As a preliminary matter, I am the chair of the Arlington School Committee. Permit me to will do attendance in a minute. This open meeting of the Arlington School Committee is being conducted remotely consistent with Governor Baker's executive order of March 12, 2020 due to the current state of emergency and the Commonwealth through the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. In order to mitigate transmission, we have been advised and directed by the Commonwealth to suspend public gatherings and as such the governor's order suspends a requirement of the open meeting law to have all meetings in a publicly accessible physical location for the all members. Public bodies are allowed and encouraged to participate remotely. The order which you can find posted with agenda materials for this meeting allows public bodies to meet entirely remotely so long as reasonable public access is afforded so that the public can follow along with the deliberations of the meeting. Ensuring public access does not ensure public participation, this meeting will feature public participation. For this meeting, the Arlington School Committee is convening via Zoom as posted on the town's website identifying how the public may join. Please note this meeting is being recorded and that some attendees are participating via video conference. Accordingly please be aware that others may be able to see you and take care not to screen share your computer. Anything you broadcast may be captured by the recording. All the materials for this meeting except any executive session materials are available on the Novus agenda dashboard. We recommend members of the public follow the agenda as posted on Novus unless I note otherwise we are now okay. Once we get to the first item on the agenda, the ground walls will be that I will introduce each speaker on the agenda after they conclude their remarks. I will go down the list of members inviting each by name to provide any comment questions or motions. Please hold until your name is called further. Please remember to mute your phone or computer when you are not speaking. Please remember to speak clearly and in a way that helps generate accurate minutes for any response. Please wait until the chair yields the floor to you and state your name before speaking. If members wish to engage in colloquy with other members please do so through the chair taking care to identify yourself. There will not be public comment on specific items. Each vote taken at this meeting will be conducted via a roll call vote. So let's come back over here and oh look you can't see me. Sorry guys. All right so let's do attendance. Ms. Exton is not going to be here for the first part of our meeting tonight. She is at the open house for her school but she'll be joining us later on. So after her Mr. Cardin. Yes I'm here. Dr. Allison Ampe. Here. Ms. Seelman. Here. Mr. Schlickman. Good evening. Mr. Hayner. Here. And from the AEA tonight we have Ms. Hernandez. Here. Great. And then Dr. Bodie. Dr. McNeil. Here. Mr. Mason. Present. Mr. Spiegel. Here. Ms. Elmer. Here. All right. And then we have from we have some of our principals and directors here so I'll let you guys introduce yourselves. I see as we get to specific items on the agenda. I also see Ms. Thomas from Metco. I know she's on the agenda. Can you hear me Ms. Thomas? Can you hear me? I can. Yeah perfect. Thank you. So the first item on the agenda is public comment and there were no sign ups for public comment tonight so we can move on to the fall opening update. Dr. Bodie and Dr. McNeil. All right. Thank you Ms. Morgan. This evening we have many of our principals here who are going to talk to what's been going well and what are some of the concerns as we have been implementing both the hybrid program and the remote academy. Ms. Fitzgerald could you let Madame Pierre Maxwell in? I think he's having trouble coming in. She didn't. Okay. For the same reason for the same reason Ms. Exxon needs to be late. Madame also needs to leave by seven so I'm going to ask her if she would begin and then we'll go to the elementary, the audits and the high school in terms of reports about the programs to date. Thank you Dr. Bodie. Good evening everyone. I am Madame Pierre Maxwell the principal of the Gibbs school and I'm here to report we had a very nice beginning with the students. The students were excited to start school and we were extremely happy to have them returning to the building and things went really smoothly with organizing the children, teaching them the new expectations. I think one of our biggest worries were how well were they going to do with the mask on and this has really been lovely. Just about all of the kids are quite adjusted to wearing the mask. We're not having any challenges with that. They're also receiving regular mask break in the morning and also after lunch and sometimes in the afternoon so this has been going really well. The remote learning classes and the hybrid classes are going well. Of course we have some challenges where especially the Wednesday we call Ms. Morgan calling it the magic Wednesday so we're still ironing out some of the challenges with the Wednesday working specifically with our band chorus and orchestra classes and trying to still figuring this out making it a smooth transition for the children from their regular call classes on that Wednesday so that's something that's still on the table. We're working with our staff, our parents to make sure that we bring clarity to that Wednesday in regard to the BCO. Otherwise things are going really well. We have our four-day students filing in. We had to make a few phone calls to tweak, make some changes but right now all of our special education liaison teachers and the TAs are assigned. We know specifically what are we doing with the children on their second two days in the building so it's working out well smooth. Is it perfect now? It is the first time we're doing a hybrid program in all remotes so there are random things that are being brought to our attention and we're working on making them better but otherwise overall I think the children are adjusting really well and the teachers are doing a good job getting to know them working on the SEL piece making sure that they are at ease and they are just learning as if we didn't have a COVID happening. Another plus is that the groups are quite small in the building so that's a nice treat that the children are able to get that individualized attention for the two days they are in front of the teachers and therefore are able to better access the lessons placed on their asynchronous day on Google classrooms. I think that's all I have to report for now. I'm sure something will come to mind when I hear the other principle presenting but it's going well overall. Ms. Morgan do you want questions to wait till the end? I think the other thing is well yeah let's do questions if there are specific questions from the committee about the Gibbs. I know I have one maybe others do if we can do those now so that we can bless and release her before seven sounds like we've got to we got to make sure that happens. Right. Okay so Mr. Cardin do you have any questions from it on Pierre Maxwell? I know not at this time. Okay Dr. Allison Ampe. Not at this time. Mr. Thielman. No I'm good thank you. Mr. Schiffman. No thank you I'm happy to bless and release her. Mr. Hayner. Not at this time thank you. Okay so I had a couple of questions one of them was Madame Pierre Maxwell if you could talk to us about the Wednesday schedule and the challenges with band chorus and orchestra which are overlapping on top of so for those who don't know I have two I have twins at the Gibbs who are both in band and the way that our Wednesdays work at our house is that during first and second period my oboist is in band and my non-oboist is goes to I don't know what he goes to like ancient save and science or something and then they switch and the trumpeter goes to band and he misses math and something else and I guess it seems like kind of a tricky way to do things I can tell you only from an end of two students but it's it's hard to miss classes it's hard to miss academic classes I feel like as a teacher it would be hard to be missing students for you know you don't know who you're going to get in math class and so it's kind of hard to advance the curriculum when you're missing kids so I guess I I'm curious about how why this needed to happen this way if there's anything that we can do about it I appreciate the efforts to make things available to students I appreciate the need to provide time for planning and professional development for educators at the end of the day on Wednesday so it's not a lack of I don't have a lack of appreciation for those things but to be running programs on top of each other is tricky especially for 11 year olds okay thank you for the question and I think in in thinking out loud yourself you have acknowledged some of the challenges of the Wednesday which is that in order to offer because first of all Wednesday is a half a day so we are doing live instructions virtually with the children from 8 30 until 11 45 so that that compacted the day in itself on everything that we can offer within that first half of the day so I think one things we weren't extremely clear about with the parents is that if you in fact select two for your child to receive Ben chorus or orchestra that means they would not have enough time to attend whichever classes would be put into those 20 minutes block in the morning so one of the the teachers they do all know which students will be in front of them and which children are attending Ben chorus or orchestra whether it's first second or third block because this is the three block of the morning so if you are in those classes they they run for 50 minutes and therefore within that 15 minutes there's about two 25 minutes class including transition so on Wednesday morning although we still have teachers who are teaching math science intensive and um English language or it's happening in the morning they are not introducing anything new to the children this is why when we presented that schedule the very first time we call it the it was called the wind block which is what I need or the mtss which is the multi-tiered system of support meaning that we would not introduce anything new during that time for the fact that we know the teachers do not have all the children in front of them by their homeroom and also this is the time where some of our kiddos who need extra intervention in math or in reading or otp t that's also the time where some of them are receiving that service so even if it wasn't just a bco issue the teachers don't have the full children in front of them because that's one of the day we selected for the children we need something that's different from the core curriculum for that to take place into so if you were to look at it from a different perspective the twins are not missing ancient sith they are selecting to go to ben or to go to chorus or orchestra and then so whatever it is that's happening in that 20 minutes in ancient sith in the morning will be posted in the afternoon and it's something they can facilitate it's something that's probably a review of something they've already seen or something that's not essential to what they should learn and know as part of the ancient sith curriculum I don't know if that helps so we're in conversation right now to figure out is it possible to offer ben chorus or orchestra in the afternoon this way the children would not miss anything at all even if that subject they're missing is not at the core of what they need to know it's not something new but they're not missing it at all so if we can move bco after school in the afternoon that's something we need to go back and perhaps have a conversation with the parents so they can be clear that that's the choice you're making and are you available to do so so that's something we are considering exploring it's not a done deal yet so but the teachers understand in the meantime until we figure it out they would not introduce anything new in that Wednesday morning and whatever it is that they do it's something they will post in our google classroom so the children can have access to it great no i mean i under i understand it's challenging it just sounds um i yeah i from from our perspective as from my perspective as a as a parent of kids who are doing this and thinking about the student the teacher experience of your teaching for 25 minutes and you got to get this thing up in the google classroom for the like who knows who you know the kids who weren't there and then you're managing the questions about that and um it it feels you know it it just feels like a lot so i'm glad to know that this is something that you guys acknowledges is not ideal um and that um you know you're looking you're looking into it you know i can tell you my daughter is at the oddison she has orchestra on her remote days obviously that's the best scenario um i can understand if giving staffing and you know we only have so many people who can teach these courses um that may not be possible at the Gibbs um but it does you know it does work really well because it gives her something to do on the days when you know when she's at home on her hybrid days so i'm glad that you're talking about it um it you know it's definitely a tricky piece and i think it's really hard especially with sixth graders who are 11 years old and they're really trying to diligently follow along with these new classes they're not used to changing classes and then to all of a sudden miss two or one and um it can be it just is it's kind of jarring so i i appreciate that it's something you're working on dr Allison amy thank you i was just going to point out that there has been a history of oddison doing band and orchestra at the end of the day going into after school so it it has been done before um like seven eight years ago at least um but but it has been done that way and for the same reason it was you know just a mess to get it scheduled in and have everyone be able to attend so thank you jane i have it sorry go ahead mr theoman um um my question is on on wednesdays how long how much time does it take to clean the building i know that's a cleaning day and the building's being cleaned how many um do you have any sense of how many people are cleaning it and how long it takes them to do it we have three custodians uh and i have not timed them to see what time they begin what time they end but i suppose perhaps a bit faster because most of the classrooms don't have teachers in them they able to move a little quicker yeah okay all right fair enough thanks that's all i want to know thank you you're welcome are there any other questions for um madame pierre maxwell and then we know she needs to go and look i need to look on the other page okay i think we're good thank you so much for coming uh to be with us tonight it's um we're it's really good to have you here so thank you you are welcome it's my pleasure thank you thank you so back to you dr bodie um i'm going to invite dr michael hannah and miss kate perez who is the principal hardy and dr hannah fratten to talk about um they're going to be representing their elementary uh colleagues and talking about what has been going well and what are some challenges we still face kate uh we're gonna go first i'm sorry if i forgot that sorry no i thought you were going to go first all right fair enough that i will uh i just wanted to first give recognition and and really um some unfiltered praise to all of the the faculty and staff of all of our elementary schools um their flexibility and professionalism and commitment uh in the opening of the school year uh it's just really um kind of took my breath away at different moments some of the things that they did with