Seeing a presence of a quorum, I'm calling this meeting of the Amherst School Committee to order on Tuesday May 5th at 6.01 p.m. And before we dive in, I will thank you to Amherst Media for streaming this for us on Channel 15. This meeting is being recorded and is, as mentioned, available live stream and on Amherst Media Channel 15 in Amherst. So our first order of business is to approve our minutes from our meeting on April 23rd. And those minutes are in our packet, so folks have Ms. Spitzer. So the paragraph right before section C, where it reads Ms. Spitzer asked if it is possible for Wildwood to be open again. I think there was, it wasn't, but I was asking about whether or not Wildwood would be open again. I was just trying to understand, it's been a week, trying to understand what we were doing to make sure that the building itself stayed, that we avoided the issues we had last time we closed the building for a long period of time due to facility upgrades. So I understand that Wildwood isn't going to open again, but just trying to, just talking about how we could protect the building while during the closure to make sure we didn't have issues such as pests and upon reopening of the building. Do you want me to recommend an edit or? No, I'm seeing a CLO is commenting that she's got that. Okay, great. Thank you. Ms. Spitzer asked what we are doing for Wildwood. I can bring it up. Well, we're doing for Wildwood Elementary School during the closure so that we do not have issues of pests upon reopening. Yep. Good. Any other comments or edits from the committee? I'm going to, before we go on to a vote, I realize I neglected to take roll call. As a virtual meeting, we do need to take attendance. So, I'll call out names and if you just say present, if you're present, that'd be great. Ms. Lorde. Lorde present. Ms. Spitzer. Spitzer present. Mr. Demling. Demling present. McDonald's present. And is that Mr. Harrington on the phone? Yes, Harrington present. Wonderful. Great. So now I'll make the motion. I'll move to approve the minutes of the Amherst School Committee meeting from Tuesday, April 23rd. A second. Second moved by McDonald's second by Lord. Any further discussion? Seeing none. We'll go with a roll call vote. McDonald's aye. Mr. Harrington. Harrington aye. Ms. Lorde. Lorde aye. Ms. Spitzer. Spitzer aye. Mr. Demling. Demling aye. Did I miss anybody? Yeah. So that passes five to zero. And now we'll move on to public comment. We, and before we dive into public comment, it's a reminder to everybody that is watching or listening. We are, we do accept public comment. We continue to accept public comment at my email address McDonald's a at arts.org. And any written public comment that we received by 3pm on the day of the meeting will share on screen for the public to view and the committee to read. And we are also new this week offering the opportunity for the public to submit recorded public comment of their voices reading their comment. And there is a Google voice number where members of the public may read leave a recording. And I believe it's<PHONE_NUMBER>, but it's also published on all of our agendas. And tonight we have two recorded public comments to share. And I'll turn it over to Dr. Morris to play back the audio. Sure. So I'll see how the sound is and, you know, please. Any feedback on that would be great. Here we go. We're actually not hearing anything. So let me see if I can. Sorry, I am. So, let me see how to do this. So the problem of course I realize is that too late. And let me think through this for a second is that the person's right now the person's phone number comes up as the. So if I share the screen I'm going to, I'm going to disclose the phone. Yeah, I think that might be better. I apologize. I like work so hard to get the audio and tested it out. And then only when I was about to do it that I realized that I don't want to expose people's phone numbers when I do that. Sorry about that, Allison. That's okay. Work in Vermont began integrating synchronous or live online instruction into their distance learning several weeks ago. Why is this the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, not more actively encouraging and supporting synchronous instruction books and hotspots rolled out. Thank you. And our next call. Hello, my name is Carol Gray and I'm a parent. And I'm giving this comment to urge you to do whatever you can to advocate for live teaching via virtual means zoom. I teach at the college level and I've been using Brackford Collaborate. It's been working great. You know, students and students have told me they have some classes where the teachers haven't been able to do any live virtual instruction and it's really not been great for them and they were really appreciating that my class they could get live instruction. And they could interact and they could ask questions and they could have discussions. It's just not the same. They've done studies that show that synchronous education that coincides with how works. You still have the asynchronous as well to have depth of thought and time to ponder over questions that you write about, but you need to have the live teachers talking and you need to have children be able to see other children and interact with them. Socialization is just as important a part of school as conveying the information and my niece goes to school out of state and ever since the coronavirus hit from 9 to 12 she goes into a room with her laptop and she dresses up for school and she goes to school and she loves it. And the nice thing is her mother doesn't have to worry about supporting her. Some families really can't support this asynchronous method at home well either because they don't have the educational background or they're working multiple jobs. We just can't continue like this. It's not best for our students and I don't know why we haven't I understand the state is recommending asynchronous, but my sister who's an educator said that's not what the studies say is most effective and I don't know why the state is setting such a low bar but I think ever should and must do better for our kids. Other states are doing this and it's working just fine. I really think that we should take the lead on this. We don't have to just offer what state is offering. We can do more and we can take leadership roles in pushing the state to read the studies that say that synchronous education works. It works better than just asynchronous and the socialization that kids are missing by not having regular classrooms online is really huge. Please, please, please take a leadership role and start advocating forcefully at the state level, but aside from the state, let's just do it. Call the superintendents in other schools that are doing this out of state and have been doing it for months and you'll see that it's working well. I can do it too. The teachers may have been trained in Zoom, but I wasn't trained with all these methodologies either when I had to switch over to online teaching. So it does cut off at three minutes. So Google Voice is actually doing doing that for us. So I just close the agenda. I think I have not received any further public comment, but I encourage those that are watching, listening and tracking to to share their public comment. Going forward, either using that voice recording or by email to the committee. And with that we'll move on to the superintendent's update. So, a couple pieces of information. So, as I think you were notified last week or was in the newsletter on Friday anyway that we were one of the districts and I'll speak specifically to the Amherst public schools that received a grant that we applied for for $24,000 for bottle fillers with filters. So really exciting news. Mr. Harrington again has a dual role in that, but thank you Mr. Harrington for your other hat on because you were heavily involved in the writing of that application. But this is great news for all three of our elementary schools more details to come with where and when and all those pieces you know the when pieces obviously a little complicated by the current scenario but this is really exciting news for our schools and definitely since there's one in the middle school right outside the cafeteria which isn't far from my office I see how much use it has and has one of those nice meters that tells you how much water you've saved by how many bottles you've saved by using that instead of a water fountain or other tools which is really nice to have the visual tangible support for students, especially the younger grade levels to be able to see how they're helping the environment so that was excellent news. We, it's teacher appreciation week so one of the things that we did is we sent out an email to families if they're willing to share stories about what teachers have meant to them or what they're doing to support them and we've the good news and the bad news we've received an overwhelming number of incredible responses how Mrs. Westmoreland and Mrs. Figaro are going to put all those together at the end of the week I'm not sure but that's why they have their jobs and I'd be really poor at doing what they do but it's been really heartening the emails go to an account that's shared by the two of them and myself and it's been great to get the appreciation so I would just like to offer for my own self just incredible work teachers have been doing under really trying circumstances juggling their jobs, as well as everyone's complicated more complicated family life in terms of children parents family members that people are it's not going to notice and it's clear it's not going to notice from the responses we get from from families but it's not going to notice by me or the administrative team as well so just want to say thank you to all of our teachers for the wonderful work they're doing and very very difficult circumstances. My third one is that we are up to 66 students enrolled for kindergarten you know that is a bit lower than what we would typically have on May 5 but it's not wildly lower and it's not it's not something we feel good that we're actually getting that many it's also not necessarily on the top of people's minds everyone's minds at this moment given the other challenges that exist for folks at the moment so we're continuing to get them in and we're continuing to next month we'll be reaching out with more information for those families just about some procedures because we are starting to get some questions of what kindergarten will look like we'll talk about that