on my part. Thanks. Thank you. Roger Wallace? Good evening. Since 1974 through 2012, I was a part of this system. I was an elementary school teacher stuck in a corner of Fort River having myself a great time. In that experience, I found myself with the ability to go to the superintendent's office as early as early in the morning, bringing them a cup of coffee. If any of you are familiar with Mr. Frizzle or Zare, yes, I stopped and I would park in their parking space because I had something to say. My goal as a teacher, my goal as an advocate of education, has always been put the students first. And this particular interim situation gives me an opportunity, as we've all said, to sort of write the ship. It's not sinking, for sure, but to write it. And I would like to have that opportunity. The fact that I have been in the trenches for many years, served on committees, met with superintendents, argued with superintendents, which was fun. I think that I offer sort of a different slant on things. I am also certain that you all in your deliberations will, when looking at this cadre of folks, will be able to pick a person. I've heard things that sound interesting. And I think that's a very important aspect to have, that people are bringing themselves to this. And I also bring myself to this. Thank you. Thank you. Katie Lesdowski. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. I'm Katie and I use she, her pronouns. As we share our responses tonight to the eight questions, I know you're listening for our qualifications, our accolades and the experiences that we bring to the table. In addition, I encourage you to listen for the ideas that we share.  We're at an opportune time as a district. What U Penns professor Nancy Hornberger from the field of educational policy and practice calls an implementational space. This is a time when we can remember, reevaluate, reset who we are as a district and as a town. After all, so many of us have been drawn to this town because of its schools. I imagine we want to reclaim the strong school reputation that so many work towards on a daily basis. I'm led to think of Whippy Goldberg in the 1992 film Sister Act. With small shifts in her approach to traditional music, she creates a different world for parishioners and recruits outsiders to participate in church life. Imagine if through small changes, we might better our school committee culture so that outsiders come in, new voices join the choir and that we can more effectively demonstrate and model what a system dedicated to social justice and multiculturalism could look like. Thank you. Amy Cronin DiCaprio. Can everyone hear me? We can. Okay, great. Thank you. So thank you to the members of the town council, to the Amherst school committee and to the public who took the time to be here today. My name is Amy Cronin DiCaprio. I use she her pronouns and I have lived in the Amherst area since 1999. I have two kids in the Amherst schools and I hold master's degrees in public policy and public health. I have over 20 years of experience working in youth violence prevention, youth substance use prevention, LGBTQ plus youth mental health advocacy, sexual assault and domestic violence education, coalition building and program management and evaluation. I am currently the coordinator for the Spiffy coalition. Spiffy stands for the strategic planning initiative for families and youth and that's run through the collaborative for educational services. In my role there, I oversee the Hampshire County regional school health task force connecting stakeholders and facilitating discussions around school based initiatives and best practices and other emerging issues that schools are facing around health. As the coordinator for Spiffy, which is a coalition with over 80 diverse community partners, I understand the challenge and the value of inclusive and goal oriented collaboration. Much of my work there is balancing passion with pragmatism and navigating and reframing conflicts between coalition members as opportunities rather than obstacles. I am interested in serving for several reasons. As a queer person and as a parent, I have been deeply involved in the process to understand and hold accountable an administration that allowed vulnerable students to be harmed. I think that now more than ever the Amherst School Committee needs to explicitly commit to inclusive representation from the queer community and that diversity of perspective is essential for official bodies to foster trust and inclusion in the communities that they serve. And finally, I'm also interested in serving because my children are watching. Although over the last six months, they have spent more evenings alone making themselves macaroni and cheese than I would care to admit. Well, I attended nearly every single school committee meeting since March to deliver, to craft and deliver public comments and to bear witness to the calls for accountability. They have seen me stand up for what I believe in and really walk the walk. They have listened to me explain why the issues that are facing the district and the school committee are so critical and they've watched me model my values of stepping up and putting myself out there when it matters. So I too am delighted to see so many qualified candidates stepping forward and I hope that you will consider me. Thank you. Thank you. Hugh Freel. Good evening. In my written statement, I had mentioned my 45 years of living as a town resident, my six years of town meeting experience in my high school and middle school teaching experience and my doctoral degree in education. I neglected to include my many years of administrative experience as a manager, a director and deputy CIO at the university. These positions provided me a wide range of experience in dealing with personnel, budget and institutional wide decisions. I believe I listened respectfully, evaluated the input and decided with others the direction that the university would move on information technology issues. If selected to serve on the school committee, I would do my best to assist the town, the school committee and the town council in these difficult times. Thank you. Thank you. We're just going to pause for a moment. Well, Athena brings one of our counselors back in. Got it. Dorothy, can you hear us? Yes, I can. I just missed a little bit when Mike, that first computer died. Thank you. Gabriella Weaver. Thank you to members of the town council and the school committee and all the members of the public who are here tonight. I've mentioned my qualifications and my reasons for applying in my letter. I'm going to take this time to share why I'm interested in this. I believe that K through 12 education is a good that benefits our entire society and our local system is an undertaking that touches everyone in the community in some way. So that means there are many stakeholders from the students themselves to parents, teachers, staff members, administrators at multiple levels and members of the community who live near or otherwise affected by activities of the schools. Each of these stakeholders brings a different lens to their assessment of what the schools need and how they're performing. But I believe that the vast majority of people who are thinking about our schools would agree that the guiding North Star for a school system is to ensure that each learner is provided with the best possible opportunity to thrive and contribute to society upon graduation. Perhaps different people would word it differently, but I believe that the core of that goal would be the same for most if not all people who think about our schools. If I were to be selected as an interim member of the school committee, my efforts would be in helping the diverse the diversity of stakeholders to move in unison in the direction of that North Star. If we can keep that priority front and center, it can help us make challenging challenging decisions that will no doubt come before the committee. Thank you. That concludes the opening statements. We're going to move on to question one. Question one specifically states the school committee is expected to collaborate with and hold the superintendent accountable at the same time. How would you approach this dual role to achieve the best outcomes for students? And we begin this with Kerry Spitzer. Good evening. So in my experience working on school committee, it takes time to build a working relationship with a superintendent just as it does with anyone. And I think it's hard to kind of take on that role as essentially the superintendent's supervisor, but the school committee is responsible for both hiring and negotiating a contract with the superintendent. I think it's essential that there be ideally mutual respect that's built through regular communication with the superintendent. Frequently asking questions, you know, demanding answers when possible, but understanding that frequently there are constraints on what the superintendent can share with regards to certain issues. So I would just really emphasize the importance of regular communication and respect. Thank you. Let's take the question down so the audience can see everyone. Andy Churchill. From my experience and from some of the research that I've read, I see the role of the school committee as sort of a translator or a bridge between the community and the schools. So and it's two ways from the community to the schools and from the schools to the community. Each has a role to play similar to a nonprofit governance. You hire the executive for his professional expertise and then the board provides them with as much community context as possible so that that expertise can meet the interests and needs of the community. I tend to believe in supportive accountability, trying to support the administration to understand and meet the expectations of the community. I've served with folks in the past who believed in more of a beatings will continue until morale improves. And I just don't think that is effective in dealing with human nature and actually accomplishing change. So supportive accountability is where I would focus. Gabriella Weaver. Much of my work involves collaboration on complex or long term projects. And in these projects, there is usually a person or sometimes a group of people whose role it is to evaluate the work. But that evaluation is for use by the project leaders as much as it is something that is used for accountability to a funding agency. Now I've served as both the project evaluator and project leaders. So I've seen it from both sides. And I understand that this fine balance can be something of something that we can call a critical friend, both helping leaders achieve success and helping them see where they're falling short and need to adjust course. So I believe the best way to do this is to collaborate with the superintendent on setting goals, but also on determining the metrics that will know if we're moving toward or have achieved those goals. Thank you, Bridget Hines. I agree. I see these roles as complementary. It seems to me that active collaboration is developed in alignment with the supervision and oversight. It has to include measurable steps for accountability, especially at the current moment. The school committee sets the goals for the superintendent and for fairness and transparency. I think there should be real outcome matrix for the agreed to goals between the superintendent and the committee. And then the superintendent reports to the school committee each time and they should be asked to report on the progress in each goal area. I see goals related to the budget crisis, building infrastructure, disparities in academic outcomes, and most vitally repairing the public trust by protecting students from all backgrounds from bullying and harm. In short, I see these as the mountains we need to climb. School committee identifies the hills and then the superintendent brings their expertise and organizational leadership to the client. Then hopefully all together you're trying to make some progress up the mountain. Thank you. Roger Wallace. Clear goals that have verifiable and measurable results. One of the things that we ask of students and it should be one of the things that we asked of our superintendent. So together, the superintendent and the school committee should, based on their acquiring trust for each other, and that takes time. I understand that. Agree on what success might look like before the actual work on that goal begins. In example, you want to hire more people of color, for instance, then at the end of the year, count them and then say, how many of them are going to stay? That becomes important. It's measurable. If you want to, at the same time, improve a test score in math computation, look at the scores afterwards. That will tell you a great deal. So measurable and verifiable conclusions. That's what you're going to look at.  