a smile on their face um it was obviously all in the joy of being able to welcome children back um i know that it's been a long time um and so uh i just want to recognize uh on behalf of all my elementary colleagues uh how how pleased we were to be starting again and especially on-site the on-site uh programming launch uh had just enormous challenges and variables that we never thought of um and we have quite simply launched really well on-site um there's uh complications as you all are really well aware of um i also want to give recognition uh to our students to our to our children that grades k through five um i'm not sure if any of them are watching tonight necessarily but uh maybe they can have it passed along to them by their parents how proud we are of them and how thoughtful they are in keeping one another safe and still having a great school day every every day on-site and um and i finally just want to thank our uh and recognize our custodial staff maintenance custodial staff uh who are also um bending and and uh not breaking uh under the stress and of this kind of new way of doing things and we so appreciate all of their energy and commitment uh again that the instructional programming has been uh launched well um we have uh gotten going uh in the schools quicker than i think we ever thought we would uh i meant passed on an email to the Stratton families that frankly i've just looked around after the first week and was surprised at how how well the engine was running and and uh again was just so delighted to be working with all the people i work with um we know that very well the the places that we're still working uh where we need to focus um we've brought it up uh here and in other contexts that uh that really is the remote side of the hybrid program um and i just want to be a little bit more particular about that and talking to my my principal friends this afternoon and and also in in uh jumping into classrooms that are in google classroom online on remote days i think that what i'm hearing that that families would like us to focus on is the uh structure and schedule and kind of to-do lists for the children while they're in uh that remote side of the hybrid program so we are putting a lot of energy into that um we have an enormous uh inventory now building up of resources from uh dr mcneil and the the directors of curriculum the instructional coaches they are working so hard to be filling out the remote side of the hybrid program and uh we will our next step and hopefully final step would be to operationalize all of those um uh wonderful resources and and dr mcneil just shared with us a an in-way to get our curriculum experts and teachers together to make that remote side of the hybrid program even more rich and mirror as close as possible uh the days that we have on site so we know that that is um indeed our our challenge and we're getting better every day but i just want to make it clear to families that we understand that the the most pressing petition is to have a structure and something that that families can easily understand as the the uh the game plan for each day that the children are at home so uh with that i'll let uh miss parrots talk a bit about other things that are happening at our elementary launch absolutely and i echo everything that dr hannah just said and you know i i i wish that what we could do is have more uh visitors in our school of course we can't do that so that you could see on site like dr hannah is talking about just how um easily it seemed that everyone fell into these new routines i think that that we were worried about the things like the mask wearing and the distancing and the the management of the people within the facility but it has not been the the stress and the strain that we thought it might be people have been very supportive and i think um all of the work that families did at home to help their children to be ready to come into that environment um really helped a great deal so thank you for that as well um there certainly have been some things that have been uh bumps along the way that we're working our way through i think um we knew that there would be challenges for sure and i think there have been some specific pieces of our plan for technology um that have uh been difficult but our technology department our tech people and our digital learning people have been working just round the clock so hard and the teachers themselves too helping to support the students and i think the family is also just really trying to lend their expertise to make the technology piece of this work um zoom was something that we were a little bit nervous about you know bringing in for for many reasons but then it has gone very smoothly and that's great and then other platforms that we are looking at different tools that we think will eventually help us to do our work more effortlessly have given us some some struggle there's a tool called uh seesaw that's especially um should be especially well received by um students and families in the younger grades when it is working appropriately um it wasn't working quite well with clever which is something else that was meant to be an organizational tool for all of our various learning platforms and so but i think that we're getting very close to making that all come together in a way that is um functioning in a way it should be i was able to see a fifth grade classroom use the clever um to organize all the different tools and the children when it was up and going for them it really was um very very helpful and i think it will help to streamline the process um quite a bit for everyone so that's great and we also we um distributed many many many devices the new iPads for the kindergarten through second grade the Chromebooks for the older students and i think that's really helping us a great deal to make sure everybody has access to the learning that is that is going on um so i think another thing to think about though too is um something that we have talked about here before which is our staffing and the work that we're doing to make sure that we're completely supported especially with paraprofessionals and other support staff at our elementary schools and we are making progress on that um we just had a brand new kindergarten TA started hardy on Tuesday and we welcomed her so that was great um but we are still moving slowly along um in that goal of being fully staffed and uh we're talking to each other as administrators really thinking about what we had shared with all of you about how you know at the beginning of November we were really hoping to be able to assess um our staffing levels and how that is affecting our programming and so you know we're having those conversations and we'll continue to have them and present them to you about how that's going um and about what level of staff is really necessary to safely um support the um school buildings you know maintaining that um that full level of programming all of the hours that we would like to be in school um so those are a few things that we're thinking about but also from the um the other in the success column just to end we had our first pto meeting at hardy last night and it was a great event um on zoom but a lot of people are able to participate and i think the enthusiasm for the school year is definitely there which is nice even though it is difficult and it is different at times and i think we worry about our communities um not staying connected um and maintaining you know that the remote academy and the children who were in person and all of the teachers involved and i think that the desire to maintain that strong community is definitely there um so we're feeling very optimistic about this year being a really positive one even though it is very different than what we expected so thank you thank you very much and i i also want to extend my appreciation to all the principals and administrators because without their hard work and planning we would not be in the position we are today so thank you um we also have um our two coordinators for the remote program here but i don't know if you would like to have questions uh for miss paris and dr hannah before we move to that let's do that that worked that worked well with the Gibbs right so let's let's try it um so mr cardin uh thank you thanks for the update um so i i guess we'll get into it in the hiring update a little bit more but i i'm still curious about how short we are as far as staff to deliver programming for the students that are in the building under the current hours because i understand that we're still short some t a's for special education um and then how are we anywhere on the map at all to adding back that 45 minutes for for the school day i don't know if we want to table that for the personnel update or discuss that now miss Morgan can i speak yeah please um we just this afternoon we made a commitment the elementary principal team to uh get together early next week to make a sort of a a sketch of what that tipping point would be um we have to sort of take a look there was a lot of shifting that still went on even as we began the year so we feel like as we're onboarding people uh we're now in a position where we can actually talk about that and and talk about uh what what kind of personnel we would need and even maybe even think innovatively about um paraprofessionals being hired in both the um the onsite programming and for offsite programming and just getting creative maybe even offsite programming for another school was with onsite programming for one school obviously we don't want to do onsite for two schools but um we're going to open all that up and and try to articulate where we feel like once we get to it would be a benchmark for us to to move to a full school day great thank you and my other question is um if we've talked with other towns about you know almost all almost all of the towns that are open and hybrid have the same basic schedule that we do except for Lexington so what what are they doing you know and I know some are very similar to us it's asynchronous mostly but how are they structuring those remote days perhaps in a manner things that we can perhaps have we talked with them to see if there's anything we can learn from them and they might be doing differently or or better yeah and that and that's a very good question and it's something that we do have conversations about with our colleagues in other districts quite a lot actually and I think from my perspective I feel that in Arlington we're actually trying to do even more than some of our colleagues in other districts are doing and trying to maintain at least some connection with a teacher in that live environment and and that's part of our commitment to that is really trying to maintain that and so but that's hard you know I know that there are a lot of districts where it really is completely that the students are just following along with the schedule on those days and there aren't the the specials like art and music and PE there aren't the live morning check-ins and those commitments to trying to have as we go through the year some service that might be happening for students who require that with a person and not have it all be recorded so I think we've created a challenge for ourselves but it's a really it's a good challenge it's an important challenge and we want to keep working towards that Dr. Hannah I don't know if you want to add anything to that yeah yeah I actually I I know I mentioned this in another context we were able to connect with an undergraduate school of education to onboard 19 undergrad pre-practicum students to help out and be just remote because they're undergrad students they're not going to be able to leave campus but they're in three days a week in the remote setting to connect with students and lead small groups and so it's that kind of commitment that we have to as much as possible get the kind of programming off-site that we have on-site and as Kate said I you know I've got a lot of different connections around the state and a lot of different contexts and that that is rare it is rare to be aiming for that because it's a it's a little bit elusive if not impossible but you know our fantastic faculties are up for it and really want to do it and they're really sweating it and we'll continue to do so I'm sure I would have one comment I've actually had questions from other districts asking how we're able to do what we're doing so actually I think what we're seeing is actually many districts looking to Arlington for how to program those remote days great thank you Dr. Allison Ampe Mr. Carton asked one of my questions so I've just have the smaller one I hear still of some families who are realizing they need either iPads or Chromebooks and I'm wondering I know we've had pickup days and everything but where where should we send them if we see someone who's in that position yes to us to the principals for sure because we still we continue to connect people um so just because distribution days have passed does that mean that that you're out of luck like just connect with us and let us help you and if you're having trouble with devices that you picked up or that you have already at home just let us know because we want to support you and making that work great thank you very much Mr. Feldman yes hi I want to thank everyone who's gotten the remote and the hybrid program off the ground this year I mean the parents that I'm speaking with generally are relieved that their kids are back in school whether it's remote or hybrid and so it's a good thing it's in this and I think people in general feel better I said we had a community relations meeting last week and I said there was a quote by Nelson Mandela that I like to refer to and that is that he said that it's it's always seems impossible until it is done and so I mean I think there were a lot of conversations this summer about how challenging this would be and how impossible it would be from from some quarters but you know I think it's not done yet I know it's not done yet but I do think there's a lot of good feelings on the part of people in the community because you kind of you know you're we're teaching we're learning kids are advancing in the curriculum so on behalf of lots of parents in the community I just want to thank you and thank all the staff for their hard work but you know the general a general concern that seems to come up in conversations with people has not been measured by any dad not been examined or there's no data to support anything at this point and I know we're talking about doing a parent survey later in the semester but is that the the Wednesdays could use more activities and then the days when the student the room when the hybrid students are not in class there are you know there are there are gaps first in some cases in terms of time learning time and so I guess I would just say that since this is a new model it's only it's less you know I know it's not even a month old I just would I would say my question is you know to what extent are you examining this what kind of data are you looking at to reach your conclusions about the extent to which students are getting a lot out of Wednesdays Thursdays and Fridays if they're a group or the other way and just I just maybe share a little bit about your thinking and how you're analyzing those days when remote students I'm sorry when it's the Wednesdays in general for students and then those days when hybrid learners are not in school Ms Morgan is okay yeah um yeah mr. Tim I think that we are looking happily we have a common platform in Google classroom I know that we've got something else going soon in kindergarten and I appreciate the the families of the kindergarten families for their patients but we looked to those now familiar frameworks to really take a look at both the course stream and then