t. But certain defaults haven't happened and certain other legal things that I don't understand. Honestly, that I don't understand. Have that happened? Chair mentioned that the council has reviewed it. I assume everything there is correct. These assertions are true, the best of our knowledge? Yep, and that's what, and it was followed up by a legal council, the one who works more with the finance office as opposed to the school committee and that was their opinion as well. Thank you. Honestly, maybe the most important thing we could learn about this thing. And just following up on that point, it says that the change will not affect the operation maintenance or billing, and I'm assuming billing means the amount that we're being billed. If there's no price increase, or is it being the billing procedures? I think my understanding is it's both, that the off-taker, the benefits of the district will remain as the original agreement indicated. Yes. Yes, please. The long story short is this is a document that formally allows the parent company to swap and that we're noticing and taking notice of that change and we're aware of it. None of the underlying agreements are changing. So that's really all it says, is that you know that they changed who owned the parent company, and that you're aware of it and that's okay. And everything else is status quo. All right. The key thing is we've double checked that, as Mr. Spitzer said, and we've really double checked it with the council specifically like that. And between those two comments and the responses we've gotten, are there any further questions or debate on this item? Seeing none. All those in favor of the motion as put forward? Signify by raising your hand. Carries unanimously, now these are up. So now, the next item is G warrant review, update sharing of warrant approvals from our designated representative. Yes, that's me. I was dreading this moment because I'm still learning how to do this. I can sign my signature, which is what I'm supposed to do, reporting back to the committee. I need some advice on how to do that. Secondly, this has not always been on the agenda. And consequently, I have warrants in my possession to go back to November. And so, do I tell you folks about all of them? How do I do this? Just a question. I thought when we debated and discussed this, there was like a little template that was going to be filled out that had sort of master categories that were going to be presented and that somebody probably from the business office was going to help Mr. Funch put that together. Those are the documents that he was holding. They have those categories. Really? Yeah. So, they're all there, but there are several of them because each warrant is independent and so. Right. Some of these are payroll, some of these are X, Y, or Z, and not all the same category. Okay. In the future, what I thought we were going to do, because it was something we talked about and looked at, was there was literally a script that was going to be put forward with like one page on it, which described for, I mean for all of them, or like two of them, few pages for all of them, and like a motion you could literally sit there and read what it said. I'm fine to do that, but I would ask permission to wait until next time so that I have time to put that list together. Is that a, okay? The, it's a really a question. So, I think that's fine from procedural standpoint, and yet there are vendors and payroll that needs to be paid. So as long as the committee's comfortable with Mr. Funch signing off on those, I don't think we can wait another two weeks. I've signed off on all of those. Okay, I just want to, and I don't mean to push the point I just know. How many pages do they have, anyway? Excuse me? How many pages do you have to read? Lots. Yeah. Okay, so the report that was expected to be read is just the front sheet of any of those packets. Right. Right, but you know, there are potentially eight or nine categories to be read, so that's all. But those have been prepared. Eight or nine pages. No, no, no, no, eight or nine categories within that might have a dollar amount associated with them is all. So, yeah. I think what we, and perhaps, you know, the committee can correct me if I'm wrong. So I think what we talked about was to have them aggregated and totaled so that what Mr. Funch would be doing would be the total of these eight warrants was $145.20 in category A. Right. Right. That's what I was recalling. Yeah, that's exactly what it was. It was like a paragraph or two. And it literally, it had, whatever it was signed. It was a script? Yeah, it was a script. And it summed up by different kinds of like payroll category, different kinds of vended objects. Yeah, please. So, in my understanding, may not be perfectly clear, but I think, and it may or may not be a requirement. So I can check on that, is that each one would have to be distinct because each warrant is distinct. So the narrative is exactly the same barring the dollar amounts, but I was understanding that each warrant, because it is distinct, the report would have to be distinct because it's a report on a warrant, not on a series of warrants. And so, but again, once