Thank you. Hugh Freel. I think the most important for a member of the school committee is to understand the complexity of the job of the superintendent of the school district with the diversity of students and parents that we have here in Amherst. At the same time as recognizing the difficulties of the job, you must provide feedback and critique on his or her decisions and performance. I think this is somewhat familiar to the many performance evaluations I've done over the years that involve providing assistance to my staff in performing their duties, as well as evaluating their performance for salary increases and promotions. Thank you. Laura Jane Hunter. The way that I understand this question is about the relationship between a supervisor and a supervisor. And to me, collaboration, trust, and accountability is fundamental. Accountability does not mean that there's a problem. It means that there are clear expectations and open communication. I am a big believer in 360 evaluations, which allows for everyone to weigh in on how the supervisor is doing. In this context, administrators, educators, families, and students should all be included in assessing performance. The school committee can ask lots of questions and really listen to the answers. And that is one way to rebuild the trust that has been damaged. Thank you. Hady Listowski. Thank you. I would approach the dual role in a supportive manner as well, in collaboration with the regional school committee members and the interim superintendent himself. I would help develop the goals and priorities by centering the district's mission statement in that process. Additionally, I would regularly invite students, educators, and principals to come and present at meetings. Voices from the schools help to better understand how the superintendent's leadership and the district's mission are manifesting throughout the schools. Last spring when Fort River 5th graders were participating in Mr. Austin's Civic Literacy Unit about the treatment of refugees, I was blown away. I organized with Mr. Austin so that students presented to the Amherst School Committee and shed light on this amazing curriculum. Finally, to help support the superintendent's performance, I would suggest additional check-ins happen throughout the year to ensure that the superintendent is meeting the benchmarks before he's evaluated in the spring. Thanks. Thank you. Vince O'Connor. So I think that collaboration and accountability are impossible to achieve without timely and accurate information. In hearing presentations of the school budget appearing before the school committees on multiple occasions in the past, I do not find that there is a problem in terms of academic performance, budgetary numbers, and other important issues. The problem we have confronted here and the reason we are all here is because there is not an effective process for the superintendent to find out what is going on in each of the school buildings and to communicate that to either the actions taken to deal with those problems or the inaction. Without that, we are going to have a replication of the problem we have now. Thank you. Richard Rosnoy. Like Angie, I conceptualized the entire school system much like a nonprofit corporation. The superintendent is like the CEO of the corporation. They have to make sure that it functions smoothly, that everything is happening as it should, but the school board has to work with the superintendent to make sure that happens. The school board needs to be supportive at a certain point and provide as much support as the superintendent needs in order to get the job done, but it also needs accountability. The superintendent reports back to the school board and if there are some issues that need to be addressed, the school board needs to identify those. Hopefully, there is enough communication so that the superintendent is keeping the school board informed and the school board asks the right question as necessary. Thank you. Amy Cronin DiCaprio. Thanks. In my experience, collaboration, communication, and operating in good faith have been essential qualities in every relationship where I have held a supervisory role. So, yes, collaboration and holding someone accountable is a dual role, but those two things are definitely not at odds. There's plenty of research to show that school districts that have a positive relationship between the superintendent and the school committee are districts that have better student outcomes. I think everyone having clarity of roles and responsibilities is a crucial first step. In my opinion, a good superintendent is one who will meaningfully engage with the school committee and not just use them as a rubber stamp of approval. As the interim school committee members will have a role to play in establishing the search for a new superintendent, I would advocate for prioritizing superintendent candidates who are committed to that level of meaningful engagement. I'll stop there. Thank you. Going on to the next question. We're one fourth of the way. Well, we're getting to one fourth of the way through. Tell us about an experience you have had collaborating with a group, particularly where opinions were in conflict or the decision was controversial. And we begin this question with Bridget Heinz. Hey there. So I was contracted by a board of directors to do a 360 review on a regional nonprofit that had grown from one founder to much larger staff and staff were feeling disgruntled. Community members had taken side. Workplace satisfaction was abysmal. As I entered into the scene, I did one-on-one interviews, held focus groups with all stakeholders, and then as I listened to the data, I was able to identify some core issues, pragmatic, communicative, identity-based, and brought the board and the stakeholders together using some conflict de-escalation and transformation techniques to create real outcome-based plans, like real specific plans to move forward. And as that happened, as we went forward with those plans, six months later, the satisfaction scores, the situation in the agency had result, and now several years later, several of the same leaders are still in place. So I'm really proud of the work that I did with that organization. Thank you. Vince O'Connor. Well, I would say the one issue that I could bring up was my efforts, along with other residents of North Amherst, to persuade the town meeting to buy the Cherry Hill property. It took us over a year. It involved a large number of people. It involved working with everyone in town government, every committee that had it involved making sure that we had a consistent message, that we talked to people in terms that they could appreciate the value of what we were closing to do. And our effort was successful because we identified the fact that this would be a proper investment for the town, not an expenditure. And because we sold it on that...  We were successful. Amy Cronin DiCaprio. Sorry, I was having trouble unmuting. I'm sorry. So as the Coalition Coordinator for Spiffy, folks... I'm not sure if folks know what we do, but we do research, advocacy, and data-driven prevention with a health equity lens to help improve health outcomes for youth with a focus on youth substance use prevention. So Coalition Work is all about collaboration. Not everyone is going to be coming to prevention work with the same lens or even with the same priorities. So recently, one of our steering committee members wanted to host a youth substance use prevention event, and they wanted us to cosponsor it. The problem was that the event did not line up with our values of positive youth development and youth empowerment. So ultimately, we said that we would help them promote the event, but we didn't want our name on it as a cosponsor, and this caused some hard feelings. And I think what saved that relationship is we were able to point back to our stated mission and our values and continue working towards opportunities that were aligned for both of our missions. Thank you. Gabriella Weaver. So the project groups that I work in are almost always composed of people with different backgrounds and skills, because we believe that's what is needed for the best possible outcomes. But that always means that we're going to have to deal with disagreements. And one experience that comes to mind is when I was part of a team that was designing and running Summer Institute for Middle and High School teachers from rural schools. Some of us had a science background, and others were faculty members in the College of Education. We had disagreements about how we would approach the act of carrying out research about the program while also running the program. We had different cultures about how to do this from our different fields of study. The key, though, was communication. We talked about what the disagreements were about, and then we ended up resolving them by outlining a set of practices and defining when those practices would apply. Talking through what our overall goals and expectations were was particularly helpful in reaching that outcome. Great. Thank you. Carrie Spitzer. Thank you. So the time I'd like to talk about occurred just after the vote in the town of Amherst for the first school building project. It was a failed vote. Many people remember it was a highly polarized time in town. And I volunteered to serve on the enrollment working group, and this was prior to me serving on school committee. It was a highly productive group of people in town. We came together, formed four subgroups, and were able to really tackle some difficult issues. And I think the reason the enrollment working group was so successful was because we were focused on goals, our shared concern for the schools, and also we're bringing to bear data in a structured manner. And we had the ability also to listen to one another and compromise when needed. Thank you. Richard Rosnoy. Thank you. I'd have to refer back to my nine years on planning board, nine turbulent years, when we had a number of controversial issues come before us. And somehow all of us on planning board were able to function comfortably, collaboratively, and respect each other. There were a number of times I recall when I just had to say, I understand what you're saying, but I particularly see that particular issue a different way. Nevertheless, go ahead and vote as you do, and I'll vote as I do, and that's how it will work out. We also of course had to listen to a number of citizens at various times on various projects and provide them with the respect of listening, as we did, I hope, and let them know that their voices were heard. Thank you. Thank you. Hugh Phil. My experience, one I remember well, in the early 1990s, I got involved with the state's IT division. The state was given 12 strands of fiber as a deal with Ninex if they allowed them to string fiber from Albany to Boston along the mass term pipe. So that project began something called the Massachusetts Information Term Pike Initiative. I coordinated the project to connect the five campuses over those fiber strands to enhance UMS internet access, as well as the beginning of the distance learning initiative. The state provided us $5 million for the project, and from there we also connected 20 of the 28 community and state colleges and provided them internet access. As you would expect with five UMS IT directors and 20 state and community college IT directors, there were conflicts and controversy.  Katie Listowski. For over a decade, I served on the Regional School Committee's subgroup, formerly known as the School Equity Task Force. Many years back we developed a policy and presented it to the policy subcommittee. And policy CJ was passed in 2014, which gives students, educators, parents, and guardians the autonomy to explore school climate through participatory action research and other qualitative methods that prioritize people's voices and experiences. It was highly controversial as people often feel quantitative data sources are most trustworthy. So for over 12 months, policy subcommittee members and I and my colleagues worked tirelessly to wordsmith the policy until all parties were satisfied, and the policy's language still reflected its original intent. The policy exists today, of course, and if elected, I would work with the public to systematically examine issues that jeopardize, jeopardizes the district's ability to uphold its mission and share the findings so that school committee members can make informed decision and provide a solution. Thank you. Roger Wallace. In 2007, I got the opportunity at the request of the superintendent to write a social justice commitment overview. He said you can pick whomever you want, and I did. I gave by working staff, the working group of teachers and counselors from elementary school, one administrator, and we attacked this, this particular issue. The article I gave them, they didn't understand. It's five talented and probably because it was written by an Australian, no, nothing against Australian. It was different. We sat down together, and what happened was someone else in the group could explain it better than I could, and somehow translated it. And then from that moment on, we were able to create a curriculum that they, the collaboration was fun in that I started out with five and before, and the staff got to read it and more and more staff glommed onto it. So my key was if someone can explain something better than I do, and I'm collaborating with them, let them do it. Thank you. Laura Jane Hunter. This question brought. I'm sorry. Laura Jane, you seem to have frozen. We're not going to start the clock in you. Are you