also the assignments tab as well just to see what it is and and again our our benchmark is really what it is that might happen on an on-site day you know and do we see there something that's mirroring the experience that you'll now we know that that's a little disingenuous we can't have exactly the same thing but the amount of rigor and the amount of demand and the amount of engagement that's what we're going to aim for and I think that one thing that we really kind of came to today just as an admin team is a more direct line of our instructional coaches being able to help our general ed teachers in designing that time Dr McNeil has helped to create and then a sort of platform that that's going to work I mean it was we we were just getting used to our instructional coaches and a parachuting into classrooms and and collaborating that way and and now here we are so I think that with the help of the coaches to really take all of the curriculum resources and say okay now this is this is how you make it into a rich couple of days for the students I think that we're really going to improve programming as the year goes on but just just know that it's clear to all of us that that's the the point of focus for for improvement going forward for sure and I think just to add to that too you know these these different digital tools that we've been to know that we've been developing but that we've been introducing I think that as those become things that the children are really engaging with and understanding how to use a little bit better and then also families at home too so we had received the feedback from people which I think is is great feedback that families would like to have a little bit more you know pd of their own on this kind of work and so understanding like how do I use this what is the purpose of this as far as the digital tools is concerned as something that's being developed now and will be coming out to families and and introduced to families soon too but I think also that's also been the same for all the rest of our curriculum too and that that's something that families have asked over time is really help us to understand like what is the objective of this work digital or non-digital what where are we going with this and that that will help us to be able to support students too so you know really being those teams that are working together to support the kids I think it really is all going to start to to click more into place I'm going to ask a hypothetical question always dangerous but let's assume that you know we could work out that everything is is good from a safety perspective and a health health and safety perspective and somehow we can work out any issues about distancing would you would you ever envision would you ever would you ever recommend to Dr. Bode this is to Dr. Hannah Dr. Peretz if you would ever recommend bringing back say all K-1 and K you know K-1 students or say you know kindergarten first grade maybe even second grade would you ever kind of bring would you ever make a recommendation or kind of think or is there a task force that is thinking about can we bring back all of the kids those who want to do remote continue remote but all the kids who want to be in person at some point this school year those grades K-1 and 2 is that is that ever like if you're talking about that what do you think about that it's too early in the year to make the recommendation superintendent would you ever do that well it's interesting because those hypotheticals are things that we talk about all the time all the time and it has always been our goal honestly to have as many students in the building as we can and I think that you know we've created a plan that is really dedicated to meeting the needs of our students throughout this time of of crisis honestly and I'm so incredibly proud of what we've done together so all of us as a community home and in school and I think that that but that's what we want like we want kids back in school I mean this is going well and and we can work through our problems but we really do want them to be back in school so I think as soon as we are able to do that safely obviously safety comes first we're going to want to do that and some kind of phased approach maybe what we do and maybe the younger kids are the kids that need to come back to school sooner but it's definitely too soon to actually entertain that kind of conversation right now yeah I know I just want to know you're thinking that's but yes if you could be a fly on the wall of our conversations I mean that we look at this from every angle and and you know look ahead as much as we can but that's been one of those tricky parts is that you just really can't anticipate what's going to happen so I've been thinking a lot about flies lately since last time I know right and thank you for calling me Dr. Parrott's but I'm not quite the doctor yet maybe just make that happen by vote here I guess thank you okay all right thanks that's all my questions appreciate your time uh mr. Schuchman yeah thank you and I I like uh mr. Seelman's idea of enabling us to confer doctorates I I think that we're just an outstanding institution that'd be kind of fun my question really is sort of the flip side to what mr. Seelman asked because one of the biggest concerns I had was in terms of the quality of kindergarten in that what we need to do for safety and distancing is contrary to a lot of the things that I'm used to seeing in a really well-run kindergarten class so can you describe to me how things are working in the context of kindergarten and if any of the theoretical discussions of bringing more kids in more often also included maybe doing half day rather than full day yeah mr. Schuchman I'm so so glad you asked that we always have a particular care and concern for our youngest learners and you're quite right that that our five-year-olds our kindergartners typically are very much interested in being in each other's company very physically close to one another that's just part of their developmental path is that they are as we know from our programming commitments and tools of the mind that the children co-regulate one another and are in close proximity to do that as we laid out the kindergarten classrooms and pulled those trapezoid tables apart from one another we really were in some ways doing the exact opposite of what the tools program and responsive classroom would have us do having said that another part of that developmental stage is really interested in following rules and really interested in helping their friends follow rules so in many ways honestly you want to have a kindergarten classroom writ large in the in the society as far as mask rules and staying apart from one another in many ways their impulse control is in in certain you know contexts like this one stronger than even our older students in that it's made clear to them what's safe what's expected and they typically are ready to follow that but i have to say in watching the essential programming happening most notably early literacy and early reading teaching going on live i am so happy that those children are there to be receiving those first stages of phonological awareness and phonics from our teachers and and i know that we're doing a just a i know my job i met with our the stratum remote kindergarten teacher today talking about how we can make that happen via the screen as well just a lot of commitment from everybody most notably the the five-year-olds themselves uh in making those classrooms run well yeah i just i would also say that to that point uh given the developmental instincts and urges of uh kids of that level uh it's going to be interesting to follow these kids up through school to see what the difference in in the expectations it within the kindergarten classroom are going to have uh developmentally and in terms of social emotional well-being for these kids as they're moving forward uh obviously we are where we are because of the uh pandemic and we can't change that reality that we're operating under but it's there's going to be a lot of good research coming out of that but thank you for your thoughtful response uh miss uh parrots i'm sorry i think i stepped on you as well no i was just i was just going to add on that it within the remote academy classes and when the children are at home um on the hybrid days and they're interacting on the screen i think that you would be incredibly impressed with how well the kindergarten students are doing with all of these things that we would also be teaching them in kindergarten being able to take turns being able to listen being able to follow directions being able to share and practice speaking um i i really it has been a very short amount of time and i think they're doing a really great job so it will be interesting though to see in the long term i think especially that idea of the screens with all the research that we you know we've known for years about screens and development um on young children and so i think finding the balance between the screen and the off the screen learning is going to be something that we need to to keep being um paying attention to as we go along too it's very interesting the whole online environment does provide a fairly strict structure in terms of things like mute buttons and taking turns uh if only we had that at the last presidential debate thank you very much um mr heiner thank you all for the amount of work you've been doing mr carden touched on one of my questions as well we'll get to it in the hiring could either one of you or both of you speak to that 45 minute block what your expectation is a principle is for the teacher to be providing for the students and what the teacher and or you are expecting the students to be providing during that time um so that's i think an example of the the piece of developing those tools that's going to be very important those digital learning tools because it will be an excellent way to continue and talking about data right to continue to be able to really track the progress of the students and where the students are are going in the various subjects but it is not our expectation with those 45 minutes at the end of the day that um there's an additional because what they are practically speaking remember is a prep period for our teachers um and so it's not a time in which we expect the teachers to be prepping for their prep is what we would talk about in schools right so so the we also don't want that time to be something that is not meaningful for the children so obviously we want it to have great purpose so the development of those tools i think is really going to be the key to that success but also as we keep going especially with our older children you know they'll be developing um uh or the teachers will be developing work that will be ongoing with them so so for example in writing you know you're continuing on with a piece of writing that you've started or there's a project that you're working on or you know you're reading something and responding in a journal like we want to be able to encourage the children to be more independent in the continuation of their work as well and then also not relying so much on their families at home to be able to help them to do that work so i think it's still the work in progress but they were headed in the right direction with it we really we want to be able to get to the point that we don't have that 45 minutes at the end of the day because we have a full day right being in school um but right now that's that's uh at least my thinking on that particular part it happens with the wednesdays too honestly because on the wednesday we want to be able to develop those things also um but we also want the children to be able to have a chance to um you know have lunch right and then be able to go into a little more work before their day is over correct me if i'm wrong but in the normal world that period would have been when the students were either going to art music pe or something of that nature uh and there would be no requirement for the teacher to have any preparation or follow-up or anything of that nature so i understand that and i'm not trying to put anybody on the spot here just so that i am trying to get forward you folks an opportunity to let the parents know what is expected of the child going forward during that time uh thank you and i guess it just as an aside too we have created a challenge for ourselves in in that because it could still be specials right that we're using and finding a different way to support the children in doing that but there's a piece of the plan in which having art music pe enrichment activities um and instrumental music starting next week too which is great an amazing program we have going in those days when the children aren't present it is you know it really is creating a level of planning that is tricky for us as administrators but it is enriching those experiences when the children are home so just a little aside great um so i had just a couple of questions so for the um for the hybrid students on wednesday what is their release time do they get out at 11 or 11 30 or somewhere between 11 and 11 so because i guess it seems as though my understanding is is that the remote academy students on wednesdays are done with their synchronous day at 11 30 yes we're nodding we're shaking we ask okay and and the hybrid students who are at home on wednesdays are done at 11 no it should also be 11 30 so if we're having some yeah if we need to continue working on the scheduling and the clarification of the scheduling and that's certainly something that we should and i think it is i think it is something that we need to continue working on that all students are uh they started 8 30 or do they started 8 10 they started 8 30 elementary students started 8 30 to 11 30 no shaking they started to 11 30 everybody is in some kind of synchronous thing okay and and those those are i'm sorry miss marganus okay go ahead um the uh you know the the balance of uh synchronous like real time the teachers face on the uh screen um definitely a big part of that wednesday morning um but it may very well be you know just just so parents know that he won't you may not see that teacher's face right up on the screen right to the stroke of 11 30 they may have charged the students with something um that which ought to be taking them to 11 30 they're almost all i mean what's funny is that that many of our faculty elect to come in uh just because they stay in in in school mode although they're obviously not obligated to do so and uh when i'm there i see them you know beginning to kind of filter out at 11 30 i think that what i when i'm there what happens is that they circle back to the children uh right at that end of the day uh collect things do a closing circle that kind of thing but uh but yeah that that should be communicated out a little bit better than i guess yeah i i don't know it just seems like it's it i think that it's fine i definitely want our teachers to have the flexibility to run that time as they would in their classroom so i'm not looking to like dictate it it's just i think for those of us you know when we're at home um you know what i've heard um it hasn't been my experience but what i've heard from others is that um they just they really need to know what that piece on wednesday looks like like and and you know obviously it starts for everybody at 8 10 it ends at 11 30 give or take right um so i think that would just be that would be helpful um and and also just in terms of talking with families about you know what learning time looks like it's interesting we've started to get more emails about that people have are like they're they're like now keyed in to this wait wait wait like what's the actual learning time like when when are we doing this and how are we meeting our our