later when we do the COVID update but it's one thing that we have a logical pathway to be communicating to families currently in the district will different when it's families who some of whom don't have an older sibling in the district but the online form is working well and we're glad that we're up over you know 60 you know typically this time of year we would expect more like 80 or 90 so I think given the stress on everyone's lives right now we're kind of pleased to have 66 at this point and and we know they'll trickle in over time. The last one is that there was an MSBA conference call that members of the town members of the schools, particularly Ms. McDonald, Dr. Slaughter and myself were on yesterday actually and it really was just going over timelines going over processes I thought I would share a little bit of the timeline see if I can do this well since there's not audio this should be okay there we go so hopefully folks can almost see that yet still loading there we go so you can see that our timeline started on May 1 and you know this first initial compliance certification is a very simple form for the town that's not on our side the town will be working to form a school building committee by June 30 and you know Mr. Bachman the town manager and I have he drafted a charge for that committee we did ask some questions at the MSBA about you know what they would recommend for size group size and some other factors and they gave us some feedback on that and you know so that that process will start pretty quickly the town council and town manager level there's an educational profile questionnaire which is due on June 30 and that's the beginnings of an educational program obviously decisions haven't been made yet but it is you know as explicitly you know do you want us to start talking about consolidation options in that from an educational perspective and they said absolutely it was on your statement of interest we know you haven't made a decision but we don't expect you to wait to start thinking through that so that that's the first thing that's really on the school side online enrollment projection will work on sooner than that as well both of these two July 30 deadlines online enrollment is looking at some enrollments we have from Desi from Nezdeck and then MSBA comes up with their numbers as well for a couple different scenarios I will say we had an interesting conversation about how difficult it is to project enrollment at this point because of the context we're in every community is unique and I don't want to pretend that Amherst is any more unique but I think in this particular realm given the two factors of many families starting to double up just because of the economic pressures and also because we are the major employers in town are institutions of higher education or the public like the first five I think are comprised exclusively of those two categories we may feel you know the population shifts may feel different here than in other communities so we had a good conversation about that it's something that enrollment folks are aware of in every community that the trends I you know I said explicitly I don't know what the enrollment is exactly going to be five months from now let alone five years from now but we'll give them the data they can crunch it into their computers and then we'll advocate on the town's behalf then the enrollment certification executed that's really on the MSBA side because that's an ongoing dialogue between the district and MSBA maintenance and capital planning information we'll get that again sooner than October 28 essentially there's some bonus points that can be offered if we can show that we've invested we as a town have invested resources into maintenance and capital projects over the last few years essentially the MSBA wants to know if we go forward on this project are you going to maintain the buildings well or is your track record such that we don't have confidence that you'll maintain the buildings well and if if you do have background it can prove that then you get more points which is reimbursable when a project actually happens if you can't show that that you've that the town is invested in its maintenance you actually don't get as many points so that's something that particularly Rupert Roy Clark myself probably Mr. Slaughter Dr. Slaughter a little bit we'll be working on with the MSBA you see a local local vote authorization that'll be just the final vote with the MSBA's language for the town council to appropriate the $750,000 which is where our estimate for the feasibility project at that point feasibility study agreement can be signed between the town and MSBA and then it goes to a board meeting at MSBA for them to approve our entry into that next phase so I don't know if this McDonald's anything you'd like to add but that was sort of what we went over that timeline explicitly I had some really good conversations about paths forward I thought yeah that was very thorough that I don't have anything to add things okay and I think that is all I have on superintendent update okay any questions or comments from the committee seeing none we can move on to the chairs update I don't have any ads or comments there but I will invite we don't we don't have committee updates on here are announcements but but if a committee member would like to make an announcement at this point I would welcome that Mr. Gillman yeah I guess I would just quickly comment that today is giving Tuesday and there are many amazing organizations that are in need of donations these days obviously not just because of the increased need but a lot of nonprofits particularly in our town rely on public events as their their key fundraising moments and those aren't going to be able to happen this year so I would just give a quick plug to to one of those organizations Amherst education foundation they usually have their spring gala which is a big fundraiser it's a great event and AEF as I'm sure everybody here knows does an amazing level of support for our schools every single year projects that would never happen without their incredible time and effort so if you just Google Amherst AEF there's in the search results there's a big donate link it's pretty easy you know and even after giving Tuesday that's appreciated I think it's you know we're entering a new normal where we're going to have a lot of organizations that aren't going to be able to run their fundraisers and so if you're able to if you're in a position to consider donating it would be a good thing to think about I just I just really appreciate all the work they've done over the years. Great. Miss Spitzer. I just wanted to give a quick update related to the superintendent's evaluation so it's not on the agenda tonight, but I did hear back from Mark Terry that we would need to have a vote if we wanted to do the evaluation after June 1. So we can talk about that later on agenda planning but that's the latest update on on the conversations we've been having about the evaluation. We said June 1 in the in the email so we will go back and double check that I originally thought it was July 1 as well. So we're having a text back and forth but I'll double check the date but we will need to extend it beyond the date that we agreed upon in the superintendent's contract. Yeah, we want to. Great. Thank you. Any other updates? Seeing none. We'll move on to new and continuing business and first item on that agenda is the COVID-19 and schools update from Dr. Moore. Sure and I'll try to be succinct on this one. So really kind of four things that I want to talk about the first is that we are getting to we talked about kindergarten registration numbers. We are getting to that time of year at all of our schools where people are starting to think about next school year. It's obviously got layers upon layers of complication right now for many folks, but one of the things that we're highly aware of is that we do have new kindergartners coming in. We also have new students at all the different grade levels, you know, who are either going to move to the area or a whole host of other reasons why next year may be their first year in the Amherst public schools. And so one of the projects we're working on that we hope to have completion in the next week or two, probably two, is virtual tours of all of our schools that we can put out and share with folks. There's some pretty neat technology actually through Google. So it's free for us, part of our account as an educational organization where there can be 360 degree pictures. You may have seen it where you can, you know, it's adaptable. You can control it and we're going to do voiceovers from principals welcome the students. So we're trying to find the principals are identifying I think mostly have done 10 areas of their schools where they feel like for families to get a flavor. It's a lot more professional looking than holding your iPhone and walking around the school.  