back with us? I'm here. Can you hear me? Okay. Now we can hear you. Thank you. Sorry about that. Let's begin. So this question brought me back more than 20 years ago when I was working in Boston. I was assigned to work on a committee with about nine. We're going to pause for Laura Jane and come back and hopefully her internet will get stabilized. We're going to go on to Andy Churchill. Laura Jane, we're going to come back to you. Okay. Andy Churchill. Okay. I'm going to try to squeeze two in here. So one was from my previous school committee experience. I had the fortune of serving during the decision on whether to close Mark's Meadow, which had been my kid's elementary school. And it was basically ultimately came down to a choice to either close the school and save administrative costs, or we'd otherwise end up slashing arts and music programs across the district. So in the end, I had to keep the systemic viewpoint and do what was best for the district. And ultimately, the principal of the school told me that the app had been the right decision. The other example would be the Charter Commission, which I chaired, the elected Charter Commission. There were nine elected members, very divergent viewpoints. And I think we ultimately built trust, if not total agreement, as everyone felt heard and their ideas were valued. We ended up coming up with a proposal where committee members saw their input in the final product and ultimately was supported by a substantial majority of voters. So this is a question about process, but the goal is good outcomes. If you do the process well enough to get a decent outcome, you've done well. Thank you. Largene, Jane, excuse me, one of the things you might have to do is actually not show your live picture. It just gives you more stability. But let's try it out again. Okay. Okay, we'll try it. I apologize. Again, computers. So about 20 years ago, I was on a committee with nine other people to do outreach to young families. And one of the people on the committee was an older gentleman with whom I had crossed paths occasionally, but we had never worked on a committee together. He had a lot of experience. He had a lot of ideas, and they were quite different than mine. We found that we really disagreed on some really substantive elements, but we understood that our intentions as we came together to work on this project were really positive, like we were really trying to do good together, even though it was different. And we began to trust each other. We began to understand each other. It was a great learning opportunity for me. And I think the final project was so much more robust in some ways because of our differences. Thank you. Thank you. We're going on to question three. And all I want to say is if at any point, I have inadvertently skipped somebody, just speak up, okay? That's I'm trying to use the scramble method. All right, please share how you have responded to criticism in the past. And we're going to start with Roger Wallace. Every two, every other Friday in my classroom were the last 25 or so years of my teaching career. I would sit in the center of the circle. The kids would either sit on the floor or in chairs around me. And they got to tell what did Mr. Wallace do right? And what did he screw up? Some of the most painful times of my life was when a student would identify what I did wrong. The key thing for me was to listen. When I am criticized, it's hard. The first thing I do is I put my stuff away. And I listen to what the criticism is. No, one student did happen to say he didn't like a particular tie I wore with a shirt. I threw that out because he wore mismatched socks. But the key thing was, if it's at all relevant, I'm going to listen, burst, and react later. That's how I handle criticism. Thank you. Katie Lesdowski. Thank you. The last time that there was a school committee vacancy to fill was in 2020. And I was one of the applicants in a process very similar to this one. And leading up to that meeting, members of the public wrote and submitted letters about candidates. After the meeting through public request or request of public records, I was able to see the letters that were written about me. And the majority were of a positive nature written by people who had worked with me and who knew firsthand my attributes. But some of the letters were beyond harsh written by people I had never encountered or who even knew my character. I chose not to go public with the criticism because it was not meaningful to me. And I'm here today as a testament to my ability to just to look beyond that criticism and focus on the important work that we have to do. Thank you. Thank you. Gabriella Weaver. I've been a university chemistry faculty member for 29 years. The criticism is built into my job description. You probably all know that at the end of each semester, students are requested to fill out surveys. These are often referred to as teaching evaluations. The survey responses shed light on the experiences that the students had and their interpretation of what the teacher put them through. They can be both uplifting and painful to read. Unfortunately, we remember the painful comments much, much longer. But even after so many years of teaching, I still put a great deal of effort into making each class the best possible learning experience that I can for my students. So criticism of those efforts reading when my intentions didn't succeed or were misunderstood is difficult. But it's necessary. Each semester, I reflect on the information and I look at ways to adjust my teaching. And knowing how to separate the unappeasable critiques from those that I can do something with is also an important lesson. Laura Jane Hunter. I think criticism is feedback. I think it's natural to feel defensive when you feel like you're being attacked. But the thing that matters is how you handle that feeling. I think it's an opportunity. You can reconsider your perspective. Being criticized does not make me back away. It makes me want to engage. I don't experience disagreement as a threat. I experience it as again, an opportunity for growth and better understanding. And I strongly believe that being willing to collaborate with all members of the community with a wide range of viewpoints is an essential part of being elected representative. Thank you. Hugh Freel. Back to my response to question number two. I just want to go back to the experience. And as you would expect, I was pretty much criticized in this role because there were a lot of stakeholders, 20 state and community colleges and five campuses. So I believe I responded in a non-defensive way that allowed for dialogue and a much better understanding of the conflicting campus points of view. I believe this approach provides the best results. Thank you. Bridget Heinz. Hi there. So I direct a six-week summer program for high schoolers and in the process they live on campus. I solve conflicts daily and I take a touch of heat on the way. In those situations, I start out trying to seek to understand. I consider my own personality and my own positionality. In the workplace, sometimes I have an egosnest perspective and the view on the ground can look really different. And someone else's view could be as accurate as my own. So when I muck it up, despite my always good intent, I try to own any harm I've caused, apologize meaningfully, and make a plan to repair it. And I think we're all applying to be public servants. So as public servants, criticism is informative. I would just take my time on school committee to listen from the heart and accept criticism as a different point of view as my own and work to integrate it well into decision making. Thank you. Carrie Spitzer. Thank you. So I worked for about four years in New York City government in the Independent Budget Office. And as an analyst there, I worked on issues around criminal justice and housing related issues. I often presented an analysis that challenged the mayor's administration presentation of the facts, or it didn't go far enough for advocates. And I hear about it. We said then that if folks were not upset with us, we weren't doing our job. And this prepared me well for public service in the town of Amherst. After two terms, I've become quite comfortable receiving criticism, particularly during the really challenging time of the pandemic. I think it's essential to really listen. Or in many cases, it was about reading comments from folks. And often I would then have time to revise my views with either new data or information. And I'd often apologize. And sometimes I would also hold course and continue with the behavior or the policy that I believed was right. Thank you. Andy Churchill. Regarding criticism, I'm not sure I have to tell you anything about this so you don't already know. But having served in several very public elected roles, I've learned that you need to develop a thick skin. You need to not take things super personally and a sense of humor helps.  And I found that it's been harder on family members than on me. But the bottom line is that I don't dismiss ideas that are different from mine, even if they come in kind of hot. You never know what will make you think about a situation a different way. So come to the territory. Richard Rosnoy. Yes, you certainly need a thick skin. I see this question as the flip side of number two. And I refer back to another experience on Planning Board when we had the infamous chickens in the backyard amendment. I don't know if you remember that one. I seem to have been the only person on the Planning Board who was not in favor of it. I think eventually maybe one other person also voted the same way I did. But in the process of the public hearings, one person who was advocating for it from the public set up a camera right here in this room and filmed all of my comments, just my comments, and put them on a separate website to supposedly demonstrate how foolish my comments were. Of course, it really got under me, but I just had to sort of laugh and take it in stride. Thank you. Amy Cron de Caprio. So I am a writer, and I can tell you that no one lasts very long as a writer if they can't handle criticism. And I've learned that lots of times that critique is coming from a place of genuinely wanting to see improvement, and usually not from a place of someone wanting to hurt my feelings. And I'm someone who if I'm going to do something, I want to do it really well. And everything that I have ever come to do well has required listening and humility and growth. And if as a member of a public body, I'm being criticized because someone doesn't think I'm doing my job or acting in the best interest of the district, I would want to hear that out and adjust course or make amends if that's warranted. And if I'm being criticized because someone doesn't like me, then that's not worth my attention. I have a 13 year old. If I fell apart every time I was criticized or my buttons were pushed, I would have disintegrated a long time ago. But whatever form criticism might take towards me, the bottom line is that I would be appointed to serve my term and not until I get criticized. Vince O'Connor I've served in town meeting over 40 years. I was a sponsor of a number of articles, a large number, and participated with others in presenting articles and formulating articles for town meeting. I learned two things. Don't be too demonstrative of your happiness and satisfaction when you're successful and listen to the people who have spoken against your proposals if they're defeated. If you want to bring them back, the only way to bring them back successfully is to have learned from the comments of people who did not like the first iteration. Thank you. Going on to question four, what role can you play to help ensure the school committee's practices, processes, and decisions are equitable, anti-racist, and affirming to people of diverse gender identities and ethnic backgrounds? We're going to begin the responses with Hugh Freel. I grew up in Brooklyn, New York in the 50s and 60s, where I became very aware of racism against all people of color, anti-Semitism, sexism, classism, homophobia, etc. I also saw a lot in my, I worked as a social worker in Brooklyn in Bethesdivis and in Coley Island over a year. I had 60 cases of AIDS that depended children. So my approach would be to respectfully, I also taught high school in Brooklyn for two years. So my approach would be to respectfully listening to all opinions, evaluating the pros and cons of the issues and making decisions that are in line with the school committee's commitment to inclusion of everyone. Thank you. Katie Lesdowski. Lesdowski, I'm sorry. Great. I have studied extensively the role of intersectionality in education policy and practice, taught about it in courses at UMass's College of Education, and observed teacher candidates' practices of inclusivity using intersectionality as a lens. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, it's just a fancy word that basically states our identity markers are not siloed, but rather one identity marker intersects with the others. Noteworthy though is that certain elements of our identity are often assigned to us based on how we look or based on how we present to others, rather than having the privilege to name and claim identity markers as our own. I can ensure that the school committee's practices, processes, and decisions are framed in a way that best support the intersection of people's identities and therefore will more likely be supported by community members because I hold this lens. Thank you. Ben Sokoner. I'd like to return to question one, because whatever the good intentions the school committee or its individual members have, unless we have accurate, timely reporting about claims, the kind of claims that were made that led to this situation that have all of us here, unless we have that kind of reporting from the superintendent and the superintendent has developed a process to learn not only what the problems are, but how his subordinates have addressed those problems or failed to address them. All of the good will and the good work we do at the school committee will fail if we do not have that information and get that kind of feedback and develop a process to make sure the school committee can hear it and act on it.  Thank you. Gabrielle Weaver. I've worked actively over the last several years to educate myself about inclusion, equity, anti-racism, implicit bias, and unacknowledged privilege through reading, attending webinars, and workshops, and making use of the resources available through UMass. At UMass, in my assistant dean role, I've authored a weekly tip sheet for faculty on equitable and inclusive teaching. I'm also currently serving on a committee of the National Academy of Sciences to develop a report and set of recommendations on equitable teaching in higher education. And in that committee, we have to directly address the issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in our higher education system. I will work to ensure that diverse voices and input will be included in our decision-making processes and in our considerations. In addition, I'm an immigrant from South America, so I can bring that particular lens to the conversation about diversity, though I know it's just one lens. I'm also a woman in science, which is another form of being a minority. Thank you. Bridgette Hind. Thank you. So equitable, anti-racist, and gender-inclusive work has several key aspects at its core, individual, cultural, structural. I like to start in the biggest sphere of influence on myself. So as a cisgender white woman of Irish descent, a historical power-holding group for some part of mass history, there's individual work I have to do. I slow down, reflect into spaces of power with cultural humility and awareness of the privileges I hold, and I try to use my role to affirm and uplift the strengths of those people are different from myself, racially, culturally, economically, with the gender identities they bring. And on the school committee, I can see many places that power could be shared more inclusively. I think fairness and transparency in the processes, speaking up when other marginalized folks aren't done, and having some spaces and retreat where people come together and build the norms and practices of behavior collectively with transparency would be very helpful there. Thank you. Richard Rosnoy. As a privileged white male, I have to be careful to make sure that I lead my life in a way that is sensitive to and addresses the concerns of all of these categories identified in this particular question. I believe it's important in how I lead my life and everything that I do. And as a member of the school committee, it would certainly be a way to reinforce all of the services and programs and policies that support the needs of all of these people in this question as identified. Harry Spitzer. Thank you. So in my position as a school committee member, I've tried to be an ally. I'm sure that it's often, as a cisgender white woman, it's not up to me to decide whether or not I'm an ally. It's for those within the communities that I'm working with. I believe that one of the skills I bring is data analysis. And I've used this to publish about racial disparities and access to healthcare, housing, criminal justice settings. As a school committee member, it's essential to listen, but also then use your position of power to help bring up other voices. And I would try to do that as a member of the school committee once again. Andy Churchill. As a white middle class cisgendered federal male, I recognize my privilege and that I can't claim a lived experience of some others. But I can say to the extent that that privilege gives me an opportunity that I will use it to continually ask in our processes who's being heard and who's not and who's bearing the brunt of the decisions we make. Fundamentally, I think we should all be asking are our practices, our processes, and our decisions fair and would they be perceived as fair from all perspectives? Roger Wallace. Three things. I have been a parent and a grandparent, which is sort of cool, of students in this school system. I've been a teacher. I have worked in administration of summer programs. So I have a three tiered approach. And one of the key things that I think is important is that as we, many people said, you've got to listen. And then you have to already have the sensibility to have a perhaps a way of addressing it. I don't always do that. I don't always have a way. But I know who to ask if I don't. So the key thing for me is to listen. Remember, my own experience is because of my kids and grandkids. And then to seek help if I need it. Or because I have the power to bring whatever I need to bear into that situation to rectify it. Laura Jane Hunter. The United States is founded on racism. It's founded on a history of colonialism, of enslavement, of people, of genocide. To look at any public policies and procedures and look at them without the lens of institutional racism is a failure. A lot of us have talked about our own identities and how we bring those identities into spaces. And I think it's absolutely critical for us to interrogate our own identities, my whiteness, my cisgender privilege. But I also think that we must interrogate policies from this hegemonic whiteness and really bring in people who are impacted by these policies. We have to be more fundamentally diverse if we're ever going to overturn white supremacy. Amy Cronin DiCaprio. So when I worked at Safe Passage, I ran the community workshops on preventing interpersonal violence. One of the modules of this violence prevention training that I taught was focused on identity-based violence. So in each cohort of this training, participants reflected on their own constellation of identities, so areas where they held privilege and areas where they were more oppressed. So as a cisgender white woman, I hold enormous privilege.  And so in these workshops, this was a really useful approach to sort of break down what people often think of as a dichotomy between privileged and oppressed. Part of this training involved scenarios and role playing, which people hate, I think, universally. But once people really engaged in those and had an opportunity to really try and operationalize anti-racism and anti-oppression and dialogue, that really helped people build a collective understanding or a deeper understanding. Thank you. We're now halfway through. So I'm going to just say we're going to take two minutes to sit back and breathe. Okay. Stretch.  Oh, okay. Water. Don't go away. Okay. As you return, please turn your video on so I can see that you are back, because I really don't want to go through roll call again. Shalini, you're back. Pam Rooney, are you back? Kathy, are you back? That's on our way. Anna's on our way. Anika, you're back. Okay. Jennifer, you're back. Kathy, thank you. Okay. Alisha, are you back? Yes, I am. Thank you, Lynn. And Michelle Miller? I'm here, yes. Thank you. Okay. Tina, ready to go? The school and the town have stated commitments to end structural racism and achieve equity for all students. What role can you play to uphold these commitments? And we begin with Amy thrown into capital. So I am a public health professional. And I believe that meaningful public health prevention requires an approach that is trauma informed and responsive to intersectional identities. And in many roles, I have demonstrated leadership in these areas as an educator in public health, as a facilitator, as a colleague and as a supervisor. And one thing I want to say, I love a metaphor. I think that it can really help to contextualize things that are abstract concepts or things that have become like almost buzzwords, like diversity, equity and inclusion. And so the metaphor that I like to use to talk about that is so if diversity is like where everyone is invited to a party, inclusion means that everybody gets to contribute to the playlist at the party. And equity means that everyone has the opportunity to dance and experience the music there and that people aren't tokenized. And I imagine. Thank you. Vins O'Connor. We've gone here, Lynn. Thank you. The school committee in the town have many wonderful statements about all the issues that impinge on effective education. The problem is that, for example, and in the forums that the school committees have conducted over the decades, the attendance is really almost entirely wiped. I have been the person who talked about this at those meetings and wondered how legitimate the process was if the schools in the many decades that I've lived in this town have not yet figured out how to invite errants and guardians of color into the decision making process. And until that is done, we are going to continue to have problems. Thank you, Richard Rosner. Thank you. I would I would pick up on this from the end of, sorry, Andy, to be jumping on your answers again and using them. But from the end of Andy's prior answer, as a heterosexual white male of privilege, there ought to be a certain opportunity there to ensure that the policies and the commitments to end structural racism are in place and that the great majority of the student body, teachers, administration and everybody in town supports all of those for the minority of people who need them. This refers back to my opening statement when I was talking about the majority needing to make certain that the minority who needs the services receive them. Thank you. Katie Lesdowski. Thank you so much for including this question. If we are truly committed to achieve equity and dismantle racism, it's only until we talk about race and name racial inequities that we can implement anti-racist policy and practice. This is not my idea, but backed by researchers who examine the in-school spaces as well as the out-of-school spaces, such as school committee meetings, that can work to perpetuate or resist racial inequities. But let's dive deeper.  While it is people of color that experience daily the impact of structural racism, only when white people work to actively dismantle it will we end it. As a white person, I was raised to be colorblind. After all, seeing race was seen as racist. Times have changed and I have published articles and book chapters about talking about race and if elected, I will play this role and I will uphold the schools and town commitments. Thank you. Thank you. Bridget Hunt. Hi, so this is my day job in part. I work on leadership teams in schools and districts, developing explicitly anti-racist community-centered school-wide plans and I work on research teams implementing practices based in equity and cultural humility. I just really like the chance to support that work here in my hometown. In Amherst, I feel like the academic opportunity gap is a pretty big deal. I noticed when my son was home during the pandemic, he'd be in some honors classes and they'd be predominantly white privileged kids and then in some non-honors classes and they would be the opposite. So I'd really like to see the school committee ask for a report and action plan to address those gaps. And then there's issues regarding school culture. The schools do some real meaningful work on discipline disparities and a restorative culture program. But we're living in a larger culture where white supremacist and anti-queer culture is normalized and I bring my lens of knowledge to each decision before the school committee I bring it with me to work on these issues. Thank you. Laura Jane Hunter. I'm really glad that you asked this question. We all know that institutional racism exists that policies and practices are developed with just a few voices. If I was appointed to position, I would seek out diverse representation, provide meaningful avenues for different viewpoints and actively seek out and listen to historically marginalized people. There is a lot written, as Katie said, about anti-racist work and we can apply those tools. We can use them, but we do have to name it. We need to hear from everyone in our community. It can't just be white people saying, hey, we really want to listen to you. We have to actually create those avenues in a meaningful way. This is something that I care about deeply in my everyday life. I'm always thinking about the impact of structural racism and I know that I could bring my viewpoint as a queer white person to talk about these intersectionalities. Roger Wallace. It is very difficult if you thought about the structure of this building. It's