obligation on that so um that's you know we we have an extraordinarily engaged and um capable parent community in arlington that we're very lucky to have and i think that um they're you know they're seeing a lot they're seeing a lot of this because a lot of it's happening in their homes um so i think you know we want to just you know make sure that we are able to articulate that and i think that that's happening um and i think also you know touching on this idea and and miss parrots talked about it a little bit too this idea of what the expectations are at at on the 145 releases for the afternoon at the elementary level um so that people can understand what you know what that looks like um i think will be helpful i know that in our house our second grader is told during the the wednesday morning the expectation is that this afternoon you're going to do this this and this um so you know i mean at least he's been told which is great so i think we want to just keep you know keep working on that i think that's something i assume that we're going to have some kind of back to school night remotely of some persuasion somehow which is great and i think that would be something maybe that would be good feedback for people just to help everybody understand what the expectations are so those are all that's all of my questions anybody else we good thank you very much and um uh sam carousos and evil liner are both here tonight to talk about the elementary remote academy program hi good evening i'm evil liner one of the two administrators of the remote academy and thank you so much for having us on tonight to talk about how the start of the school year has been so sam and i have been very pleased with the start of the school year um we're very proud of how invested the remote academy staff has been in getting to know students and delivering quality instruction even within the challenges that they face being a remote teacher with technology as our primary vehicle for interaction and instruction in the remote academy the ups and downs with technical issues have seemed to be improving each week and our technology department is working overtime to support all of us we've seen improvements with access to and use of the digital tools that have been provided for us by the district and students are becoming more familiar and independent with the technology with that said age and grade level differ obviously in their ability to be fully independent as we would expect um from the feedback that we've got via emails from many families um students are engaged happy to go to class and already are getting into the routines of being a remote student so families recognize and appreciate the hard work that teachers have put into delivering remote instruction and also teachers have reported that families have been so supportive of their efforts and families themselves have been doing a really nice job of helping their students be a remote learner so overall in the three weeks since we opened the remote academy things have run very smoothly given the fact that we essentially opened a brand new school with 875 students in 40 different classes in a remote environment so we're actively working on smoothing out any of the inevitable kinks that have arisen in the opening of the remote academy so Sam is going to speak a little more about some of the challenges that we're facing so thank you for having us tonight I'm Samantha Carrestes the other co-administrator and as you can imagine with this large school made up of people from seven other schools we've had issues around communication and coordination you know we have seven awesome elementary schools and the administrators and teachers work really well together and so now we're creating this other entity that needs to kind of get in its own groove and we are learning every day about things that work and don't work and we're looking at the systems that we have put in place and trying to figure out how to make improvements on those as you can imagine it's challenging to bring cohesion to the eighth elementary school when it's comprised of the others but we are learning every day we're taking a lot of feedback from not only staff and family but we're talking to our colleagues about how we can continuously improve those systems another issue that we have taken on is distributing materials to the 870 plus children and that has been a challenge and we have a system in place and we did it yesterday and there was a lot of good with it and a lot of kids got what they needed to get and it may not be the most efficient system so we have to again look at feedback from families and from teachers and coaches who all worked really hard to get this system in place so we will tweak what we have in place and be better next time but I understand that everything you know went pretty smoothly yesterday so I want to thank everybody that helped make that happen and then as the fully remote elementary school you can imagine that we've had some technology challenges I will say that the children have been helping figure some of that out they've helped their teachers which has been wonderful but I just have to commend our IT department they have been incredibly responsive to our needs and whether it's via a phone call or a text or an email they've been right there to help us and I know that they you know that's been challenging because they're trying to service everybody in the district so we are continuing to make improvements on some of the challenges that the families and the kids are having and I feel really positive about the just the confidence that the kids are building and the teachers are building and how much support you know Susan Bisson and the other IT folks and digital learning people have given everybody in the community so you know we've started this new school and it's it's we're in our third week and I would say that I'm incredibly proud of the teachers and their hard work and the the rest of the staff the children and the families so you know we we have a lot to celebrate great thank you um are there any questions for about the remote academy from anybody I I just had one uh so I see Dr. Allison Amby I'll ask mine first and Mr. Slickman um my question was about um if Dr. McNeill or anybody had an update on what sort of system we're going to use for elementary notifications in lieu of email do you have an update yet on that Dr. McNeill or is that still in progress? It's still in progress um I'm having conversations with Dr. Vody and I uh Dr. I mean David Good who is our uh the head of our technology department for the town and for the school and uh so yes so we're it's a it's a we're going to have those conversations. Super I I do think that it's going to help out some of our teachers too because what happens is is because we don't get notifications and elementary of what goes into Google Classroom that I find that it seems that what I'm hearing is that teachers are are posting in the Google Classroom because that's what they're told and they need to do so the kids can click the links but then they're also having to duplicate that effort by emailing all of us because we don't see it um so anyway the sooner we can get some resolution or some progress and momentum on that um I'm I'm certainly looking forward to it so uh absolutely yeah Mr. Slickman uh thank you very much I mean there there have been two questions regarding remote learning uh that the people have had and I'd like uh the folks to sort of talk about this a little uh one was addressing the uh quality of instruction that would occur under remote learning given that uh we were experiencing difficulty getting up and running at the onset of the epidemic and second is how are we providing for social emotional learning within the context of the remote learning uh environment. Well I can talk a little bit about that um just to uh as we looked and planned for the opening of school our uh coaches and our curriculum leaders integrated SEL activities within their lessons in order to start the school so everybody came up with like a 10 day plan um before like and still doing things that are related to the content but a lot of the activities are geared towards building that social you know focusing on the social emotional well-being of students and and creating a classroom culture um so you know a lot of that has been taking place we're at the point now we're going to start you know diving into the like I said before we're still doing you know content but you know having the SEL integrated in that and then you know now we're you know getting into the units uh in the various content areas so we have integrated those activities in order to create a crap classroom culture still connected to the content but you know you know leaning towards those you know social emotional um competencies that we want students to have moving forward like creating relationships and I was able to actually look at some of the feedback that Eva and Sam were able to garner from their the teachers in a remote by choice academy and what I think is happening even though that students in certain classrooms maybe from different buildings they're actually finding you know it very beneficial that they're meeting new people from other schools so you know the relationships that are being cultivated now they will revisit later on when they all come together in the at Gibbs and onward right so they get the Gibbs and then until they graduate they'll all be together because that's the way the structure of our middle school works and definitely our high school so I think that you know I think we've done a very good job of creating those classroom cultures addressing our SEL the social emotional well-being of students and it's not going to stop we're still you know integrating those type of things into our content area lessons as well so there's a lot of integration going on there I don't know if the principals want to add anything or one thing that I would like to add just about addressing the quality of instruction I think that the teachers have learned a lot from last spring their experiences and they've had time over the summer to learn about the tools that they are using this year to deliver instruction and now they have colleagues to work with and we're meeting with them in grade level teams so that they have an opportunity to talk and learn from one another and really share resources so they are sharing best practices with one another and developing some really dynamic lessons that they are delivering in their Google classrooms and on Zoom lessons so I think it's it's a very rich learning environment oh let me just say that I've heard from a couple of parents who are in the remote academy and they've been thrilled with the instruction and the connections that they've been making within that context so job well done it seems thank you Dr Allison Ampe thank you um just to speak to Mr to Dr McNeil's point um my daughter was at Thompson and at Stratton when Thompson came and stayed there while Thompson was being rebuilt and yes those you know she made a lot of friends and they all had fun when they went to middle school together writer um so my question was I'm wondering how things are going for special education students who are in the remote academy um and is there anything that can be done to improve it to improve their experience so um the I think that the SPED services have gotten off the ground and the liaisons have developed their schedules we are now I think finally fully staffed with teaching assistants for the special education program um so students should be receiving their services and um I think that everything is in place now so it should be going pretty smoothly and I think I would just add that um you know the remote setting the remote classroom is different than our building based classrooms and so delivery of services particularly inclusion services and things look look differently and I think what's what's working is that people are adjusting right we're learning about the setting and what's going to work best for individual kids and we're making adjustments based on again what Sam had said earlier best practice so I think that um I've been as Sam said we're getting off the ground and um what I've been very proud of with the staff is the flexibility to adjust and to be able to sort of take the feedback from kids and families and adjust and um provide the services in a way that makes sense given our remote environment thank you great anybody else on that one Mr. thank you um thanks very much for the presentation could you just um to give context here give some numbers how many students are in the remote academy at the element at the elementary level and how many teachers are teaching in it yep um we have 40 classroom teachers and um we have it's the number I believe is 875 but we have students who are shifting from the hybrid model to the remote so that number is growing a little bit um as we uh you know have more students join our program um so we have 40 classroom teachers we have three special liaisons who each um who have five TAs that are working with them currently as as Sam said we've we've truly just been hiring people in the last couple weeks to round out that program um we're still in the process I know you're talking about hiring a little bit later but we're um we also have kindergarten TAs we we need to hire a couple more of those um but that is and then we have two reading specialists as well that are strictly devoted to the remote academy and um the total elementary school population Dr. Bode would it's I don't have it up the top of my head uh I can't yeah uh it's a little over 3000 yeah so it's about okay and then so so I have you know just anecdotally I have uh spoken to uh many elementary school parents um who have expressed a great deal of satisfaction with the remote academy so congratulations to to both of you uh for your work and and the 40 teachers and the uh all the TAs and obviously they're the ones doing the work along with all of you my question to you and I've actually talked to um at least one parent uh that one one family that I know that is going from uh hybrid to remote and I'm wondering if you could sort of speak to what you're hearing anecdotally from the families that want to switch um I think circumstances and homes vary um and so um I think some families have wanted to try out the hybrid to see how it worked and just weren't necessarily comfortable perhaps with the level of interaction um other families you know um health health situations in the home changed and so they're they're not able to send their child into school anymore so it's really a mixed bag I think yep okay I I just want to not be so any trend okay the only thing that I would add to that is that the remote learning environment is really challenging for some children and so I I have talked to some parents who um it just it is not tenable so they have asked to move their child back to the hybrid model just even have some in person experience yeah there's both there's there's switches go I know there's switches going on both sides um so to that point what is our uh I should know this and I'm sorry I don't uh I know off the top of my head what is our policy on on people wanting to switch from hybrid to remote to hybrid do we have any we don't have deadlines do we are we flexible on that or are we what's how's that work well we are both flexible and have deadlines we have a form that parents uh need to complete yeah and we can perhaps have a two week admit them to turn around possibly it can go faster but the important thing is on a space availability basis yeah and we do have um this is something we looked at with the remote academy we do have some classes that couldn't have other students but I will say this that it's parents should not think that they would be able