So it's a really nice solution so we are working to have those we're going to have a second round of work that goes to narrate those in Spanish as well for families. And in a third round that's going to look particularly for students entering some of our specialized programs, building blocks aims and the ILC to have a little more work on those particular areas so photos of those areas. That's a little more specific and geared more to a specific population of students so those should be out at least the first round of those probably within two weeks and then probably in a week or two following will get the Spanish as well as the ones for students entering specialized programs. So thanks to Jerry Champagne for his creativity and funding of a no cost and exciting solution and principles for jumping into identify spaces and narration. The second update I'd like to give captures also on the staff side about fall. So there's a resource that's been developed in New York City that's a roadmap to schools opening in the fall and to be really clear it's a process document it's not a document that says people should be wearing masks shouldn't be wearing mask. It actually identifies rather it identifies and we adapted a bit but we've adapted to identify nine areas where we're going to have some guiding principles. So over the summer when we likely will get guidance from both public health folks as well as the governor and the commissioner we actually have an on ramp to be able to have those conversations and make decisions. So our staff is going to get an email later this week and the groups are instructional planning. So this is really focusing on what is the beginning of the school year look like from an instructional perspective knowing that students haven't been live in school for a better part of, you know, over five months. And what do we do with knowing that what we're providing from distance learning isn't meant him from from everyone's perspective to can't truly replace what happens in the classroom. A second group would be on social emotional planning, similar to the academic planning students haven't been in the school for five months and we need to figure out how we can welcome students just folks who put this together talk about much like you do academic screenings at the beginning of the year figuring out how we can do social emotional screenings at the beginning of the year and that's not a decision but that's the type of conversation that we want to have because it's we don't we don't get a window into what those five and a half months may have looked like for any child and not to make assumptions but to make sure that we're not we're not missing out on picking up on student who may need some support. The third group would be on facilities planning so that's looking at sanitizing cleaning room or room arrangements physical distancing requirements within our schools. The fourth group would look at school operations planning this one's really focused on student transportation and food services as being areas that are different than the typical classroom environment and need some close thinking. And again some guiding principles so that we can think about that the next one is technology planning. So we're obviously all steeped as we are literally right now in a different way of doing business with technology and I think there's lessons in all of this there's lessons to be learned about what we've learned about ourselves as an organization about what our capacity is how it might be a little different. And also knowing that you know while we sure hoping to be there in the fall the likelihood of intermittent closures is a very real thing and so we want to be thinking about that as we didn't have the chance really to do it this year. We want to be thinking about that way before we get back to school so that if we do have intermittent closures we're not retransitioning with no planning so we want to be ahead of that. The group after that so I'm just scrolling down is a communication and student enrollment. So it's looking at communication and also really looking at how do we do outreach to families talked about before that aren't yet students in our aren't yet connected to our district in terms of being in the school year and and how do we do a broad outreach to that population. We've got the group on athletics clubs and before and after school care this these are K to 12 so that athletics pieces less prevalent at the K to 6 level. However, the before and after school care and clubs certainly relates to the elementary level and trying to think through those areas. And some of those are not school run but it's incredibly important that we have our thoughts about planning the couple more sorry I know it's long winded but this is the complicated operation family outreach planning. So it's what the district can provide to support families help ensure student success, including helping families find and connect with community organizations and groups. We've certainly learned a lot that in a in a non physical environment that's a really different kind of conversation than it is when students are alive and in our schools. The second the last one is about staff support and planning so it this group is the plan ways to address the social emotional needs of staff. Something that you've heard me say before is it's not just students who haven't been in school for five and a half months it will be staff members who haven't been in school for five and a half months and If they're the ones who are working directly with our students we want to make sure their needs are front and center and our thought through as well. And the last one is a governance group which really has the facilitators of all those groups so that's coordinating our efforts because there's going to be overlap between a lot of these different categories. We're going to try to keep these group sizes really small so that work can get done. Ideally you'd want to open it up and have 20 people in each group and then what we find is you know this groups are going to work you know meet of staff members. Are going to have somewhat limited time and run their goal is not to write a long plan their goal is to write some guiding principles that as we get more public health information. We can do that because what we know and what we learned over the last couple months is that whatever information we have in late June will be different than the information we have in mid August. So we want to build an infrastructure and framework that can be flexible and fluid as more information comes in. So we're really excited to engage staff on this matter they're really excited to be connected I get tremendous numbers of questions from staff members on thinking about fall one thing we're really clear on is this is not a group to make a decision about whether we return in the fall. That's not the goal the goal is not to write detailed. Plans it's really can we have guiding principles that can be adapted to whatever the guidance we receive you know my example is often let's not talk about masks someone else is going to make that decision for us. It's not the worth not worth focusing on right now I'm not saying it's not important it's not worth this group working on however to think through how we arrange our classrooms knowing that we're going to have some physical physical distancing guidelines in the fall that is a worthwhile conversation to start having. Do we start with the first unit in fifth grade math or do we review the last couple units in fourth grade math. Those are conversations we need to have now because they're going to inform summer planning and that's the kind of grain size we want to have as we develop guiding principles. And my last update is on desi guidance so on see it was 2024 there was a late April we received multiple documents from desi and I put my takeaways in last week's newsletter but the first one is that you know for the most part we're really well aligned with what desi is saying and one of the things that I appreciate the commissioners putting in every document he puts out on this is the safety and well being of students families and staff has been and must continue to be our top priority as an educational community. We are focused not only a physical health safety and nutrition but also on social muscle and mental health needs which could intensify during this time so not every state puts that in their front and center and I'm appreciative that we're in a state that does that. My second take home which was the most significant one particularly at the elementary level which is this district is the commissioner working with us to introduce new content. The teacher should be introducing new content into the distance learning until this point the guidance from desi was to creatively review formally taught concept extend work and go deeper. The commissioner put out what what I'm hearing from staff and I agree was a helpful document about you know what what some people call power standards are basically looking at the standards document and thing what are the key things that students need to be exposed to and to learn in advance of the next grade level and so the feedback I've gotten from most staff members has been thank you there's only so many times I could go deeper on the topics I've previously taught that it was getting you know you can do that for a while and then it was getting increasingly challenging to think of engaging work on that so the power standards that piece were helpful. We made some decisions about what was appropriate and especially in social studies to teach at a distance learning environment that if there was heavily heavy emotionally fraught content at certain grade levels it didn't feel great to our teachers and they raised concerns about that and we were able to work with them but I appreciate our staff members flagging that and saying do we really want to go into heavy emotional topics in a virtual environment of what we're not there to really be able to support students in that way and so that's a level of detail our staff got into and their sensitivity to the topic but again that's the largest shift. The third one is about making connections with students and families has been critical and we have a nice system where we are tracking participation of students and families and if we're noticing a student family are not participating in any of the distance learning. Our principals contacted they've been reaching out and then if they're still unsuccessful. The family center has been reaching out in different ways so that we have kind of a cheered response because this isn't about compliance this isn't about accountability this is about making sure families know what we're trying to do and supporting them to supporting them in the ways and one of the things that we've found already when we have families who aren't participating and there's frankly not that many that numbers dwindled significantly is that many people are having real challenges where respectfully and this is coming from a lifelong educator. Being able to be involved in distance learning, given what else is going on in their lives is a really complicated balance and so we've learned a lot and connected folks to other agencies to receive support and so that kind of that tracing of students and families who may be struggling has been really helpful not only from an educational point of view but also to support families who are in need who wouldn't necessarily reach out to us but we've learned a lot as we've made those calls so thank you to folks for kind of making that process work, especially the family center who has been front and center on families that we've been the schools have had trouble contacting. And the last one connects to some of the public comments a desi recommended that asynchronous or nine live lessons and assignments of the primary focus for whole group work. The exception is for small group work class meetings and special populations for instance is a special needs and English language