not the drywall. It's not the brick on the other side. It's whatever those things are attached to and there is where you find structural racism. It's not always clear. So what's my role? It's to drill holes in the drywall. It's to remove the stairs as they've done in the front. It's to drill holes in the brick in order to get to the heart of the matter. And the heart of the matter is no longer what you can legislate because the town has already done that. What you now have to do, what now has to be done in my role would be to call those things out as if the holes were big enough that I drilled on each side of the wall and then we call it like we see it and make those folks who are responsible for doing that action accountable. Hugh Freel. Basically, I would respectfully listen to other opinions, evaluate the pros and cons of the issue, and make decisions that are in line with the town and schools commitment to inclusion of everyone. I know I just recognize that everybody who's white male have identified themselves as white heterosexual males, but I also would like in my particular case, I'm the son of immigrant parents who had sixth grade educations as just a little twist on that. Anyhow, that's it. Thank you. Gabriella Weaver. So structural racism is built into the foundations of a system. I didn't know I was going to go after Roger's statement on that. I had already written it down, so we're of a mind here. And the idea is that when you have structural racism, it shows up in areas such as policies, procedures, expectations, organizational culture. A three month term as a committee member is probably not going to be enough to dismantle all of those. However, what I can contribute in the next few months is to help the school committee examine the challenges that our school system is facing and how it has stumbled in trying to achieve its commitments. And then use that analysis to create plans for addressing them. For example, the big decisions about hiring a superintendent and making budget decisions, they can be addressed using the analysis that we do of what our school system needs to achieve in order to make those decisions make sense within that framework. Andy Churchill. I chose to apply my public policy master's training in the area of education because it's a key arena for promoting equity. The training I did at the Department of Education familiarized me with key barriers to achievement for members of historically marginalized groups, including systemic oppression, stereotype threat, and microaggressions. I was also particularly struck by this course that I took with Zoretta Hammond, who talks about culturally responsive teaching and the brain. And she emphasizes the need for educators to be warm demanders, which means both having high expectations and supporting all students to meet those expectations. The bottom line for me is in my work I've seen some of the most encouraging progress on equity in schools where they focused on one, engaging instruction, two, appropriately challenging standards-based curriculum, three, tiered systems of support so each kid gets what they need, and then four, adult communities of practice. I would support that kind of work in the schools. Harry Spitzer. So for many of our most vulnerable kids, our schools have become places where they're not only receiving their education, but also their meals, dental care, and access to a lot of other services. And unfortunately, or just historically, our schools exist within a system that has been shaped by structural racism. For example, schools in our country are highly segregated due to historical practices such as redlining, and current zoning practices such as restrictive zoning. Amherst is no different. We are shaped by these forces and we need to work continuously to ensure that we are making progress towards our ideals. So to do this, I would do things like make sure our superintendent goals reflect these ideals, bring in diverse community voices, and do what we can to lower the barriers to participation. In some cases, maybe this could be providing things like child care or transportation, or creating multiple avenues to engagement, and develop programs such as coming on to ACE and restorative justice circles in our schools. Thank you. We are going to go on to question six, and I just want to check with Athena to make sure I didn't miss anybody. Okay, thank you. We are moving on to a new area called strengths of and areas for improvement in the Amherst public schools. What do you think is one strength and one area for improvement in Amherst Elementary and Amherst Pellum Regional Public Schools? We begin with Gabriella Weaver. Well, strength, perhaps the greatest strength in my own opinion, is the teachers. I've seen firsthand their dedication, their skill, and their caring, and I think we need to do everything possible to ensure that we can support them in doing their work. An area for improvement, and this is a challenge, is meeting the growing needs of students and families that with limited human and financial resources that the school system has, and that actually ties into the statement about strengths because if we're going to support our teachers, we're going to have to deal with that on the budget and human resources issue. Vince O'Connor? Well, I think the greatest strength are the people, students, faculty, and staff who enter those school buildings every day for great purposes. I think that the area of improvement that is required is living up to all the wonderful statements of who we are and would like to be. And in this particular instance, in three months, I feel I have a very strong commitment to using those three months to make sure that the situation of inadequate information being communicated to the school committee about problems in the schools that are not being solved has to be dealt with. Andy Churchill? I also want to tip my cap to our strong and caring educators. I think we've attracted, continue to attract wonderful teachers for our kids. As far as another strength, I think diversity is the strength. And it's the key reason many of us decided to raise our kids here, and not in some of the less diverse places nearby. Having seen my kids and others go through the pre-K system here, I've been very pleased, especially by the time they get to the high school, with the generally unremarkable nature of how kids both find their tribes and communicate across lines of difference. It's not perfect, but it's certainly been a good preparation for the diverse world out there that they're heading into. Diversity is also a challenge, more so among the adults than among the kids, I think. Diversity of viewpoints, how do we communicate across lines of difference and come to some shared vision of where we want to go together? Amy Cronin DiCaprio? So I have to say, I don't know that there's a bigger strength in Amherst than our students. I have been consistently impressed with students in Amherst, especially the student journalists at the high school this last year. And an area for improvement, SPIFI, where I work, implements a biannual survey called the Prevention Needs Assessment, or PNAS. It's a survey that's offered to all 8th, 10th and 12th graders in Hampshire County. It tracks substance misuse over time, as well as monitoring changes in risk and protective factors like mental health and social support in school climate. For the last two implementation cycles, Amherst was the only district in Hampshire County that declined to participate. And across the board in Hampshire County and elsewhere, mental health challenges and substance use are significantly higher among queer youth. I can't help wonder whether having surveillance data on how trans and non-binary youth were feeling at school could help avoid some of the harm that was done. Richard Rosnoy? I would agree that our terrific group of teachers are probably the greatest strength that our schools have. They must be tremendously dispirited by all that has happened recently, and we need to do all we can to rebuild that spirit and make it exciting for them to maintain their high level of educational quality in the classrooms. As for an area of improvement, clearly communication needs improvement between and among the school board and school committee and the upper administration and the intermediate administration. I'm not exactly sure of what has already occurred with the interim superintendent, and perhaps I suspect that a lot of efforts are being made as we speak toward that end, but it certainly needs to continue and needs to be institutionalized. Hugh Freil? I believe the strength of the school is its ability to work with the families and children from so many different cultures, and I also, I guess, agree with the other candidates that what needs to be improved is the school's commitment to providing clear support for all students. Thank you. Roger Wallace? The greatest strength of this school system, I would have to agree with many of the folks here, the teachers, but not only the teachers, but the Paris, the custodians, the bus drivers, the people working in the kitchen, they are really putting forth an effort that I've actually got to witness, and I'm very proud of the efforts that each one of those groups put out collectively, and I don't want to leave out administrators either because they tireless. One of the areas that I think need some improvement are some of the issues around discipline, particularly discipline of students of color. It is well documented. I actually got to see some statistics, and it's something that we have to address, and as a member of the school committee, I do have some ideas. Thank you. Bridget Heinz? So I guess no surprise, but I'm in many schools, and the strength of our staff and faculty stands out, most specifically the integration of the strong academic standards and best practices, but together with experiential and hands-on learning that brings topics to life. My son's a 12th grader and a naturalist in an environment, and he's been in the gardens, the forests, they've linked math analysis to climate change data. He gets to participate in the student paper, the theater department, engineering just on and on. There's so many opportunities that make it a great place to learn, but the schools aren't a fabulous place to learn for everyone, so we've got to really do some work. We've got to shrink the opportunity gaps and disparities between the groups of students. That's the biggest challenge. In progress on that will improve the student experience for everyone, as well as those sort of district-wide performance status that, despite their weaknesses, draw a lot of families to school districts, so it's a win-win. Thank you. Carrie Spitzer? Thanks. So as a parent and as a Amherst alum, I would agree with everybody in the room who's mentioned the great people who we have in our schools, the educators and also the staff and the leaders of the schools. I think it's really a testament to Amherst that I think you can receive a really well-rounded education. We have arts, music, along with academically rigorous classes. In addition, I think it's essential that we don't lose sight of supporting all of our students, and I think as recent history has shown, we clearly need to make sure that we have avenues for communication to really ensure that anybody who's not experiencing a successful experience in the schools gets support and we can do more to improve that communication. Laura Jane Hunter? I mean, I can't not say the educators because everyone said that, but I'm also going to say I agree. It's the diversity of this community. I was so thrilled when my kids started at Wildwood and I think it was something like 36 languages were spoken in at Wildwood. I mean, we have an enormous socioeconomic diversity. We have a country of origin diversity. Of course, we have racial, ethnic, gender presentation, gender fluidity. All these things are diverse and I think those things are really critical and I think the breakdown of trust between the community and the town government has been, specifically the school committee, has been a major weakness and that's something that can easily be remedied with integrity, openness, transparency. Yeah, thanks. Katie Losdowski? As an educator myself, I have to say that it's the students because we are really here at the end of the day for the students and as good as a lesson plan can be in creating lesson plans myself. When you implement them, it's really how students take those up and respond that would make or break an educator's experience. I would say it's the students, but I think in terms of a weakness that we could address, I think we need to bring in the voices of our educators, of our students into decision-making processes so that they have more agencies, whether that be in their classroom or in the hallways or in school spaces. I had the privilege of working with ARPS students this past year as part of the restorative justice program and that was one item that they continually identified this trend of wanting more agency to have more say. So thank you. Thank you. Moving on to question seven and the preface for question seven actually is for both seven and eight. The school committee over the next three months will