to be placed in a class with with it was in their home school yeah though we only have about half of that poverty that's entirely uh entirely school-based and the same and when you want to go from remote to hybrid it's on a space availability basis as well because it's only so many students we can have in classroom yeah thanks for clarifying that because people have asked that question um and so I mean I would just I think you know my observation of this is that it's just what miss liner said is that it is it's situational every household every household in Arlington every household probably across the country is a little bit different the dynamic is a little bit different for some families remote works great just because of the setup the support um all sorts of different and you know obviously people have health concerns that are real important to consider but um so I I think the answer that I'm finding and thinking about this is that every every family situation is different and people are trying to figure out what to do what's best for their family so thank you for your work and for this information appreciate it thank you um so Dr. Bodie what I'd like to do just because um of of timing and because of miss Thomas's schedule so we've done a bunch of our we've done our um done our elementary we've done our elementary we've done our we did Gibbs we did elementary we did remote academy we still um have the oddison and then is Ms. Tivan gonna speak to the high school is that the plan yes okay um but I'd like to just move um the opening update for metco up now so that miss Thomas can provide us with her information um because of her schedule so um and then come back to um the oddison and the high school um hello thank you thank you for moving me up and um I appreciate that and thank you for letting me be here today to present I did do a PowerPoint which would probably go a little bit quicker um so I don't know if I can share my screen um I think you should be able to down at the bottom oh yep I should all panelists okay thank you again thank you for having me here today that I could present I'll just present quickly about what happened during the spring closure and then I would go into um what we have done to help with reopening so for the 2019 2020 there were 74 students that participated in the programs and those were grades k through 12 um those students attend hearty pierce bishop gives oddison in the high school um I just wanted to let you know what the staff look uh makeup is for the metco team which is myself we have a social worker Tanika Claiborne that works with the elementary and middle school students we have a social work intern Michelle Smith that is working with the middle and high school students with me and then we have bus monitors we have two of them Donna Cloakley and Katana Cruz um so when we closed on um March 12 the 13th really um we immediately reached out to families through telephone calls and emails to determine the most important resources family needed um at that time also families were able to receive Chromebooks when Arlington had their distribution dates um for families that were not able to come out to Arlington the team met families in Boston to provide them um with the Chromebook they needed um we also gave families information in regards to um food that Boston public schools had 97 locations open to provide breakfast and lunch between the hours of 8 30 and 11 30 and the reason why our families here in Boston could participate in that because they were Boston residents so that was also open to them and they did not have to be a Boston public school student um then we had our social workers and myself we did uh student virtual social um community lunch groups we also contracted with Ann's Christian Learning Center to provide some incremental tutorial support for 40 students who have been receiving intervention services before the closure we also engaged um Mindy Wright consultants to provide college access workshops for juniors and seniors to help them to continue with that work and then we continue to outreach to families to check in on the virtual learning and to provide any referrals for other supports if they needed it for the reopening um I do sit on the core steering committee um one of my charges was transportation um I worked really uh closely with Michael Mason who oversees our transportation contract um we followed the Department of Elementary and Secondary 8 um guidelines for transportation so we're providing transportation for 30 students who have chosen the hybrid model we have um 17 riders on the elementary bus that includes the bus monitor and the bus driver and we also have 17 on the secondary bus which is the Gibbs Audison in high school we have four students um that come four days a week they are actually at um Hardy the Audison in the high school and then we also have um room on the bus for students at the high school for um participating in the reverse field trip um I've done three material distributions in Boston over the last three weeks for families who were unable to come to get supplies um during the uh supply opening which was 1130 to one on Wednesdays it was just the alternative time and date um during that time they were able to get their MBTA passes Chromebook iPads or textbooks and Rx supplies the other thing that we're doing is for students that are in a remote academy they would immediately um be provided with uh tutorial supports from Ann's Christian Learning Center and then we're continuing now to put together a schedule to provide a support for the students um in hybrid and remote and I'm also working with food services um Denise to come up with a weekly schedule for those students that are in remote who still need lunch looking ahead um when the high school opens up in February as a hybrid model we will have to contract for a third bus Michael Mason is in conversations with the transportation company in regards to about that um if Arlington goes to full remote Ann's Christian Learning Center will again do supplemental tutorial support for all students and then the last thing I just wanted to share is that we actually have three seniors right now there is semi finalists for a posse scholarship foundation which is a four-year um scholarship that they can receive if they win um so there's about four different uh colleges that they can attend and that is what I have great thank you so much Ms. Thomas um so questions from the committee for Ms. Thomas I see Mr. Heiner, Mr. Cardin, Mr. Schlickman, Dr. Oki Doki, Mr. Cardin thank you thank you for um presenting and for all the hard work you've done and reaching out to these individual families just on the on the numbers there were 74 students during the last 1920 year how many do we have combined with the remote and the hybrid looks like 30 in the hybrid so how many are doing remote only did we lose people or no we didn't I only lost one student this year so we're back to 74 students um one student that we did lose um actually moved to Foxboro so that was the only reason that we moved um that we lost students um other than that um my numbers have been solid um it it's kind of a split so as you can see um for a hybrid we have 30 and then I'm sorry for for more I didn't do those numbers so it's kind of a split half and half great well it's great we didn't lose anyone that was one of my fears so thank you for for that and that's it thanks you're welcome Dr. Allison Ampey thank you very much it's great to have this update and I think maybe we should do it every year even when we're not in weird circumstances um I and it's really nice to know how you've maintained the connections and and taken care of all the things that I've been worried about and just to hear that we're really um doing things for our families um I have one question just based on the name I just wanted to understand so Ann's Christian Learning Center is secular it's secular it's not it's that's just the name so it's yes right and I'm not trying to say there's anything wrong with it just given the name and yeah okay thank you you're welcome Mr. Heiner I just want to thank you for all the work that you've done during this time it's been hectic and I just cannot imagine the hours and time that you've had to put in so thank you very much thank you Mr. Schickman yeah I was going to ask the same question to Dr. Allison Ampey is that given the name of the organization is this a secular organization and are they credentialed um I want to thank uh Ms. Thomas for her efforts on behalf of the students and I hope she communicates to the families how much we care about them and we want them to have a wonderful experience with us both through the pandemic and going forward and anything else we can do is a committee to facilitate that and to make further connections with our medco families uh it's it's the top of the list of this committee and I hope that we can do more thank you you're welcome thank you anybody else great mr. Stillman thank you thanks very much for the presentation um we don't we don't get many presentations from mekkel so this I I do think this should be an annual thing thanks I went my question was how many were in hybrid how many were remote so it's 30 in hybrid 44 and remote um do you have any do you have any sense of of um that that's so compared to the rest of the district that split is different um you know the rest of the district is something like two-thirds remote uh sorry two-thirds hybrid a third remote something like that generally breaks down that way what what's your sense um about why it broke broke in that direction um so what what I actually did and I know we sent out the survey to families I also called each one of my families just to see if they which one they were choosing whether it would be hybrid or remote and it gave me the opportunity to hear their reasonings um and so some of my families chose remote because I have some families that have multiple children in different buildings they have a pre-existing condition they didn't want to not send one and then send the others and then the others come back home it was just becoming a higher risk um I had families that um families are working from home so it's easier for them to just be home and be remote with their with their children um I had families that they chose in hybrid because they felt like that would be better for their child they've been home for almost eight six months and they were like they need to get out so it was just a merit of reasons um that families either chose hybrid or remote um some families for them it was just still the safety issue they still were not ready to send their child hybrid um in some families they just wanted to try I think we did have one family that uh and um at the hearty that would had wanted to go hybrid but then changed their mind again and wanted to stay remote so and I haven't had many I don't think we have many requests of anybody wanting to change back and forth. Do you have a this you know I you may not have this data and so you can just you know forget my question if it's if it's not but it's not helpful but do you have a sense of how we compare in terms of participation in remote versus hybrid compared to other other metco districts do you ever do you have that data? I don't have the data but I do talk to my um I do talk to my peers a lot um so I when I think you all don't know maybe as I am the vice president of the megal directors association so we have a executive board that meets and then I meet monthly with my peers so it's it's really um it's just like Lexington um my peer over there thought that she was going to get more numbers that wanted to go remote remote she got more numbers that wanted to go hybrid um so I think it just depends on the district I think it depends on the model that they have chosen um that the numbers are going to fluctuate. Yeah okay thank you like okay thank you it's it's I mean I can I can get the information from you for you yeah I mean it that's easy enough for me to do I'm just giving you some of that an adult info information I'm just talking to people but that's not something that we all put together as directors but and I think it's easy enough for me to ask my peers it would be if I don't want to give you more work and I'm only one member of this committee but if you can get that information to the to the superintendent Vody then she can share with us that would be great okay that would be yeah that would be great um okay uh well thanks very much for your work it's good to see you here and uh we should have you know I agree with doctor with doctors I was going to say Dr. Schlickman Paul Mr. Schlickman to have uh we should be having more contact with you and your in your team to keep this dialogue going so thanks so much thank you yep thank you and I'm sorry that I have to leave I just need to check on my family I think the fact you stayed at a school committee meeting for an hour and a half you should get an award for you should get a raise it's like a good thing thank you so much thank you for coming thank you thank you um so Dr. Vody we um still have uh the odyssey in the high school yes is that where you're going next that's where I'm going next I'm Mr. Merringer I believe is still here I am you are I'll go next so um I think the uh opening at the odyssey went very well I was very pleased with how we opened kids seem to enjoy being back at school and I've gotten a lot of positive reports from the remote academy so one piece of data which I think is shown that it's been fairly successful is um there are 900 students at the odyssey a little less there's about 600 that are in the hybrid program and about 300 that are in the remote academy and so far I've not received one request to move from either the remote academy to hybrid or from hybrid uh to the remote academy and I know I'm only about three weeks in but I'm taking that as a very positive sign that parents are happy with what they've chosen and I think with the remote academy I've received some unsolicited emails that have really praised some of the teachers and I think that's a result of the teachers who want it to be all remote have just really done a good job they were motivated to really put their best foot forward and they have so I am extremely happy about that um I will say and I thank a lot of the students they've done a great job of keeping their masks on that hasn't been an issue that I know we were concerned with especially with middle school kids um there are times we are reminding them to stay socially distance and um you know not everything is perfect but I think it's gone really well I think the staff has been outstanding in terms of rallying around each other figuring out solutions to problems so I think they are to be commended and I'd really like to thank some of the families so I've had families call up when their kids are sick and say that they don't think that it's something serious but they would get their students tested before heading back and I think that I really appreciate a lot of the families pitching in and um really doing their part to keep everyone safe because we'd like to keep the hybrid going as long as possible and uh we're really looking forward to um you know the next few weeks next few months hopefully getting kids educated in school we also have uh been a little bit lucky with the weather we've been having the kids outside for mass breaks and also for lunch and in the morning I think has gone really well unfortunately it looks like next week the string of rain only on Wednesday which is what we hope for all the time might be ending so we might be having to have lunches and some lineups in school but we've got the space between the wood gym the blue gym the cafeteria so overall I think it's been a good start I am I am a little concerned that we can keep up this energy