learners and they recommend that. You know, I will say from here from Amherst we surveyed families, particularly at the elementary level, there was really mixed feelings about synchronous lessons. I think some of that came up even those of you who watched the social emotional live stream show we did with counselors. A lot of families don't kids don't want to be on the calls we tried to offer some tips on that with that resource and then there's been some nice moments to and just to be really clear we haven't said teachers can't do it we're not banning synchronous lessons but at the elementary level which I'll speak only to because of the nature of this meeting. The class meetings that aspect has been the most beneficial is the feedback we've heard from families and staff that students are able to see each other to teach 22 or 27 year olds using this format has not been seen yielded the best results. And so I know some teachers are experimenting with doing office hours but doing it with like a third of the class at a time for less time and seeing some success with that kind of synchronous learning. And so I think the state received the same feedback we did about some of the responses it's also we've gotten some feedback classes sometimes were scheduled synchronous lessons were scheduled the same time as food pickup. So we've resolved that problem but you know there's multiple food pickup locations that span about an hour and a half of time so you know you have to X out a lot and then we also. I think one of the other challenges that staff members have their own children at home to so not every not every staff members able to be on synchronous calls at specific times all the time because they have multiple responsibilities well so I definitely hear that feedback it was. I think the whole what I've learned because I'm trying to now that we've been in a while I'm trying to really make sure I'm starting to learn lessons for the future is that there has been few things in this district many of you have been with me on on some things that have gathered some controversy in this There have been few things where the responses from the parent community have been as split as distance learning and that's because people's life experiences how they're experiencing this pandemic. Is really different right so you know the range has been from please don't make my child do any work right I've got emails like you know this is not they're feeling too much pressure to please make every single other kid in the class be on this call we need more accountability. And I'm not picking on two emails I get those extremes a lot in terms of how people are experiencing it and we're trying to find the middle path which provides ongoing resources support for families and children. Without creating even more stressful situation for then what people are already experiencing and it's a hard balance and we don't always get it right and you know I think I've said this before this is not what anyone was trained to do so we're trying to take our lessons in and the feedbacks been really helpful that we've received. And people have received some tweaks so I know it at some schools. There was a call for more synchronous experiences and teachers have been able to respond with that we're again more in the class meeting kind of model and that that's been really well appreciate I think the small group models been much more effective from a teaching and learning perspective than the large group model but it's still a work in progress and I think hopefully we're not in this world next year if we are we have a lot of lessons to learn I think a lot of things we can continue to improve. But I want to go back to the teacher appreciation piece that I think understanding the stresses that our teachers are under like many other working families who are trying to do their same jobs with their children at home. At some point that pie isn't big enough for everything to get done exactly the way you'd want to do it and I think that the stress that our families are under mirrors the stress that our teachers are under and you know what we're trying to do is support everyone to get the most out of this experience and I think we're continuing to get better and the more feedback we get the better we get at it. So that's that's my covert update tonight and I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Questions from the committee. Mr. Deming. Um, so with the desi guidance document and the and the other desi guidance that's come down. Can you talk a little bit about what what strength of recommendation is that really, you know, from from the extreme of here's some suggestions if you need it take it or leave it to this is general law and you're breaking it down. Like what what strength of guidance is that and the reason I ask is because you know like you mentioned every district is unique and we have our own challenges and within our district there are going to be schools and teachers and students where we want to calibrate things differently. I'm just wondering to what extent do we have the freedom to really implement that across the spectrum or are we are we handcuffed by what what desi says explicitly or implicitly. Yeah, I mean it's their strong recommendation we are not handcuffed to the to your point I think that's a good one I think some of the special ed ELL stuff because it's federal law and civil rights law those ones are much more explicit than the general guidance from desi that being said, and I think those of you who know me well know that I am when desi does things I don't agree with I'm not shy about that I think on this one given the context I think they've been really responsive to to working with district hearing from a district what works and hearing from districts and giving advice based on authentic feedback. So I think you're right that certainly a different outcome is possible with some of the desi guidance and you know I tend to think that they're coming with lots of experience beyond Amherst that's worth us considering you know and I think it's you know it's all anecdotal but I do think there are schools that have been using synchronous learning more than we have at the elementary level and I continue to hear actually multiple times from families who are interested in transferring to our district because they don't want that right and I'm sure we have families who feel the opposite of that that they want more of that and if they can get more and it's so it's a complicated kind of thing and I think working with our staff and our families and students we're trying to get the right balance on it. So you know it's an interesting it's an interesting mix about what people are looking for feels more disparate than ever before but I should have been more clear about that the kind of desi guidance piece when I was talking so I apologize for that. I hear a lot of before Mr. Harrington to the other thing I hear a lot of is just concerns about screen time more generally. You know so that's not necessarily synchronous versus asynchronous although a lot of the asynchronous work can be done off a screen. But that's something that is very live I got a couple emails about you know is there anything on Chromebooks that can track screen time because I'm really concerned about how much time my child spending on a screen and then other people are really comfortable with that and they feel like in this situation that's that's OK for kids and so I think it's again coming back to you know individual families I think it's because in their own home and it's making teaching and learning more public than it's ever been before like if you think about what school look like two months ago. For most parents they heard about it from their kid you know or communication from staff member now they're getting like a document with lessons and and so you know I think that's also it's made lots of things more public and I think it's caused some questions for families about what their role is and I actually think there's some opportunity here for us to engage families and staff about education more broadly because of that but that that's a tangential comment that could lead to a long conversation that's not on the agenda necessarily but but I just is one other aspect that I find really interesting as I'm reflecting on this. Mr. Harrington you had your hand raised. Yeah I was just wondering real quick if you could give us an update on where we're at as far as the hotspots and oh yeah. I thought I had read something about that there was only like a handful of identified folks who didn't have access still so I just want to wonder if you could update everyone on that. Yep so that's true and we're pretty much there. We did another pick up last week and what we find is in some ways it's hard on the IS staff but we continue to get a trickle right so every time we think okay we're there someone says have you checked on this family they're now saying that they you know and some of the trickles because people are losing their internet access some of it it's not just because they didn't communicate I want to be really fair because I think that could be negative for them. It's not because people didn't communicate that they needed it it's that they didn't used to need it now they do. And I think we're going to see a lot of that over the next month or two sadly and so we have enough in supplies that we have that so I think at this point we've pretty much gotten to every family that we know of. But every time we say that you know someone pops up and we had a family reach out because they were moving within our catchment area. But they weren't going to have internet set up for the next month and of course we're like we're certainly going to give you a hotspot until you need it. So we're we feel like we're in pretty good shape with that same with Chromebooks where I think at 400 Chromebooks are a little over 400 Chromebooks that have been delivered for K to 6 students so that part has slowed down a little bit. I think and because most families have what they need on that actually oh that reminds me thank you Mr Harrington that reminds me the last update I was going to give is that right before the closure we'd collected but our schools had collected books and we were going to do not a book swap but just make books available for students who might benefit from having more books in the home for families. And so then obviously that went on pause because we were closed but Kitty Richardson and some other