need to set up a search for a superintendent and begin the budget process. As you respond to the next two questions, please include relevant skills, knowledge and expertise you will bring to the school committee that will help the committee with these processes. So the first question is how will you help to ensure the superintendent search is set up to identify, recruit and hire a high quality candidate who understands the needs of our district? And we begin in this case with Vince O'Connor. If we do as we've done before and hire a firm and so forth, we may repeat the process that we've had for the last two, in my opinion, failed superintendents. What we need to do, given the circumstance that has us all here tonight, is to reach out to educators and political figures who have stood up against the Republican hate campaigns against people they deem to be vulnerable politically. And there are plenty of folks, qualified people in Texas and Florida and Nebraska and Montana, who will be more than happy to help us to find an appropriate candidate and or candidates for the superintendent's position. Doing the old thing, not going to work. Richard Rosnoy? In the two or three months that we as a temporary assignment with the school committee will have, it will be difficult to fully develop a process, but we can get the process started if it hasn't already begun. And I think it's important to identify the needs and what the opportunities are for a person of high quality to do this job. I suspect that there are some individuals around the state qualified in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as superintendents who serve in this position who may be watching what's happening here and saying, I have some ideas about what can happen. I have been involved with search procedures in a nonprofit corporation where we were looking for board members and an executive director. And I ran recycling offices in a couple of different places where I had to hire staff and had to do searches for the appropriate people. Thank you. Hugh Friel? I would evaluate the resumes, develop interview questions regarding their experience and their credentials and fully participate in the interview and selection process. Thank you. Amy Cronin DiCaprio? So when I was at Safe Passage, I was on several search committees. I sat on the leadership team there. And when we were hiring for people at the director level, other people who were going to be joining us in leadership team, our search committees included other leadership team members, but also included counselors, people, staff who worked in the shelter, volunteers, administrative staff, and really just a cross section of people from across the whole agency. And I think having a search committee that includes representation from as many diverse stakeholder groups as possible is really important. Also, I think that decision making processes should always strive to center the voices of people who will be the most impacted by the decision at hand. And that's why I would also advocate for including youth in that process. Andy Churchill? I think we need to recognize the challenges of recruiting a superintendent to a place like ARPS, which has three separate school committees, a lot of complexity and night meetings, and recent publicity that indicates this may be a hard place to work. So I think we'll need to think about what kind of a search is likely to yield good candidates. Do we think a national search is the way to go? Or should we look more locally or within Massachusetts to identify candidates who will come into the process with their eyes open? The search will continue beyond us, but we will start it off by determining who will do it. We will want to ensure that whoever does the search has the capacity to identify a diverse field of candidates who are likely to be successful in our unique environment. And I also should mention that I've helped hire two superintendents and two interims during my years in the school committee. Laura Jane Hunter? I've had extensive experience on search committees. I happen to love them. I love the process. I love the planning and I love the execution of them. I have served on multiple search committees at all levels, including I think I mentioned a successful search for the president of Hampshire College. I think the key elements of the search include a robust, unrushed timeline. I think that's critical. I think there's been a tendency in our community to rush things. I think we need to engage the correct search firm. I do believe we need to do a national search. I think we will definitely find people who are excited about working in Amherst. And the search committee must include diverse representation from educators, from parents, from guardians, and students are wonderful resource to have on search committees. I think we can learn a lot from them. And I think we can have a really wonderful group of candidates if we do this right and in a timely way. Katie Lesdowski? Thank you. To help set up the successful search, I'll draw my experience with succession planning in general for leadership positions. I think first it's important to consider the situation of the district in its entirety. So I have a more holistic lens because the hiring of a new superintendent is not happening in a vacuum, but it's at a very specific time and in a particular context that we find ourselves. So I would recommend that the district does its due diligence to identify a qualified consultant to guide the school committee members through that process, presenting options based on preliminary assessments including stakeholder analyses to identify the perspectives of district staff and which qualities they seek in district leadership. I think another important consideration is evaluating the current situation we're in, maybe taking a step back and looking at the entire leadership structure, for example. Ultimately, the preliminary work will end with a robust job description that will reach highly qualified individuals in the corner of the world they find themselves. Thanks. Roger Wallace? My only experience with hiring superintendents was getting to interview every superintendent that has come through. I had, while I was teaching here, I had an opportunity to talk with. I can't always say that I agreed with where they were, all of their positions, but what I was looking for was a sincerity of their own belief and when I found that I went, oh okay, I can work with that person. So I think that you are going to need a consultant of some kind and maybe not a whole firm. I don't know how that part works, but you do need a consultant if no more than to help us, once we have all of this information from staff, from the school committee itself, from other administrators, and when that happens and we have, we have that stuff, someone to help us bear it through it so we can look for what we're looking for. Thank you. Harry Spitzer? Thank you. So I have experience on search committees, both as a professional researcher where I've worked on hiring research teams, but also as a graduate student where I was a member of a search team for a faculty member. So I like this idea and believe strongly in it of bringing in folks who may be students or other stakeholders from the community. I also agree that it's essential that we cast a wide net and potentially, potentially bring in either a consultant or an outside firm to assist in the search. I think it's such an important position and we really want to try to find somebody who is willing to commit to being an Amherst for the long long term. I also think it's essential that we come up with a rubric for evaluation of superintendent candidates so we can, you know, understand what we're looking for and ideally members of the community could help shape that rubric. Thank you. Richard Hines? Thanks. So I'm the hiring authority for my area and I've chaired hiring committees as well. I've been on principal searches, college administrators searches and searches for nonprofit leaders. That said, I still think this would be the most difficult search I've ever seen or can imagine. How to recruit someone right now who's an excellent financial administrator willing to confront tough financial times, who values our skilled educators and requires the sort of gravity of the task of healing and rebuilding of trust that we have in the community right now. It's a tremendous task. I think success will depend on holding a process perspective. How do we frame the charge? How do we include all the diverse key constituencies in the search? How do we create the hiring matrix? Those tasks have to begin now in this three month appointment and I think this is a situation where a depth of listening needs to combine with those practical aspects to do a good search. Here. Question eight using the same. I'm so sorry. Gabrielle Weaver? So because this is such a difficult time for the school district, we have to ensure that we reach non-traditional candidates for the pool and to do that we have to ensure the position is advertised in a variety of ways and venues that will reach as large a population as possible. And yes, I think that should be national. We need to actively reach out to populations of interest. So making use of our networks to get the word out, not just the networks of people on the committee or on the search committee, but people in the community as well who may have ties to school administrators in a wide variety of locations. I've been involved on numerous searches and hiring processes and higher education, including deans and provosts and many, many faculty members. I have a good understanding of interview and recruitment approaches and how to think about finding a best fit between a candidate and the stated goals for the job. Thank you. Again, my apologies, Gabrielle. Question eight basically with the same reference is how will you approach the upcoming budget cycle? And we begin with Katie Lesdowski. You're getting better and better. Thank you. Thanks. I'll give you my last name. I'll begin by stating that in my work at a non-profit, I'm a program director and a lot of what I do is write grant proposals for state department funded grants. So I'm very familiar with budget process. Our school budgets represent almost 50% of the town's $93 million budget. I spent hours reviewing the Amherst and regional budgets and I'm familiar with the format and structure so I can get in there and hit the ground running. I understand also, because we're feeling this, I think a lot of people are feeling this, the pinch of the pandemic and the fact that we will be losing our COVID relief funds and we'll need to adjust that budget accordingly. So I would collaborate as I would with all issues with the committee and superintendent and whoever's appointed to the finance director position to ensure that our budget reflects our community's priorities and that any reductions are as far from the classroom as possible. Thank you. I'm prepared. Thanks. Laura Jane Hunter. I have also had some experience reviewing and administering budgets. I do think that we need to start this cycle with a fresh eye to centering the student experience and the students and what that means I think we'll have to figure out together. This is not something that can be done by one person. We need to be collaborative. We need to think very outside the box. We need to be thinking about alternate revenue streams as budgets get tighter and tighter and money goes away and again I think it's really about centering the students in all of our decision making. Thank you. Roger Wallace. I wrote one word for this carefully but the cycle has the life of its own and I think we all know that and my experience when I left teaching I started a business called hospitality construction and procurement and strategic resourcing and what I found there is you have an expectation of what you're going to have and we have to make building people who are building that we were getting things for. They thought they had it down and they didn't and so we have to go about it carefully just keep it student centered and then all the ancillary things around that is almost concentric circles. We start filling those in and there is going to be a reduction in how much money we get. We just have to figure out how to use it and all the buildings that we were part of and my business got built so I think I know something about that. Richard Hines. So we're facing demographic and funding challenges like everyone said and in the next few months we have to get to work on things. I think the town manager will draft his budget in November and school committee needs to be involved in that process so I just be an advocate starting immediately with the state with the town with local partners with grant makers how do we bring more support into the process and due to my experience managing federal and state grants and budgets as a PI I've become adept at finding economies of skill and partnerships that realize savings while actually adding resources to students experience examining the budget line by line is vital. I've spent some time looking at this budget and I have a lot of questions so asking questions would definitely be a place I would start. At the end of the day I think the