level we're just kind of at the beginning of this marathon and teachers are working real hard I am I think Dr. Hannah might have said it or Kate might have said that they're a little bit worried about keeping the remote academy teachers still feeling like they're part of the school system but so far I think the opening has gone really well great thank you Mr. Merringer um questions from the committee or comments no uh Mr. Cardin sure just a quick one and thank you Mr. Merringer for all your efforts um certainly I've heard from parents that the there may have been some concerns earlier in September about how things were going there but um the communications have been frequent and clear and things seem to fall seem to have fallen into place so people are appreciative of that my question was with again with the the remote days in the hybrid program um uh how to what extent is is your team or the the curriculum directors providing support for the teachers to create the activities for those days or is that still falling on the teachers um and is there enough work being created for the students on those days or or are we still um getting up to speed as far as filling those days for the the hybrid program students when they're remote yeah so there are some classes that students will have to be in during the hybrid so for example if you're have world language if you have math support you have reading um you do have slotted times in which you have to show up for a 45-minute class I would say most of the students would have two classes on an asynchronous day you also have PE you might have band orchestra or chorus so um there are times that students have to check in and they have been checking in and attendance has been very positive um so far the Wednesday has really been the time in which the teachers have been planning during the afternoon to give asynchronous lessons for example I know I talked to the civics teachers the other day and they're kind of in lockstep and I think what has happened is you really have the teachers planning and giving a lot of the same asynchronous lessons out together um so far um what I've heard is things are going really well um usually I do get emails to keep me abreast of the situation when parents feel like their kids aren't doing enough work or when they're feeling overloaded so uh we're still waiting to hear a little bit from that what I what I gleam right now is we've done pretty well but you know it's also the first three weeks I know the first week or two was a little bit lighter I think the third week has been a little bit more um you know commitment and effort needed by the students and I you know as I said that one of the concerns I have is keeping this energy level up so I think I'll be better able to answer your questions probably in a couple of weeks great thank you great mr. Thielman thank you so my question mr. marriageer is one of the things that I uh that I think several people have concerns about it's just the degree to which um you know in mathematics in the in our math sequence students are going to cover enough material so they're ready for high school math in particular and I'm wondering you know it's early it's three weeks in it's truly to tell you know what percentage of the curriculum will be covered uh in say seventh grade math or eighth grade algebra for those who are taking it but are you are you have are you straight and have some conversations about that are you monitoring that are you thinking about that as a team I'm just kind of curious about where that is going so um I have talked to Matt Coleman who's the curriculum director for math and I think one of the strengths about having k through 12 coordinators is they really know the scope and sequence of what they're teaching and so I know that Matt has had conversations with the teachers of what units they need to stress and what what what units they might have to admit and so you know I I am leaving it in his capable hands because he knows what the curriculum is for ninth 10th 11th and 12th grade and he is really made sure that he is sat with his math teachers over the summer but also having regular correspondence and really stressing what is the most important concepts and theories that the kids need to know okay all right thanks I um well thank you to to you and your team for your efforts um you know there's lots of studies about what happened to uh young people in world war two when they couldn't go to school for a while what happened to the students after Katrina um and so I hope our you know I'm I'm just grateful that people are trying and working really hard to try to educate our kids in a difficult time so thank you to you and your team yeah and the curriculum directors have been outstanding and it is one of the advantages there's many school systems that have you know have department chairs at the high school and department chairs at the middle school and that has some advantages too because it's a little bit more building based but one of the things that I think is a benefit right now is that you have you know whether it's you know Denny Conkland or Deb Perry they know what they need to prepare the kids for ahead of time in a k through 12 span and so they're able to make decisions and nobody wants to cut out activities and I think it's dish and genuist to say that you know kids are going to learn the same amount of content that they would this year as in previous years but I do think that you have to pick and choose and I think they'll know what to select because they know what is upcoming all right I just want to I just want to confirm Mr. Merringer's assessment of what will be addressed the same units and math will be taught as previous years but there's going to be some modification as to which standards will be stressed and we're shooting you know we are trying to focus on and making sure that we're covering the essential standards that students will need for the next level so you know we're going to make sure that that does take place so we're like we have identified essential standards in each content area and we're focusing on those and so it will be the same units it just will be some modifications as to which standards will be stressed and which ones will be you know still taught but not stressed as much as these essential standards and the other thing I think we're interested in is classes are small you know you know I wish we could fit more students in I know that some students and some families would like to be there four days a week but sometimes you know in that particular class there's only 12 desks and chairs and we don't have any more space but the smaller classes to me will be interested to see what the learning is there as well because when there's 11 kids it's a lot different than when you're having classes obviously of twice that size so you are getting a little bit more individualized attention um as you only have half the students who are in class than than usual thanks very much great anybody else um so just you know I I've been really impressed with how the schedule has sort of shaken out at the oddison I feel like there's a nice balance on the home days of having opportunities for you know robust classes that are meeting I've been amazed at what teachers what I've heard and experienced teachers are doing able to meet with kids one-on-one which I actually never thought we would be doing which is funny which of course they can meet with kids one-on-one that's actually super safe but um I it has been really impressive and I do think that the days that in-person days are extremely um robust and rich because they have to be because I know that our teachers are trying to get a lot in during that time so that our students are well prepared to spend their time learning um on their own during the other days so um I I've just been really impressed with the communication everything from Mr. Miranger through his assistant principals through the teachers through classroom teachers and specialist teachers um it just has been really clear communication really easy to follow um so it it feels you know it feels really successful from the the student perspective certainly so that's that's my feedback well great thank you we always we always enjoy the positive feedback and I'm glad things are going well and you know um you did mention the two assistant principals so Julie McEwen and Rochelle Rubino have really been communicating I think you know very often and trying to make things hopefully as as clear and concise to um people at home because I know a lot of families are struggling with the amount of emails and keeping their kids organized so I I'm hoping that's helping great we also have Maureen Murphy this year who is overseeing the remote academy program both Odyssey and Gibbs that's another great resource yes I don't want to leave Maureen out and she's taken a lot off our plate in terms of being able to um not only at the at the Odyssey but also at the Gibbs answering a lot of questions for parents who are in fully remote. You want to do the high school Dr. Bodey? I would um Ms. Tibnett, Ronny Tibnett, yep I'm here you're here oh there you are thank you for coming thank you for waiting as long for the high school um so let me just turn it over to you. Sure thank you Dr. Bodey and thank you for having me for those of you I don't know I'm Ronny Tibnett I'm one of the deans at Arlington High um Dr. Janger had a conflict tonight so I'm happy to represent our administrative team and let you know a little bit about what's going on at the high school um along with what so many people have said I'm happy to report that things have gone very smooth at the start of the school year so much of it is a result of the dedication and the flexibility of our teachers and I can echo what Brian just said about our curriculum leaders the work that they have done to completely adjust curriculum to be able to fit our mostly remote model with our small group of population of students that are coming to the building each day and so start with some of our classes in our schedule and what's working well as far as the academics the feedback that we receive from parents and students and teachers is the change to our semester based schedule which we were nervous about has its ups and downs but it's really we've gotten a lot of positive feedback that it's working so much better for our students and our teachers than the model we were working with in the spring when we were kind of jumping into this blind so we're able to adjust to that students are taking on average three classes um per semester and it's really reducing the stress and the workload of juggling everything for teachers and students and the attendance remains very high we monitor it every single day and I think that's a really good piece of data that shows us that our students are staying engaged and similar to what Brian said we're still in the the beginning of this marathon but so far so good we're really seeing a high rate of attendance and participation on behalf of the students and we are so appreciative that we just received some additional technology for our teachers to have new tools such as things like an extra monitor so they can monitor the students and their work and their lesson at the same time while they're teaching either from home or remotely from their classroom um teachers report that you know the semester schedule and the remote learning is definitely a huge increase in amount of time needed to plan and to change their their lessons in their curriculum but they're doing it they're being incredibly flexible and collaborating and it's just been really fun to see how they're using all these new technology tools and making their lessons still rigorous and fun although remote for in-person opportunities I think that's something we were all really concerned about when we made this decision to go mostly remote at the high school how can we still work with the social emotional piece of our students and the in-person connections that we know they all need so we have had a lot of great opportunities for in-person meeting and instruction we've had four or five very successful reverse field trips as we're calling it where teachers are offering small groups of students to come either to the high school today there was a walking tour through our linkedin center to do a history lesson several opportunities have already happened and have been huge success and we have at least five more planned for tomorrow and for next week so teachers are really really working hard to create those opportunities to get to see their students face to face and meet them we've had two of our in-person ninth grade orientation sessions took place yesterday and we have two more planned for next week so that's predominantly for ninth grade but it's through the advisory classes so we also have the upperclassmen who serve as peer mentors that get to come and participate in that as well so it is a chance for other students upperclassmen to come and meet some of the ninth graders and that went wonderfully yesterday and so looking forward to the next two next wednesday we had several teachers who wanted to meet their students that was a big concern on the behalf of the teachers saying if we're starting the year remote it's so hard to start when you have never even seen a student or met the student last year when we went into remote it was nice that the connections and the relationships were already there so it's tough to start without that so a lot of teachers actually offered opportunities for students to come and pick up whether it was art supplies or textbooks or handouts and get to meet their students face to face before they really got rolling with the school year i'm thinking about what sam had mentioned as far as textbook distribution on a larger scale to all of these remote students we've been working on that for the past week we did have a system of massive textbook distribution for all students i need to publicly thank stacey kitsis our media center specialist who organized an amazing way of printing out book slips for each one of these students and merging power school with their schedules and being able to organize and safely hand out textbooks for hundreds and hundreds of students so we're still hoping to continue that similar process on wednesdays every wednesday for media center materials or any other materials that teachers want to get out to their students as the year goes on so similar to what sam said with the remote academy we have to tweak our system a little bit we learned from the first few days of textbook distribution and we will continue to improve it and make it better and we did have opportunities for orchestra and band to come together and practice on pierce field which was great to see they came in early in the morning pulling into work and seeing the students out there practicing and rehearsing social distance and safely was wonderful and mr bowler of the athletic director reports that athletics is up and running for the teams that are meeting and are competing last weekend was our first round of competitions of track meets and games and all went great went smoothly with that as well outreach to families was another one of our concerns starting the world remotely and there is a huge team of school counselors social workers administrators and secretarial support staff who every day are reaching out to families whether it be zoom meetings phone calls emails and several face-to-face meetings with social workers and counselors too we're still having our weekly team meetings where we discuss at risk students and put together a plan of supports so that is in full effect we're working on documenting all of our efforts as far as outreach to families and i know dr jang is preparing a very more detailed report to present to school committee