staff a library to Fort River. Lanny Blackman as well have organized a way at the food pickup sites to offer deliveries and offer those books to families so that they can have more paper books and you know we waited the you know we went through all the public health pieces of waiting a certain amount of time since hands have been on them. And working through all the public health pieces of how to make them available in bags so that people aren't sifting through books like it's a library or a bookstore. But that will this week or next week excuse me going to be at all the different sites with volunteers so that more families in addition to getting their food if they want I think this week was a notification week so at the food book up site at the food sites. They're letting people know this is coming next week and they can pick up books and we can supply those because they've just been literally waiting around for to give them and we finally feel like it's been long enough and we've got the public safety public health pieces worked out. So I apologize for not sharing that earlier in the update but thank you Mr. Harrington for prompting me. So I have a question about all of the so going back to your first part of the update of the roadmap for reopening. I found that document to be really easy to understand and easy to follow so maybe in our in our minutes it would be nice to share that link. So that folks can see that because I'm sure not everybody took the detailed notes list of items that you went through. But I did have the question about the planning and there's you know some bit that's going you know as you mentioned and described can happen now and we're going to get guidance in late June and potentially additional guidance in August. How does the timing and the in the amount of work and the numbers of people that have to be involved staff and educators to develop those plans how much of that can fit into our normal sort of work work schedule in terms of the calendar versus is there additional time additional effort as a you know how are we going to So just one clarification when you say our is that tell me what you mean by our like you know our schedule. Oh the the district the district calendar. Okay. Okay. If presumably if there's if there is a staff that need to be involved or educators that need to be involved but have a have a longer summer break for example. Yeah so yeah we will probably need to bring some folks in over the summer for that and pay them at a title to a or other funding sources to be able to finish that there are the facilitators of the groups almost exclusively our full year employees. But I think you're absolutely right that it will involve more than just full year employees to be able to work on this and and again the goal of having guiding documents is that it makes it a whole lot easier once we get guidance from Department of Public Health CDC the governor to fit in within guiding documents. If we wait to receive the guiding documents the concern that I have and many and other districts are doing similar work as well I mean there's never been more collaboration between superintendents in the last two months. That's for sure is that if we wait till the guidance comes out what we've learned multiple times over the last couple months has been you'd have no time to actually implement. So you know that that's the thinking is creating what what some guidance documents for us. I mean I pick on the chairs in a classroom but it's a really acute issue with the elementary level because most of our kindergarten first grade classrooms have tables they don't have desks. That's a really open question right now whether we would come back with tables versus deaths. Another open question is most of our elementary classrooms particularly those at Fort River and Wildwood which have less real estate usable real estate in the classrooms have secondary work areas in the room so it means the desk or tables are closer together because you have a secondary work area. That's a really open question whether that's possible and has tons of instructional implications right so whatever the guidance is from you know the folks that authorities that are going to give it we can safely presume that it's not going to be business as usual in the fall and that there's going to be some social distancing and physical distancing guidelines. So we want to be thinking ahead of time about what are the educational implications as well as the facility management implications we have a whole lot of desks at the barn right outside Fort River that no one's you know looked for in a while so we don't want to be getting a guidance in mid August and scrambly we want to actually have some guiding principles that help us think about long before we get the actual how many feet it is and whatever they'll say so we'll be able to be agile and receiving that guidance and implementing. Sorry that was a long-winded answer for I could have just said staff may have to come in over the summer and we'll compensate them from title two way that probably would have been an easier answer. No that was the detail was was was super helpful to hear sort of how you're thinking about it and how you're approaching it. And I have another quick question you mentioned and then I see your hand the spitzer and you mentioned we have very few students or families that that are not that we haven't heard from and I was just wondering if you could give us sort of an estimate of sort of families families where or students that have disappeared or you know in terms of how many families are we engaging and reaching sort of with the So at the elementary level you know I just it's such a small number I want to be unidentifiable I don't want it to be identifiable but I could count the number of families on one hand that we haven't made contact with and we do have next steps to family centers working on this in the email my inbox which I've read because it came right for the meeting started from Dr. Guevara on some next steps for families in that boat but at the elementary level it's it's low single digits. I just wanted to follow up on your question which is that I I appreciated the roadmap and I also looked at that document you said and I was trying to track it down in your email but the process mapping document that you said website that you sent and it had a whole piece there kind of on the school committee governance piece of it and I'm assuming that's different from the governance group that you were referencing in your update right now but I think it would be useful to kind of know how we can be supportive and also on which pieces of this and I'm sure you there to be determined but to the extent that you can you kind of where we're going to be and by we ending the school committee stepping in and supporting this work. I think if I could jump in I think it's a huge piece and I'm glad you raised it one of the things that I say and every time this topic comes up which is often is there's two things there's public health and public confidence and one without the other won't work and you know I won't say they're equally important respectfully I think the public health is more important public confidence but we're not going to open school if those those both of those aren't in place and I think the public meetings in the nature of school committee is really where a lot of the public confidence on the family side comes in I think the staff side is is that's more my job. And so I do imagine that when we get to late June early July we probably will need to have more meetings than we would typically have in the summer. I apologize for that in advance but I think it's going to be really important for us to have conversations and perhaps even forums where families can voice their concern concerns and you know I think much like I talked about with distance learning I think this is another one we're going to see a sharp split in the families in the community like in every other community next fall. If assuming schools do reopen in some way shape or form there's going to be families that want to come in and they want to have school as they're going to feel safer sending their children to school and perhaps question some of the safeguards that we put in place. There's going to be families who think the safeguards are exactly the right thing and there's going to be families who don't send their children back. That's you know that I can predict safely everything else what it's going to look like I don't have a good prediction on but that I know and so I think if you look nationally as well as locally you'll see a large disparity on how people view even just the physical and social distancing guidelines that have been in place that don't relate to schools and so I think the best thing we can do is engage as many people as possible on what our plans are how we'll adapt them because it's going to be a number of what happens when we have a student if we have a student who test positive what happens if we have staff member who test positive does that mean school closed that mean classrooms closed right the number of variables and planning aspects that are needed are going to be really high and I do think the school committee is a great vehicle and I think that's part of the governance piece is to question you know all the things that we're doing contribute to the plans that were developed and and also to be communicating and be a tool to community members can access in addition to staff if they do have concerns about one thing or another so I do anticipate us having more meetings over the summer I can imagine them being joint meetings frankly and I'm not going to get out of turn and I'm able to say that stuff a little easier than you because I'm not open meeting law doesn't apply to me in the same way it applies to all of you but I do think there's going to have to be active conversations and forums over the summer because the public confidence piece isn't going to happen from an email I just don't see it. Sorry, again, not a long winded response I'll get better. Any other questions or comments from the committee. Not seeing any. Great. Thank you very much long winded but but really helpful and important information. Thank you. Moving on to the next item is FY 21 budget update. So I'll start and then Dr. Slaughter is here so if there's questions I can answer which I'm sure there will be he'll be there to offer that. So, excuse me, I think there'd be kind of three big buckets are not