way that we have to come to this is with making the cuts as far from the students and coming to the table from a place of cooperation and love. Thank you. Carrie Spitzer. Thanks so I've served on school committee through several budget cycles both on the budget subcommittee and on the joint capital planning committee for the town. I've been to several four towns meetings and I think one of the most challenging things is that we have both the emmer school budget and then there'll be the regional budget and often there are things you know that are outside of the control of those on any of the committees. For example I think we're going to lose we are going to lose the COVID relief money. I'm not optimistic at all about the upcoming budget cycle and I think it's going to be really difficult so I really believe that our budgets are statements of our values and so when we are making necessary cuts I think it's essential that we keep those values in mind and again reduce the impact on students as much as possible. I also believe we need to as a committee and as a town continue to advocate at the state level to make sure that we get the funding that we're due and also locally potentially. Thank you. Richard Rosnoy. I think the school committee needs to address the continually declining student population with the continually escalating school budget. Certainly a lot of the escalation in the budget is necessary because of fixed costs. However it puts the citizens of the town almost at a breaking point as you just about saw this past year with the somewhat of a difficult negotiating posture with the teachers. I think that's more of a question for those of you on town council than the two of you on the school committee who are here tonight. But it's a large question and I think it needs to get more of more light signed on it so that the townspeople know what they're supporting and how much it will cost. Thank you. Hugh Freil. I would review and question the many and ask questions on the many pressing financial needs of the school district. I would assist the other members of the committee in reaching the soundest decision we can. I'm aware that any decision will not satisfy all but I would be open to criticism and do my best to explain my decision. Thank you. Andy Churchill. I've been through six budget cycles in my school committee role. I've served on the budget coordinating group working with municipal and library representatives to identify budget expectations and tradeoffs for all departments across the town. I've been through the annual four-town budget meetings, one of which will likely happen during this interim appointment to kick off the budget season. So I understand the processes and challenges of school and town budgets. Like everybody else, I've heard that the budget for next year is the beginning of what I've heard referred to as budget Armageddon as the federal pandemic funds dry up and we have to figure out how to make do with reduced resources. At the same time, I'm curious about what's going to happen. We do have some new resources in this state through the millionaires tax that passed recently and so I'd want to work with our state reps to see what's going to happen there and if that's any source of some relief. But the budget process will continue after us but we will do ourselves a favor by protecting classroom instruction as much as possible and being clear about the tradeoffs and challenges. Thank you. Amy Cronin DiCaprio. So I do have experience developing and overseeing budgets, submitting budget amendments and writing budget narratives. I also know what I don't know and in the spirit of that earlier this month I took the Massachusetts Association of School Committees one-day training that is required for all new school committee members and covers things like budgets and warrants and open meeting law. When I decided that I wanted to pursue this role, I saw that there was an upcoming training and I wanted to have as much preparation as possible. So in terms of how I would approach it, I have a giant packet with notes and resources from that day and I feel like between that and the Massachusetts Association of School Committees webpage which is really robust. I have a pretty good foundation and I would also make sure that the school committee was clear about holding a public hearing on the budget which I understand is mass general law so that the public could understand what was being weighed and considered. Thank you. Gabriella Weaver. So how would I approach the budgeting process with an open and analytical mind? I love numbers and statistical analyses so running scenarios would be something I can contribute. In my career I've managed multi-year projects with budgets up to five million dollars. I've also been the director of academic centers with budgets in the tens of millions of dollars. During the pandemic I got certified in university budgeting by the National Association of College and University Budget Officers because it's a subject that interests me. So given the answers that I've provided to prior questions, I also plan to be strategic about budgeting with respect to meeting the equity commitments and achieving our goals by ensuring that we think carefully about how we use the funds that we have, distribute them to the various buckets that need to be funded, but all of that with the overall goal of providing the best possible education to our students. Vince O'Connor. Well first we're not going to get very far in this process, not beyond setting guidelines. None of us will, unless we're running for school committee successfully, will be around to even consider the budget of school committee members. So in setting guidelines I think I have a number of priorities. One is to restore the library parrots that were deleted by one vote, the vote of the town manager, and not gone to the to the council. I think that we have to look at enrollment, all sorts of revenue possibilities, and I certainly hope that one of the possibilities would be a joint committee of the school committee and the council to meet with representative of Amherst College to try to explain to them why it's important that they contribute substantially to each one of the school districts annually in close to seven figures. Thank you. Am I caught up on everybody? Okay, thank you. We are now going to go to concluding remarks. We have two minutes each and but when we're done don't jump up, okay? Just hold on, okay? We're going to start with Richard Rosnoy. Well, I would begin by congratulating you on setting up a format for getting through all of this in a timely fashion and for eliciting responses that cover the broad range of issues that are before us all. I would just basically repeat and encapsulate the concept that we need to move forward, address what happened, not ignore it, move forward, and make corrections as necessary so that the entire school system will function in a smooth and efficient manner with teachers who are energized and enthusiastic with administrators who communicate with the school committee, a school committee that communicates with administration and oversees everything and results in the school system that most of us know and is the reason why many of us have had our children here in the schools. Thank you. Thank you. Amy Cronin DiCaprio. So yes, thank you so much for making this process much more efficient than I expected it to be. I'm so pleasantly surprised by how this is gone. I'll I guess I'll start by saying I didn't get a chance to say it earlier that and I didn't specify I'm not running for election in November and although I have so much respect and admiration for some of the candidates who are here tonight that are running, I also do understand the value in appointing interim candidates who are only planning to step up to serve in the short term. And I guess this is just for the sake of transparency. I almost didn't make it to this meeting tonight. My older son has been having a lot of challenges and I was with him at the hospital for several hours. It wasn't clear until the last minute if I would be able to make it here or not. I am sharing this now just because I believe in transparency and because I think it exemplifies my commitment and my capacity. And I would just end by saying that in everything I do, I bring all of my passion and all of my dedication and I am really, really excited for the opportunity to serve in this role. So thank you for considering me. Thank you. Laura Jane Hunter. I also would like to echo that. I think this process has gone very smoothly and despite never knowing when I'm going to be called on, I think that's actually kind of fun. So thank you. I am committed to transparency. I'm committed to an open process and decision making and I will invite and nurture rich public engagement. If I am selected, I promise to make reasoned decisions grounded in public health and best practices, to apply an equity lens to current policies and practices, to analyze the budget to make sure it reflects our student-centered values, make sure that class sizes at the secondary level reflect the best practices in education to ensure that all the student needs are met, to rebuild trust between the school committee, the educators, the families and the students, to advocate for a superintendent search that is representative of and inclusive of all voices, including students, to interrogate my own actions and words for privilege, to create systems for historically marginalized students, including BIPOC, queer, non-native English speakers, low-income students and those with intersectional identities, to communicate with the administrators and the decision makers in the district and to vote independently based on the feedback from constituents and stakeholders. I believe that with me, what you see is what you get. I'm always genuine and I'm always open and I appreciate you considering me for this position. Thank you. Thank you to everyone. Education has always been my focus and my passion and I carry many vantage points, be it as a result of my 7th through 12th grade teaching positions or as a teacher educator in my consultancy work or in my position now as a program director at an educational nonprofit. I hold a PhD in education as well. I'm a parent of a sixth grader on the cusp of secondary school and someone who is sat on both sides of the desk at IEP meetings advocating for special education and implementing special education services. I've shown my commitment to addressing inequities through my scholarly work, through my volunteer work, both on the school equity task force as well as at the high school's restorative justice program. Three months is short, but it holds a lot of potential in terms of creating a positive climate. I've also shared with you throughout these questions my ideas that if elected, I will implement in the months ahead that will work to shape school committee culture and tighten our community in the process. I've also shown you that I'm well prepared to address the major items on our three month list, so to speak, including the budget as well as beginning the search for and for the superintendent. Thank you everyone for your attention this evening. This has been a pleasure and I don't think there's a bad choice in the room. Thanks. Katie Spitzer. Carrie Spitzer. Thank you. So I just want to start by thanking the school committee members here today at the town council and all of the other candidates for the interim role. I, you know, we submitted our statements of interest having at least me no idea who else would be submitting statements of interest and I'm just so pleased today to see so many really talented folks here in the room and online. Our schools are one of our town's most important resources and tonight I'm feeling cautiously optimistic about the future directions for our schools. Those who serve will have only three months. You know, I'm also not running for elected office. I have no desire to seek elected office in town at this moment. The reason I submitted my statement of interest was to offer my services as somebody with experience on the school committee. I honestly believe whoever residents elect in November should really have the greatest role in determining any new policies or, you know, making those final budget decisions and making that final decision about who will be our new superintendent because it's going to take much longer than three months to address all of the areas of concerns in our schools. So I just want to thank everybody here tonight and have a good night. Thank you. Andy Churchill. Yeah, I've really appreciated the variety and the thoughtfulness of the responses tonight and I have to say I've seen at least three people that I prefer over me. So take that into account. This is a short term commitment on a committee that deals with complicated systemic issues. I do believe that as a former school committee member with career experience in the field, I can come up to speed quickly enough to be useful in the short time allotted. I also think it'll be useful that I'm not running in the upcoming election for a full school committee term. This means I won't be distracted by what various decisions might mean for my campaign and it also protects the