in the upcoming weeks so end with just a few concerns that we still have similar to what every everyone else has reported as far as technology issues we all know the strange things that happen on zoom and some of our students have found creative ways to join different zoom meetings and join different classrooms and have a little disruption there so we're working with our tech department to make sure we limit all of that and we um we learn all of these new technology ins and outs we still have our issues with with the building as you're well aware of and the ventilation systems there are some ups and downs with that and not all classrooms being available i think the biggest concern that i have with high school being remote is just that small population of student that we are inviting into the building we want them to come into the building we know that they have special needs and some of them have opted not to and i think a lot of them report that it's just a different atmosphere than what they're used to they wanted to come to the building at first but now where there's not many other kids there and there's not that social peace and their friends aren't there that some of them who we would like to bring in have chosen not to and i worry about keeping them engaged and what we're doing i've already had a handful of students thinking about taking the g ed or the high set that i feels that we need to work harder to reach out and engage them and pull them in so we are working on that um that as well and just continuing to make improvements on everything as everybody else said we're kind of learning as we go but overall i think that the remote learning is been going much better than we anticipated and students are really staying engaged and and wanting to come and join in all of our activities that are in person to see their teachers and and see their peers great thank you so much um questions for uh miss tibnan uh miss exton did you have anything no uh mr cardin sure so i know you're just beginning to ramp up the reverse field trips when you say five four or five that have been held i assume we're not doing full class full 20 students at a time so are we talking about four classes having you know two or three reverse field trips so that people come in and shift are we talking are we counting you know four sets of 10 students so 40 students total no the first scenario so we've had four or five teachers divide their classes into sections of 10 and try to work through them each in a day great thanks um i mean i you know i know we um i know you're just ramping up but and we have uh more information coming from dr jenger on the on the plan for in-person opportunities but again i would just encourage us to do as much as possible to you know while the weather's still good to get people meeting in person over over the next six weeks thank you yes i think we definitely the numbers are high in the next couple of weeks of teachers who are reserving spots reserving spaces and reserving time slots i think everyone's getting a little nervous about the weather and about the condition of some of the classrooms in the building that we may not have as much space as we'd like to have to do some inside in-person reverse field trips in the winter great thank you Dr. Allison Ampe i just wanted to um share that i've heard from some families who talk about how the sports practices um even just practice doesn't have to be the meets or anything are really something that's tying their students back to the school and making a big difference in terms of how they feel and you know in term they feel much better having this sports practice so i hope we can continue doing everything we can to make things happen and um if there's any way we might be able to expand it safely um i think we should look at that i agree 100 i have started volunteering on the cross-country team to help them out since they had such huge high numbers um for just the girls cross-country they have almost a hundred students that are running this year and so we're constantly reminding them to wear the masks and the public runs wear the masks when you're around the res or any bike path so that we can continue be safe be smart and make sure we're good role models out there so that you know we'll be able to continue with the increasing some of the sports sports great thank you you're welcome Mr. Devin yeah thanks very much for the presentation and um i want to echo what Dr. Allison Ampe said about sports there are a number of families that uh we know and their their students are in some sports activity and makes a world of difference because they're connected to other kids uh they're outdoors they're having fun and it keeps them engaged so um you know i want to echo i was going to say what Mr. Cardin said which is that i you know we have a report due from uh the Dr. Janger in a 10 days or a week or two weeks i guess two weeks uh or i guess it's due to us on the 16th that we're going to talk about at the following meeting and so one of the things we we asked for was data on the number of students who um have some contact in person with an adult whether it's through and so it'd be it's going to be interesting to see how many are through sports which is wonderful of course how many are having contact through reverse field trips and how many kids we actually in total get to see an adult whether it's at ahs or in a field trip in town on the field or whatever and i i do want to encourage the school leadership and and i think everyone's doing a good job i want to i want to encourage the school leadership to try to get as many kids as possible to connect with an adult um this month october's a good month for it gets colder gets more challenging so that we agree 100 percent more on board the other question i have is one of the things that we were um asking about at the few meetings ago as we were preparing for this um remote experience for our students at the high school is um follow-up phone calls for students who uh miss assignments miss work don't um attend class i'm just wondering if if you have any information whether it's data or anecdotal on how that's working mm-hmm yes we spend a huge huge amount of time doing that each day so as far as just attendance missing class um the deans and a couple of our administrative assistants are making a lot of those phone calls in lifetime we're one of the challenges for teachers we're asking teachers to try to do attendance in the first 15 minutes the classes are 80 minutes long we would have plenty of time to still reach out to a student and a parent and say hey what's going on you're not on your english class is there a technical issue or how can we get you on as soon as possible so you don't miss a full 80 minutes um because that's a big chunk of time good um so we are doing that every day and teach and we're documenting all of that as far part of dr jangers reports of how many emails and how many phone calls are going out and teachers are doing a great job of reaching out and including the deans in any email so that we know which one of our students are are struggling uh and not not engaging yeah uh i would just say from you know personal experiences of parent and then you know experience in the circle of people we know is that the you know the the remote experience is is far superior to what what students and families experienced last year so last spring so uh congratulations that everyone worked hard to make that happen that's good to hear thanks thank you mr schepin hi thank you very much uh you're probably uh the wrong person to be asked miss tyvenin but uh uh do we have a count of how many of these uh zoom frolics we have of people popping up into classes where the where they don't be uh be long is this a uh very infrequent but annoying or is this a little more frequent than than we expected it's a infrequent but annoying uh we had two or three of the kind of anonymous zoom bombing i think a lot of us have experienced from people that we believe may have been outside of the high school and unique things like that that was maybe two or three of them that were reported to us and just recently we've had two this week of students we believe to be students changing names and jumping on so we will put an end to it quickly but just one of the the new challenges of remote learning that we figure out as we go and the technology department has already been on helping us identify who's who's signing in and what's going on yeah because i think we had one of those at the odyssey as well uh we discussed last week uh yeah the challenges of remote learning uh have fun yeah kids are always a step ahead of us with all of that right well we'll catch up mr. hainer sorry nothing at this time great um and i um i guess um miss tyvenin what would be helpful for me i'm still dr janger uh helped me with this a little bit last week but i'm still having a hard time understanding wednesdays so students have could have a club maybe or not do they have to join a club they do not have to but we strongly encourage everybody to to join something and we do have a club day coming up that we're organizing to make sure that all incoming students learn about all of our different clubs and what's being offered and where so wednesday mornings i actually had pulled the schedule up i thought somebody might ask about it i have it on my desktop wednesday mornings um are jam packed with our physical education classes that the majority of our students are taking place in at 11 30 every student is assigned to an advisory um where they meet in small groups with a teacher and again it's a connections building relationship building class and then we move into um counseling our x block and our counseling where most seniors are working on college applications with guidance counselors and scheduling issues any other counseling and extra help that needs to take place and we have some professional development time for teachers there's some great plcs that are going on where teachers are collaborating and sharing new tools and then staff meetings for us at the end of the day so students are engaged in in phys ed extra help one-on-one counseling and the advisory period that every student is assigned to great and what are our teachers doing other than so our phys ed teachers sound like they're very busy and our if all of our many of our teachers i presume are advisors but what what are they doing before 11 30 those are the times they're meeting in small groups with teachers with students doing some extra help sessions with students that are available i know there was also some discussion about english teachers are working with students on their college essays during that time if you don't have english first semester so you're not having your english class right now and preparing your college essay for applications there is a group of english teachers who are working to meet with seniors in small groups to help with that as well so it's a lot of extra help um and planning and collaborating with the teachers at that point what do you think your utilization is before 11 30 in terms of you know i i don't doubt that people are working very hard in our our meeting with students i just you know it's this is a very different way of scheduling and being then you know we could all understand like wednesday last year we all went to school on wednesdays right i mean i i knew what students were doing i knew what staff was doing um i knew we were utilizing our our fte's and our time and it was pretty clear because they were in front of kids generally right so i guess i i'm trying to understand how we're using our because it's still you know i mean it's still wednesday it's still a day right right i understand i'm trying to understand what are what what your sense is of your utilization rate you know um obviously a french teacher isn't teaching pe right they're maybe leading an advisory they're not helping students with english essays so so i'm trying to understand how how we're using that time right now i understand it and you know the equity issue as well um you know our all teachers engaged in teaching and meeting with students and so maybe that's something that we look at is finding a tracking system of really seeing who's doing what with their time and scheduling um time a little bit different during that i mean i know we all know our teachers are engaged in our collaborating and working and planning and grading and adjusting curriculum and all of that during that time but but i do see you know and i have heard amongst other grades that it is you know an equity issue of who's scheduled and who's not and what are they doing so maybe that's something we we talk about going forward yeah i think it's important to just keep talking about it i mean i i don't you know i'm not interested in sort of coming down from right you know like that but i i do think that you know this is where we can sometimes run into challenges if we have you know if we have english teachers who are meeting with students who don't have english on college essays that seems like something that's like a very very very very high priority right but then you know it needs you know we we need as the school committee we need to know that our administration is is putting this together in a way that makes sense and that you know obviously we're you know we're accountable to the to the voters and the taxpayers so we want to make sure that we're you know utilizing our staff appropriately but also that they that they feel that they're being utilized appropriately is perhaps more and equitably across disciplines so that's definitely something i you know i'm going to keep asking about i haven't felt um totally comfortable with it yet at the high school is on wednesdays i monday tuesday thursday friday like i i get that um wednesday still feels tough for me um especially there and i don't know if it's just the lack of of synchronous classes which i understand why we're not doing that um to some extent i just i do want to make sure that you know that we're we're using our time because it is wednesday so it's an important day of the week great great thank you very much um so um dr bodie did you want it so as part of the really almost a separate item but the update on uh covid testing for staff was part of the reopening update so would you like to give your update on that now um i can but while mr syvenin is still here why don't we talk about the sat's and now back to testing great um the high school is planning uh to offer sat's on october 27 in order to have been able to do that they needed to have a uh go ahead with the red and blue gyms which we now have um during this period of time there also came out directives to the department of education on the number of students that could be in a closed space a single room whether it was a gym or classroom so there's there's needed to be a series of permissions and working with um our own board of health department of health human services as well as its partner of education and all of those um all of that kind of discussion has taken place and we are going forward with a program so that we have uh primarily is going to be offered in the red and blue gym and right now the plan is to invite those seniors who have not had a chance to take the sat's at this point and i believe um uh ronnie if you could correct me i think it's about 160 166 students close to i thought i heard even a little less i thought maybe 40 but you may be right yeah well somewhere in the ballpark and we we would be able to accommodate them with the plan that's been approved by department of education and board health um in those two spaces and we'll have some breakout rooms recommendations so this is going to happen and and i want to congratulate the high school for all the plans it's been necessary in order to make this