big three buckets of information I'd like to share the first bucket is just what a level funded budget means for the Amherst public schools. And so I know we talked about before I've done some thinking Dr. Slaughter done some thinking I have communicated my thoughts to the town to excuse me the town manager. So most departments in the town receive financial finance committee recommendation for a 2.5% increase for the next for fiscal year 21. We all know that's not going to happen anymore. If you may remember that our memo said 2.8% increase, not 2.5 and the reason was is that we had a reduction in the number of the charter costs. And because those get paid through the town and then come to the schools has been many years we've had a 1.9% increase instead of 2.5 or 2.1% but since we had positive numbers as it relates to charter school enrollment. That point three was unrelated to the increase the town offered us support of the operating budget it's just because of the reimbursement for charter school costs. So my position, which doesn't have to be your position at all but my position is that a level funded budget for the Amherst public schools would be would take away the 2.5% and not the 0.3% because that's unrelated to the increase that we got from the town that's truly just a reimbursement. For costs related to charter school and in this case it worked in our benefit has been most years in the last five years or six year I'm actually since they started this so Sandy Poole is still working here so I don't know what year that was whether it was the sort of passing of the torch with Catherine the town meeting I don't remember what year that was but when they when they organize themselves where it went to the town. You know I don't think I'm trying to be sensitive to the town's fiscal needs but this seems unrelated to the fiscal needs this is just about reimbursement for charter school costs. So the difference would be at a. At a level funded budget that was a minus 2.8% essentially it's about 670 660 $670,000 cut at a 2.5% decrease it's about 596 or seven miss Dr slaughter worked out the numbers before I think I was off by 1000 it's one of those two. Percent cut six it looks like he's holding up 596 and I know that's not a huge difference but actually it is significant when you're cutting that much from a budget to $70,000 essentially. That's a staff member and so I guess I would like to share with this board that my perspective is that you know I'd like us to advocate around that that not to be insensitive to other town departments but the other time departments don't have this additional variable about reimbursement for charter school costs. That seems unrelated to the current budget situation so that's sort of the first amount of the first thing I'd like to share. Maybe I'll stop and take questions after each instead of going through. A longer spiel. I don't know if there's questions or comments on. What I'm sharing. Mr. Deming. I mean just briefly is it too early to say whether it's your sense from town's financial leaders whether that 2.5% versus the 2.8% is the more reasonable number for the schools to be proposing. I would suggest that the town manager heard my perspective understood my perspective I don't think it's been talked about at a town council I didn't watch just last night's meeting I doubt it would have been talked about. I wouldn't I want to be really clear I don't think he agreed to it or that was it but I don't think it was something that he took lightly or didn't understand my perspective on. Any other questions. The second piece that I'd like to talk about is just the great uncertainty of state funding right now and federal funding but I'll I think we talked about that at a previous meeting. Dr. Soter and I were in a conference call. I was actually Dr. Soter wasn't on this conference so I was on a conference call yesterday with the commissioner and other desi staff. It's been clear that they don't have a great sense of where the state's going to come down and I think my perception I don't have this confirmed is that the states waiting to see what the federal government does before they release any numbers because once they release the number that's the numbers people think about. And at least what's being discussed at the federal level is would have a significant impact on the state budget. So right now we don't have a great sense of even chapter 70 or any of those pieces. The guidance I continue to receive is a level funded budget from the town that could change there's a meeting on Monday night as you know of where there's going to be some guidance given but that's the way we're proceeding is with that level funded guidance. And at this point the way I'm proceeding and I will advocate for this in public if need be is that level funding for us is the 2.5 reduction that all the other town departments are looking at not including the point 3%. But you know as I get any information from the state. I'll certainly let you know but I did talk to Mr. Bachman as well and he's not hearing anything from his professional organization and I'm either I think everybody's sort of waiting on things. And I think the challenge that those of you who watched the budget coordinating group meeting over there heard me say is that we can't wait forever because we have to know how many sections of classes we're in we're going to have to play students we have to figure out special needs students and their IEPs and ELL students and their plans. We're not an organization that you know use the word before agile schools are like big districts are like big boats when you turn them it takes a while to get everybody going in that right and we don't have the flexibility. To be able to do that. We also have a contract state law that we have to let staff know by just June 15 about reduction in force notices and our association has been very flexible and working with us. But that's that's not something that can be negotiated out. It's state law that we have to do that. So we sort of that's actually a great segue to the third thing which is that we are actively involved in planning with staff. We did we had a staff town hall last week. We did a staff survey and budget thoughts if anyone wanted to share them. We had some good ones that we've started to implement including early retirement incentives offers for staff members because that could help our budget. We are looking about using a significant amount of our school choice reserve fund and you know we frozen the budget for essentially frozen the budget we call it a frost central purchases only. And that will help us in terms of next year's budget because there are some things that we can prepay with funds out of this year's budget. So we're doing everything we can do to maintain things because one of the things that is really hard and a lot of educational researchers starting to say this is we all know we're going to have costs that we don't we don't know right now what they're going to be next year. And so it's I understand the financial situation deeply and if people want us to run schools with their constraints they're going to put on them. There's going to be financial price tags to it that we don't know. One piece of good news is that the CARES Act the federal CARES Act will have funds come coming to us in the next probably for the next fiscal year we'll have a year and a half or two years to be able to use it. And it's based on title one allocation we get a fair amount of money from title one title one is a federal program that looks at poverty and associate and district size and then provides funding based on those two factors. So large urban districts get a lot wealthy suburban districts get very little and we're in the middle of those both demographically and then financially as well. So we will have some funding coming our way most likely the state put in their application last Friday they're supposed to hear back from the federal government relatively soon. All that being said, you know there's just some things that don't make any sense in this environment as it relates to budget doesn't make sense to increase class size. Because, you know, for sort of obvious physical distancing reasons, you know there are some classes frankly that we started to look at. Could we could we deal with one last section. And we probably could under a normal situation in this situation I don't know how it seems like that would be wildly inconsistent with the guidance we're going to receive. And there are a lot of other things that in a normal circumstance you say well you know if we had to cut we could maybe do without but you know we're being very cautious about that because we don't want to make financially driven decisions that actually are inconsistent with the public health the guidance we're getting and and that's going to be our conundrum from a financial point of view we're entering a school year where there's never been a school year that has more unknowns than next school year and so we're trying to preserve as best we can, as many staff as we can, knowing that we're going to have to be really flexible with them. So those that's the third bucket is just you know how we're approaching this budget to ask so we're we're in a lot of budget meetings will come back two weeks from tonight with a budget hearing. We'll release that to staff the Friday before in the public what the proposed cuts are so that people have an opportunity to weigh in. Before that budget hearing will also probably do a live session kind of like this for staff if they want to hear about it because we always you know our rules we always want to make sure staff know before the larger, you know community would have access that information. And that'd be our plan in this regard as well. That's Dr. Slaughter what did I miss. I'm not sure you missed anything. You sort of captured the conundrum we're in in a lot of ways that you know there's some things that are going to be in additional costs or additional costs will have next year that we, you know, can anticipate by virtue of the constraints will operate under but the funding picture is so unclear. You know I was reading something a little bit earlier today regarding just our legislator getting legislature getting together to even have meetings they do roll call votes on budget. They can't do that yet so everything's been informal conversations to point to this point so they're really struggling just how to do the mechanics of a budget at the state level