town council and remaining school committee members from any accusations from the community of favoring some current candidates over others by choosing them as interim members. Finally, this has been a very difficult time for the schools and the community and I hope I can help calm the waters a bit. I just want to thank you for your consideration. Roger Wallace. Thank you first of all. I'm exactly who you see right here today. Roger Wallace, former teacher, interested in what's best for each student, sort of fun-loving, understanding things about the schools, still going and tell stories to kindergartners, still go to visit classrooms that teachers asked me to come visit to maybe throw some math at them, a little trigonometry to sixth graders who happen to be good and we start measuring things, that stuff is fun and I enjoy it. But in the three months that I would be here to do something, it would be to treat the school committee as an entity and then the space between us and the other stakeholders, town members, teachers, parents, I don't care who you're talking about, anyone who's affected by the school. My goal would be to take that space that's between us and not pollute it. And what I mean by that is you carry your stuff and someone just said it transparently to anything that you meet because if you pollute that space in between the school committee and I'm treating us as an entity and the town, if we treat that carefully, that space between us, carrying our intentions, not how we feel about this, our intention and if the townspeople and the other stakeholders see the school committee in that spirit, then maybe the acrimonious nature can lessen enough for us to keep that space between us so that what we define as our new way of interacting begins to work. I think that's something you can begin the process of in three months and if the new members coming and voting who've been voted for it, they may be happy to be in that situation. Thank you. Vince O'Connor. So I was trained to my public involvement was my training as a SNCC community organizer 50 years ago, plus our goal was to accomplish specific important goals. And I think I left Pine Bluff, Jefferson County, Arkansas, having done that in the two years I spent there without getting my name in the paper and my photograph in the paper, probably a same thing to do. And going to church at the Black Catholic Church, where I would say, rather than the White Catholic Church, where I might not have escaped unharmed. I think that we, there are some things that I want to be on this school committee to accomplish. The first is to make sure that the school budget as voted by the school committees goes fully to the to the council for their consideration as well as well as the opinion of the finance committee. The second is to solve the accountability problem that has led us to this evening.  I want to thank Roger Wallace for the fact that he had two of those kids and he made a significant difference in their lives. Thank you. Hugh Freel. I appreciate the opportunity I was given to be part of this process and and have to listen to the wide range of experience that the other candidates have. And lastly, I feel that I have an understanding and a feel and I wish the council and the school committee all the best in achieving their goals in the coming year. Thank you. Gabriella Weaver. So I'm very heartened by the number of candidates who are willing to serve on the school committee. The thoughtful answers that I've heard from people tonight, the excellent ideas. I've really been impressed and it shows how much our community really cares about our schools. I haven't approached this interview process with any fixed positions on what policies or agendas I would or wouldn't support or promote because I know that collaborative decision making right now is very important for our community, but it's also the best way to achieve trust and find the right solutions. My interest in this role is rooted solely in my desire to serve the community. My family chose to come to Amherst 10 years ago, specifically due to the quality of the schools when our kids at that time were two and four. So I'm a parent of children in our schools. I care about the schools both for today's students but also for the future so that we can ensure the vitality of this terrific community. Thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight. Bridget Hines. Wow, I agree. This has been really heartening. There's so many good reasons to choose so many of the brilliant, lovely people who volunteered and joined us here tonight. I respect the hard work of the town council and the school committee so far and the hard work you still have ahead after these comments. For my part, I'm committed to the schools and have been involved in many ways throughout the year from class parent to multicultural engagement committee, et cetera, et cetera, grants coordinator. I've just been involved in the schools nonstop and I really just care. I want to see things get better. I have the practical skills you seek in budgets as a PI on federal grants, though not as large as Professor Cornejo Warrens. I bring value in my career long commitment to multicultural inclusive work that reduces the barriers that marginalized youth based and I bring value in my specializations and skills in evaluation and conflict resolution. My current work is designing and implementing educational programs, policies and practices that build teams to launch low income youth towards an educational future that's right for them. In the process, these academic spaces have already also become a haven and a community for other marginalized youth, LGBTQIA plus, youth in transition, youth with learning differences and health challenges as well. I really believe that welcome welcomes and the school committee now has a tremendous opportunity to work to move the community past this current crisis and to create a place of welcome. It's possible for us to work towards decisions that are inclusive, transparent and require outcomes that are there to protect all students. I hope that we can welcome the beautiful diversity of all who walk through the school's doors. That concludes the interview portion of the evening. Don't jump up. Okay. I have to say I am so heartened by the enormous number of statements of interest that we have received and think this is probably one of the best examples of Amherst stepping up. I want to thank each of you for your thoughtful comments, answers to your questions and for joining us this evening. It really is heartwarming. So we now are going to take a break but hold on. During the break, the candidates who are in the room are welcome to go back into the audience and the candidates that are on Zoom will be placed in the audience. But the break is going to be for 15 minutes. So if some of you that are in the room want to not break the speed limit but go home, please feel free to. You'll hear the outcome one way or another. And with that, we will recess for 15 minutes and when we return begin deliberation and the voting process. Thank you again. Please start migrating back to your seats. I didn't say turn your videos on yet. It's not Jinxit Gang. As you return, please open your video so I know that you're back. I understand. As you return, please turn your screen back on so that I know you're back with us. Pam Rooney, are you back? Yep. Andy, I know you're here. Dorothy, are you back? Alicia Walker, are you back? Yes, I am. Thank you, Lynn. Thank you, Alicia. Michelle Miller, are you back? So I'm waiting for Dorothy, Michelle, and Kathy Shane lost connectivity and we're trying to get her reconnected. Hi, Michelle. Dorothy, are you back yet? Do you see any sign of Dorothy yet? I mean, of Kathy. She's trying to dial in now. So if you want to give her a moment. And Dorothy, are you back? I'm really wanting people to be back before we start the deliberation process. Dorothy, when you're back, please turn your screen on. Thank you. That wasn't 15 minutes, I don't think.  I lost track. Okay. We're going to begin the deliberation process. We'll use this next period in the meeting for the 15 or actually right now, it's only 14 of us to deliberate during this period, school committee members and go first and counselors after that. You may speak to each candidate's qualifications or in relationship to whatever you want. You don't have to speak at all if you don't want to. And we want to make sure that if at all possible, we don't spend more than about 20 minutes, maybe at the most on this. So brief comments. Okay. Model our candidates who did a great job of sticking to the timeframe. They, they, they, it wasn't hard because they were doing it. Are there school committee members who would like to make comments at this time?  Jennifer, please go ahead. Thanks, Lynn. That was really heartwarming, as many people said. So it's my opinion that all of the candidates can do the duties that we outlined and the job and the job description really of the Amherst School Committee members, all of them could fulfill the responsibilities and, and do those duties. So there, I'm thinking, so as a result, it's going to be hard to choose the ones, it's going to be hard for me to choose, but I'm thinking about, I'm now thinking about three things. Focus on students. So which candidates answered one or more questions with a focus on students, prioritizing student needs and student well-being. That's one thing. Another thing is, which candidates showed me like a spark, a spark of passion or a spark of caring or showed me that they are, they will be invested not just with their intellect, but with their heart and soul. And lastly, many of the candidates named that they are white and have privilege and the other ways that they have privilege, and I appreciate that. But I think that the next step in that is naming white supremacy, like the ability to say white supremacy exists, we live in it and institutional racism by default exists. So the candidates who mentioned that are also bubbling up for me. Thank you. Irv, is your mic on? You have to hold the button. Thank you. Irv, you're not alone. Believe me. Anyway, I, first Lynn, I really appreciate your leadership on this. It was extraordinary. Second, I was really, really impressed by the field of candidates who came before us, extremely impressed with the quality. The third thing is, in the back of my mind, was that the regional school committee between now and the end of December will meet six times and that the Amherst school committee will meet three because we meet monthly, October, November, and December. So that was in the back of my mind when you're looking at these candidates. And I was impressed by Amy, Katie, Andy, Kerry, Roger, Gabriella, and Bridget. I was impressed by them tremendously. And so when it comes to my vote, it's going to be rather difficult. Are there counselors who would like to make any comment?  It just went. I agree. Oh, okay. I muted myself. Please go ahead, Dorothy. I agree that it's very difficult vote. So I suggest that we make it easier and eliminate candidates who are running for election. Although they did very well, obviously they did very well tonight and they did not hurt themselves, but we clearly have a sufficient field of candidates who are not running for election who have put themselves up for this office for us to make a very informed choice. So I suggest that we decide that and that makes our task a little bit easier. Thank you. Are there other comments from counselors? Shalini? Yeah, again, everything that everyone has said, there was just so much wisdom and amazing potential in the room. So to back up what Dorothy was saying, in my mind, I was thinking it'll be a pity to lose out on the wisdom and compassion and skill sets of the people who are not running. And so I mean, I'm feeling really good about the elections coming up and you have amazing candidates who are going to run. But let's also, for the interim, try to get as much as we can from some of the people who are not going to run. So that's how I'm going to be voting. The other thing I was looking at was diversity for sure. And diversity not only in terms of, definitely in terms of race and different experiences and whatnot. But I think one other thing that I was looking at is even getting newer. There were some voices that were new to me and I think new to the political realm. So at least one. So while I also want someone who has had school committee experience, because they can come and just get going right away. But I think having at least one voice that has not been involved in the politics is going to be also if they have the skill set. And I'm thinking, but if they have to say it, I'm thinking of Gabriella we were as someone who I was very impressed with the practical solutions that she was bringing, not just in terms of but also being a person of color and immigrant and also not having been part of town politics. And so I think there's real value that she can bring that level that sort of a length of a complete objectivity. So those with and the three things that I have the time would be I was also impressed with people who leaned into the discomfort and were comfortable naming the discomfort. And I was I found the arguments less co