happen i don't know if you'd like to make any comments about this as well i know you've been very involved with the very very detailed safety plan that's in place for this program all right i think i just for the families out there watching we we really feel for the families that struggled so hard with college board to try to find a place to have their child take the sat's this past spring summer and fall and how many times they picked a site and they scheduled it and then it was canceled last minute and canceled last minute happened to so many families so many times so we're really we're pushing to be able to offer it safely at our linkedin high and and we hope fingers crossed keeps moving forward and we can do this for them right and i will sure pass they have a very very detailed safety plan in place um and that is terrific so thank you for all your work and making this happen no no problem we're happy to make it happen and yes we do have a huge safety plan as far as moving around the building as far as mask wearing and distances amongst the desks and measuring and we've been working on that for for a while now yeah it's quite impressive actually all the detail you've gotten down into this plan so we hope that we'll go forward that is uh that's that's the plan right now great thank you um i see mr. thielman dr. ellison ampie on the sat's um dr. ellison ampie um just a couple quick questions first i'm assuming the students will need to wear a mask during the entire test okay um and will when will registration open and close i do not have the answer to that one for you right now our one of our guidance counselors denial rickowski organizes the registration so we need to get an update from her and college board now that we've kind of jumped through all the other hoops and gotten the approval with all the other organizations so hopefully as soon as possible right that's that's i think that's going to be top on family's minds so thank you um one other detail i would add to that is that we are only allowing our lincoln high school students to participate in this program mr. thielman yeah my question what's the cap what's the cap on the number of students that can sign up for this for the take the test in october have you set a cap only the number of students that that dr. bodie and i referenced that our seniors who haven't already had a chance to so that's somewhere around 150 that's 150 ballpark yeah well i you know i want to thank you um there were lots of families that express concern about this and so i think all of us forwarded a lot of the or at least i did i forwarded a lot of emails that came from parents of students that are a hs to the superintendent dr janker so thanks for making this happen you're welcome appreciate it mr. heiner was your question answered about yes dr. bodie answered it at the end of the last statement thank you great anybody else great um so covet testing for staff dr. bodie yes um in fact uh it starts tomorrow we have two sites set up in the district and teachers go through a registration process one of the sites is down and the second one is thompson and our plan is to continue the program i believe that what we're going to do going forward though is shift the date from friday to monday and one of the reasons why we decided on either friday or monday but we're choosing monday is that um we if you push it any further into the week then you potentially affect two cohorts not one and because if if a teacher is tested on monday we don't get the result until tuesday but then only only the cohort a is affected so that's a rationale for that i want to thank the partnership we have with the department of health and human services they've been terrific in supporting this program uh sydney sheridan curran and sue franke it's taken a lot to get this program up and running but um we are there and it begins tomorrow i believe we have at least as of this this morning i think we have about 200 slightly less than that staff members who have signed up mr spiegel and then mr nannis so it's also at audison so that there's three sites tomorrow afternoon that um so thompson for the most of the staff and the schools on that side of town dalin for the schools on on that side of town and then audison for the audison and and high school staff and and people who work at vice yeah um the audison sorry i should have said that too um audison and dalin are drive-through whereas the thompson is a walk-up but people could walk up if they don't have a car so that's yeah great thank you mr spiegel um miss fernandez thank you yeah we just wanted to say thank you from the aya for the district for bringing the testing back it was you know something that was really on the mind of many of our members that was really important for us and we're so grateful for all the effort that went into this particularly cindy curran and all the organization to get that back to us and and to provide it on an ongoing basis we just wanted to to say thank you for that great thank you um other members of the committee um you know i we obviously you know think that this is really important i'm glad that we were able to um move this from uh a program that was being administered on the town side where they have a lot of ongoing things that they're working on not the least of which is making sure all of our students have access to a flu shot which is a really really big deal um also really important but i'm glad that um that this was able to be sort of moved over under the aps umbrella it's really important um and i'm glad that we're able to offer it so thank you dr budy for your work on this my only question was is that if you're going to move to monday are we going to find ourselves in a situation where there's a week in which there isn't testing or will you offer testing on a friday and a monday or we don't know yet like so if we're doing it this friday right and then we want to move till monday are we going to wait 10 days to operate again you know what i'm saying or like i guess that or what when you move to monday i i guess i want to make sure that i understand what ongoing means and is there going to be a sort of prolonged period when we don't like longer than a week when we can't offer testing for our teachers we are not offering it this coming monday it will be the 19th okay so we're going to do it this friday and then we're i i fully the idea of moving it to monday sounds like a very very sensible idea i can imagine from just a um from lots of standpoints why that makes a lot of sense um so we'll do this week and then i guess and next week's a short week too right obviously because there's no school okay and then the 19 lovely thank you one of the issues is that when the results come back which they will come back on saturday we have to have people that are working to do contact tracing so it's a burden to put on the board the um all of the people working on the town side because they are the uh the group that would be doing the contact tracing um we we certainly support that process in giving um uh information to help them but nonetheless we're putting an extra burden on the weekend for that staffing that would not be there if we started on monday great thank you so much okay okay yes dr ellison ambe um just a real quick question what will happen on uh monday if there's a monday holiday um we won't be having a testing that day we can look into that issue um i don't i think for the next for the next few weeks that that doesn't happen our next haul monday holidays is coming monday okay thank you very much and thank you for arranging this great um revisions to the 2020 2021 school calendar um this was this is the second read i believe um dr mckneill did you have anything that you needed to tell us and then i'll look and see if people have questions this is basically the same as it was two weeks ago right it basically it is we uh i've had a meeting with the elementary principals and dr boldie and based upon the timeline of when things are happening um we decided to push the conferences back into january so the elementary conferences are now scheduled for january six and thirteenth at 11 30 and then on january seventh it will be the evening conferences from six to eight so because it was so close to the holidays i think that was causing some consternation with the principals and also you know looking at when the conferences are scheduled in relationship to when the progress reports go out um so that you know pushing the conferences back will make sure that all the progress reports are received and then parents have a chance to review them and then be able to um attend the conferences so it had to do with the holidays and looking at the timing of the progress reports and making sure that parents all parents got the we see the progress reports can review them and then be prepared to ask questions during the conferences so it just alleviates some of that stress so we felt like we we should push the conferences back into january all right any uh so i'm looking for a motion on the calendar mr schlickman uh i'll move to adopt the calendar is presented and request to speak on it second mr schlickman uh i have a question in that last year we were looking at different forms of the calendar and we saw some other districts with some really nice calendars that look promising i'm wondering where we are on that effort to change the format and appearance i don't think we're anywhere any further than we were last year that that's sort of going down to the bottom of the list i think that donna roe we might be able to uh resurrect some planning on that thank you anybody else on the calendar seeing nobody uh a motion by mr schlickman second by mr hainer i think right um the revisions to the 2020-2021 school calendar um miss exton i couldn't hear you actually yeah oh good all right perfect mr cardin yes dr elton ampie yes mr steelman yes mr schlickman yes mr hainer yes and i'm also yes um a ps hiring update so um mr spiegel i'm going to have you do um i think we should talk about them we can do questions separately but you have the floor for hiring as well as the diversity hiring report yes thank you can i see if i can share yeah um okay so i'm just going to share a couple slides here and so this is just an update since two weeks ago um we've had some new hires a couple of these people haven't haven't started yet but we've um they've been onboarded and are ready to start i think next week uh an audison spanish teacher and a special education teacher at bracket and then we just this week hired two nurses one uh for the preschool to replace someone who had resigned and then another one-to-one nurse for a student who needs one-to-one nursing support um we've hired a lot of paraprofessionals in the last two weeks that's been the majority of our hiring um and the majority of positions we still need to hire so include you can see the ta's for elementary remote academy all preschool stratton hardy gibbs audison dalin and bracket so we're still um we still have some vacancies um basically we have teaching assistants and building subs at bishop pierce stratton hardy remote academy that we're still looking for we're still have a couple title one literacy tutors um we that those were kind of late postings just because the title one budget is always the grant is always was a little bit late this year with with our knowing how much we would have so we do we're looking to fill those positions um the math instructional support paraprofessionals um i think we're about to hire elementary reading teacher we're still looking for and um ahs has a paraprofessional that supports students in credit recovery and we're looking to fill that position due to our recent vacancy and so that's um that's really the hiring update um let's stop the sharing there um did you want me to take questions now on that let's do the diversity hiring and then do questions on all okay that makes sense okay so the diversity report for this year so um you know I always like to start with the student data one of the things I was looking for and I don't know if Dr. Bode or Dr. Neal know the answer I mean we definitely have a reduction in student numbers for from our october one these are really preliminary october one numbers um they haven't done any of the final finalizing those reports yet but um so we obviously have a reduction in students I I believe that part of that is due to students and families who decided um because of the the pandemic to either go to private school or home school and I don't know if Dr. McNeil or Dr. Bode know if that's the case um so you can see the the you know the the makeup of the students in um in Arlington I mean uh with still predominantly white but increasing uh diversity um in in some of uh the other populations uh some of the the Asian um population has there's actually been a decrease in numbers in most of the categories from from last year um just because of the overall decrease um for all employees um again this is we haven't moved a lot in this we're still predominantly a white employee have predominantly white employees in our district um at least 80 probably a little bit more because of the the numbers that are not reporting um it's always hard to capture 100 of the data of um when when employees are asked to self disclose um so a large number do not report so I'm guessing based on our numbers that the majority of those are would be considered um white employees um so the numbers have increased a little bit from last year in the numbers of Asian and Black and Hispanic employees um so there's a little bit of an increase um the new hires from the last year from 10 one last year to September 30th of this year you can see the total um the total numbers of employees 101 white employees 16 who didn't identify 10 Hispanic 11 Black and 7 Asian for the AEA again the numbers have not moved a whole lot um in the the percentages we still are having some challenges attracting a not a large number of applicants and hires who especially in the teaching employees who are um who do identify as Black or Hispanic or Asian we have um the Odyssey and actually was one of the schools actually that was able to to hire um some additional uh employees in in those categories this year um so there are some more some more teachers in in the school who are identify as Black Asian or Hispanic all new hires or AEA new hires since last year um these are the numbers um and again it's just small numbers in each um of the Asian Black and Hispanic categories for paraprofessionals we do um we have hired been able to attract a little bit more diversity um we do have a few more um paraprofessionals who are Asian Black and Hispanic than in our in our teaching force and in the AA unit A and then AAA this is sort of a catchall of all administrators and principal central office IT um and those numbers haven't changed a lot there haven't been a lot of hires um new uh in those categories in the last year I mean there's there've been some and obviously we've hired um Madam um Pierre Maxwell at Gibbs so um increases a little bit of our representation in our administrative team um Arlington after school actually had a reduction in employees this year because of the the numbers of students attending and uh staff needs so we actually for the first time in several years have fewer employees in the after school um and we did then we did in the past few years because we've been growing those programs so much over the past several years and and this is really kind of a dip this year but they have had historically um strong representation um and this year that has dipped a little bit just because of some of the um employees who either chose not to return or they didn't have a position for again again the numbers for maintenance transportation and food service um those numbers again are a little bit um b