much less under trying to capture the the idea of how much revenue they might or might not have. Miss Spencer. I'm just curious because you brought up the cares act and I know that part of the cares act is also that staff members who might have obligations to their own families are entitled to pay leave. Have we found that many families or potentially will when we'll. Sorry, but have we found that there are staff who have we had to put on leave due to their responsibilities and if so does that negatively impact our budget as well all of the potential liabilities will have through the unemployment or is that covered by the federal money. So I'm going to speak in a theoretical because that's health related so I can't really comment. I know you're not asking but I just have to be uber cautious. It's not just health it's like I have, you know, if you have children child care responsibilities there are reasons you could be invoking the need to take a leave as a result. And I'm just wondering if those I'm just anticipating in the same way that we're going to potentially have kids who opt not to come back in the fall that I can see that there would be staff members who choose not to come in back in the fall for multiple personal reasons as well. Yeah. Dr. Salar do you have any comments about the fall piece. I mean I think you know the short stories we haven't seen a lot of that in the spring but because we're not asking staff members for the most part I mean the vast majority of staff don't come into the buildings it mitigates some of that doesn't always feel like that. I'm sure for a lot of working families but the reality is it's not like you're leaving your children at home unattended. It just is very challenging to do your work at home which is a different scenario but I don't know if Dr. Slaughter thoughts on the potential liability and fall. Yeah I think that what I would suggest is that I mean a lot of it will depend upon how and you know of course this plays out and others. So what are the things we're asking of staff to do in other words how do we shape and function within school will make a big you know decision free for different people in different ways. So and you know the impact though is if you know if someone can't return under tight timelines to hire. You know the it's already been a sense that in the educational field there's a shortage of teachers anyway so I think you know we and many many other districts might be in a real crunch. So I think there's going to be a lot of creative thinking we're going to have to do around our staff and see if we can find ways to to fit them into a structure. You know given that we're doing school differently how we fit them in in a way that that works with their circumstances. And that's an additional complication to just the mechanics of actually trying to teach well and and provide you know the kids a safe environment etc etc. I have a question. I know we're not at the point that we're talking about. I mean there's so much uncertainty so I acknowledge and recognize that there's only there's only so much that we can talk about in terms of specifics at this point. So my question isn't about specifics but are there areas or sort of guiding principles. That you're working with or working within as as you looked at sort of where are the possible areas where we can go to find that. Ideally five hundred and ninety six thousand dollars areas that we don't want to touch or keep intact and keep going versus areas that you know literally like what are the guiding principles for how you're going about it. Sure. So you know I think as opposed to a typical budget year that the public health considerations are really significant so class size I mentioned as example. I think some of the other ones is is not losing flexibility for ways that students can be working in small groups. And you know I'm just being a perhaps unusually cautious with my words but I think you know I'm just aware that people could read into some of the comments I'm saying and try to forecast what potential reductions be in that that process and done. But but I think the large framing is how do we not make cuts. Make as few cuts as possible that are related to staffing in buildings for next year because of the public health pieces and how cuts that preserve don't make don't put on the list or the guiding principle of if we need to be more flexible with staffing to decrease class sizes at certain parts of the day. How do we maintain that flexibility. It's driving a lot of our decision making which I don't think it's like it's just an additional consideration that we didn't usually think about. So it is the public health pieces and the uncertainty are really pushing our thinking about what school will look like and it's helping pushing us to imagine multiple scenarios of what school look like and not lose the flexibility that certain staff members have to provide that flexibility. And I'm sorry I'm speaking a little bit but because I have been in a number of budget conversations. It's a totally legitimate question but I'm I have the curse of having all those things in my head right now and trying to make sure I'm not forecasting anything that that perhaps people would read too much into so I think always we're talking about you know the students and their needs as well I don't want to minimize that I think the other guiding principle I should mention is that in this district. Unless I'm convinced otherwise and so far no one's tried and no one's convinced me in our budget meetings I'm not interested in cutting social emotional supports for kids. You know and that's a complicated question because every staff member provides social emotional supports for kids and I want to be recognized that but we do have staff members in terms of guidance adjustment counselors you know staff school psychologists who have a particular area of expertise in that regard and again I'm not trying to protest them over anybody else and that's why I get really wary of even going down this road, but I think there is some reality that their skills that to be working with kids, many of whom experienced different levels of strain over this time period is going to be incredibly critical. And so, while they may or may not be able to provide the physical distancing kind of pieces that we talked about. I just, I don't know how you go down that road of suggesting that there's not need, there's not going to be social emotional needs that for students, more than we've ever seen before, and the professional staff who are the primary leaders and the experts in that area. You know, I just don't know how you can go down a road of reducing the supports for social emotional needs for students so I'm sorry that was a little intentional but you know I guess I struggle because if I go further I feel like I'm going further than I should. And I see your question, Mr. Deming, but a quick follow up on that because I know that I've been hearing from folks in the community and I think it probably may have started with the Gazette article. Oh yes. And so can you talk a little bit about Caminantes and how you're thinking on that? Yeah, so that happened I think because there was two budget, two items on the agenda unrelated last time there was the Caminantes about the lottery. And then there was an agenda item on budget, and the way the article read unintentionally juxtapose those two. We did get a number of emails as did the principal, you know, and the coordinator. So we are not at this point looking at Caminantes to be a casualty of this budget situation. Just plainly. I think it just because they were both on the agenda last time I could understand why people would think they were linked but they were not. Yeah. Thank you. Mr. Deming. Just a couple of comments on the question as to the 2.5% versus the extra 0.3 of the 2.8. I actually don't think that needs to be all that controversial. Once, once people understand what it is, I mean, it's, it's essentially the way I look at it, a bookkeeping issue, you know, of how the money gets moved around and I think the issue there when communicating to the public and town officials is, is just the wonkiness of that issue. So I think, I think if you find a good way to clarify and clearly state to somebody who does not think about all the funkiness of charter school funding and how that money gets shifted around. I think, I think that should be, you know, I'm pretty confident that everyone will be on the same page. I think that is, you know, when I'm looking at almost $600,000 in cuts, it just makes me, you know, it makes me think of recent history and I mean, we cut things two years ago. And so this idea that, and I don't think anybody here is saying this but I just think it's important to articulate in front is that there's no way to cut that much and not violate our guiding principles. And there's a reason why everything that's in the budget and that is currently funded is there. It's because we value it. And we would be doing more if we had, if we had more resources. So, you know, when those cuts come out and I'm sure you'll be as creative and efficient as possible, there is no getting around losing things in a painful way and that that's just going to be the nature of the beast. I rarely look this far back, but it's hard not to think about the last building project and the estimated $500,000 in operational savings that we would have been realizing next year and how that would have played into this situation. And, you know, I mean, only bring it up because I think when we have a rare opportunity to secure the financial well being of our schools in town, I think when we have that opportunity again, I think we need to take it. And so the other question I had, you know, keep talking about level funded budget from what I've seen in the paper at least that the town manager is talking about level funded as a best case scenario. So, to what degree that you're able to share now, do you have confidence that we are actually looking at only a level funded budget of 600,000 ish and cuts and not and not significantly worse. You know what I'm told so that's that's what we're planning for, you know, obviously when you make decisions when even come up with a proposed budget, you come up with many different scenarios that go well beyond the actual number because through discussion with principals and other district directors, you end up with a longer list that you then make some decisions from. That's still the guidance I continue to receive we'll get formal guidance on Monday from the town manager and town council and finance committee. If it's something radically different we're going to have to alter our timeline. But you know I keep coming back to the two key points one is, and again I said this at the regional meeting as well and it's a hard or maybe the joint meeting. We are in a competitive industry. And if we start reducing things that make us less viable to many families or less attractive to many families, our costs functionally increase right our deficit actually increases because families have other options that's the way education works in 2020. And so I really worry if we have to go too deep on cuts and I get the financial reality that if it happens it happens. It actually starts my concerns it would start to have a catalytic effect that would actually be increasingly negative for the schools beyond the actual cuts that would need to be made because I think it would only be get more cuts in the future. I think the second piece is that for the community reopen schools need to be open. I think you talk to any working parent with kids at home right now. And how challenging that situation especially young kids how challenging that situation is, and we are seen as I think rightfully so as a critical piece to opening, you know the economy which is obviously critical for the budget and other ways to do that safely where I don't want to be, I don't perceive that anyone's looking at us as a pawn of a larger economic interest at least in Amherst I can't speak to other areas or what people and other governments would say. So I think it's really critical that we have the resources we need to open in the way, because I think once we start getting to the place where we don't have that flexibility we need going into the school year. It's going to force some bad decisions to be made right about you know whether we're able to open how do we how can we reopen so you know. Again, you know been around this block a couple times with budget cuts I try to be very realistic and work with our towns. But I think there has to be a shared commitment that if we feel if the community feels like the schools need to open. You know roughly 600,000 other cuts we start going beyond that we're going to lose some flexibility. And when we do get guidance from the state and federal government and CDC and Department of Public Health, we need to be able to implement them with fidelity. And it gets back to that public confidence piece as well as the public health piece. And so again I'm not trying to say that we're any more important than any other town agency. I don't want anyone to perceive that all I know is as an advocate for schools and knowing what I know and hearing what I hear from public health folks. We're going to need to retain the vast majority of our staff to be able to provide that kind of support and open in the way that I think is in every student and staff members better that's interest. So I'll get off my soapbox but that's my, that's what I'd share at this point, in terms of advocacy to maintain at that level. Yeah, I'll leave it there. Any other questions from the committee. Not seeing any. And before we move off of the budget topic I do want to circle back to our timeline for for budget development and approval. And so we do have, as Dr Morris has referenced a few times, we have our joint meeting on Monday with the town council and the library trustees and the budget coordinating group where we'll hear financial indicators from the town which is guidance on where where the town budget will be heading. So that's on Monday, May 11. Tuesday, May 19. This committee is meeting again for a where we'll hear the detailed budget. Schools budget for ever schools and that will also be a hearing a budget hearing. So another opportunity for the community to provide comment on budget planning for the ever schools. And then our final budget is due to the town on June 1. And right now we have during the week of the 26 our budget vote and I think we just didn't get to clarity or final on whether that's going to be on the same day as they as another committee meeting and budget vote which is that Tuesday the 26 or if we want to have that on a separate day Thursday the 28. I don't think we need to decide that today unless folks have strong feelings about deciding that. Yeah. I'm not seeing anybody sort of passionately objecting to either one. Any other comments on the timeline for the budget. Just one more thing to add to my response to Mr. Deming's question is that it's really unclear when the states can have their budget set. So I do want to be realistic and I'm talking to staff a lot about this is that we're following the guidance we received from the town in terms of their timeline. All bets are off on when we're going to get real guidance from the state of how much is even going to come through in chapter 70 so we're going to follow and you know even when we talk to staff about the $600,000 cuts. So here we are right now that there's lots of uncertainty is very foggy ahead on the road. And we may be back at this at, you know, within that month because the state guidance is really different than what the town was expecting but you know our goals have a reasonable budget. So I say again maximize what our students need as well as what the public health needs are submitted to the town by June 1. But I think it's an important point Mr. Deming raised, you know, before about the uncertainty ahead. Any follow up comments or questions. I'm not seeing any. Okay. Thank you so we'll move on to our next item, which is warrant reporting. And I have many as the signer of warrants so I'm going to hold my other device up here so that I can read from here so I have just to prepare folks I have five that I'm going to be reading from. So, I authorized by my signature to payables in the amount of $62,538 and 60 cents for a warrant dated March 30, 2020, that included general fund expenses of $2,189 and 33 cents revolving fund expenses of $21,955 and 97 cents. And grant fund expenses of $4,357.06 and other funds $33,836.24 signed and dated by me April 15, 2020. And I also authorized by my signature to payables in the amount of $63,571 and 14 cents for a warrant dated April 13, 2020. This includes general fund expenses of $50,829 and 81 cents revolving fund expenses of $12,177 and 37 cents. And grant fund expenses of $563.96 and other funds zero signed and signed by me on April 15. I also authorized by my signature to payables in the amount of $62,000. Nope, this is a different $62,538.60 for a warrant dated also March 30, 2020, including general fund expenses of $2,189.33 revolving fund expenses of $22,155.97 and grant fund expenses of $4,357.06 and other funds of $33,836.24 signed and dated by me April 15, 2020. And I also authorized by my signature to payables in the amount of $91,935.97 for a warrant dated April 27. This includes general fund expenses of $91,935.97 as well as revolving fund expenses of $892.83 and other funds of $758.78 signed by me on May 4, 2020. And finally, I authorized by my signature on April 29. Payroll total wages subject to Medicare in a total of $670,651.16. So we haven't had warrants on our agenda for a while and because I don't want to read for five minutes like that, we'll try to do a better job of getting these on the agenda on a more frequent regular basis. Any comments or questions on that? Moving on, we have some gifts to accept this evening and they were included in our packet on page five. Mr. Harrington, would you like to make a motion? Well, I actually had a question. Is it possible to separate the gifts from the grant as far as voting or does it make more sense to vote on all of those together? I'll lift to Dr. Slaughter for Dr. Slaughter. So the grant should technically have to accept. It's more informational. So that is just for information purposes, actually accepting is the gift. So you can just do one motion for the gifts and that should handle it. Thank you. Okay. Mr. Harrington, would you like to continue to the motion? Sure. I move to accept the following gifts. ARPS PGO number 21, thank you. 212158 distance to support distance learning and internet access gift. A total of $23,000 from Linda Prothers to support safety latches for Crocker Farm preschool. Playground gates. Estimated at $200 from Martha over number 995740 Crocker Farm at principal discretion $10 from Jennifer van der Leen Leiden and family books for K to intervention students of Wildwood elementary school school. Estimated at $600 for a total of $23,000 and $10. Move by Mr. Harrington. Oh, Mr. Demling seconded by Demling. Dr. Morris. I just want to share that Linda Prothers is a longtime preschool teacher in the district who's retiring this spring and just lovely that she would make this gift but she has worked with many, many three, four and five year olds across many schools because the preschool wasn't always at Crocker Farm. And she's traveled to different schools and ending a really wonderful career so we appreciate the gift but I also want to take the moment to also appreciate her work and her career in the district. Mr. Demling.  This is, you know, we have this amazing grant from AEF and they're always coming in with grants. We have the the the fantastic distance learning fundraising for the hotspots of the PGOs. I did that we've spoken about before what Dr. Morris just spoke of and we have a $10 gift and you know these these gifts can be incredibly meaningful regardless of the amount you know it's it's really it's it's about the individual and and when it's coming from the heart as it so often does and gets to the schools it's just it's just really impressive we got a really nice letter that was shared from the vendor leading family about the books. And it's just so great, you know, in a time of obvious financial constraint, as we just spoke of to see this kind of outpouring from so many different aspects of our community is really heartwarming. Any other comments or discussion on our gifts. Otherwise, we'll move to a roll call vote. I'm beginning with Mr. Harrington. I Lord Lord I Miss Spitzer Spitzer I Mr. Demling Demling I Donald I carries five to zero. Does anybody want to make a final motion or next. Mr. Harrington I move to adjourn. Second. There's no discussion. So roll call vote. Mr. Harrington Harrington I Miss Lord Lord I Miss Spitzer Spitzer I Mr. Demling Demling I And McDonald I We are adjourned. Thank you all and thank you Amherst media.