you're caught up, the most you would have in any meeting is one or two. So again, it's not, we can check on the sort of formality of whether we can cluster them into a single one, but. Mr. Farage. Thanks, Doug. I could tell you this evening, for example, from the general fund, I signed a warrant for 320,312 dollars and 16 cents. Is that what you want? What's the example for the next one? See, that's where it gets a little shaky because that, I'm sorry, scratch the word shaky. This next one actually comes from four different funds, but it's the same warrant. What does it say? General fund expenses of 97,446 dollars and 72 cents, revolving fund expenses of 10,875 dollars and 39 cents, grant fund expenses of 991 dollars and 95 cents, and other fund, and Kathy wrote in capital of 22,400 dollars. Cool. Take a glass of water or a sip and keep reading. Okay, you got them. Next one is payroll of amount of 751,928 dollars and 26 cents. The next one is a payroll warrant for 2,449 dollars and 89 cents, don't want me to keep going. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now this goes back to December. General fund expenses of 212 dollars, $212,141.79, revolving fund expenses of 580 dollars, grant fund expenses of 566 dollars and 83 cents. You need the date, guys. I think it's helpful, it's might as well say it. Okay, okay, yeah. 12-11-2019, general fund expenses of 212 dollars. I already did that one, my apologies. November 12th, 2019, general fund expenses of 33,023 dollars and 0.07 cents from the general fund, revolving fund $93.03 cents. And this one you signed. Well, that's what I was just looking at. No, that looks like Mark. Those are ones I signed and I already wrote down those. Sorry, sorry. But I do have some that I signed. Yes. Well, you still read them anyway, they gotta be read. Okay. I think I read these already. Oh, you did? One I signed, yeah. Then we're done. Wonderful. Well, that wasn't so bad. If you get these, do I keep them? Okay, you can plug up my... Keep them or you can give them back to Dr. Slaughter. Or they're probably actually, it says, click with your records. I just quickly that it might be worthwhile just to ask counsel again, what's the most time efficient manner to dispense with a kind of item that's legally allowable? Yeah, of course. Because I really appreciate the work Mr. Afonk is doing, but it's a meaningless stream of numbers like when it's being read out like that. And if we're gonna, if we have to legally hear a meaningless stream of numbers, we might as well make it a sure response. I mean, it's true. Although the accountability aspect of it for the public is they know it's been signed, they know it's been done. It's been publicly recorded that they have. And if somebody had a question they could in fact look into it. I would just also comment that we're now looking at November, December, and part of January. Ordinarily, there might be one or two of those in a meeting is all. This is gonna get a lot easier. That's what I figured out when you started it where I was like, let's just roll through this because it'll, next meeting, we have a meeting in two weeks and it'll be easier then. Yeah, for some reason it wasn't on the agenda always. Well, it needs to be on the agenda always. Yes. I don't know what the process is, but is there a way that we could include them in our packet so that there is sort of, I mean, to get back to listening to the meaningless stream of numbers, maybe if that's printed in our packets. I signed them every Friday. Just let me know when the packet goes put together and I can get them to you. Packets go out on Friday. Is the important. And I need to know that in advance of what is it, 48 hours? Yeah, Friday's the perfect decision. Yeah. Okay. I mean, they still have to be read out loud, but the point is that the people know. My impression was that the administrative offices would prepare a paragraph, which he would just read. No interpretation, no calculation. Just read the paragraph with the numbers. That was my understanding. Yeah, although that's what we went over. But honestly, what he ended up reading was pretty close to that. I mean, it wasn't that far. Yes. So I did sign warrants in December because Mr. Franch was unavailable and I haven't reported on those. I was not present at the December 10th meeting. I don't know if those were reported on then, but I'd like to, I have the totals here. I don't have the exact dates, but I could. So would you. Do you want to report on them, or do you want to report on them next time? I'm reporting on them from a spreadsheet I created to try it because my impression was we were supposed to total across the dates last time. That was why we didn't, the three of us didn't report. So would you like me to report from the spreadsheet, or would you like me to wait until next? I think if you could report in a way analogous to what Mr. Franch just did now, then please do. And I apologize for not having. That's okay. Otherwise, yeah. So in December 2019, I signed warrants from the general fund totaling $1,109,286.62 from the revolving fund totaling $57,869.51 from grant funding totaling $3,319.16 and from other funds, and I apologize, I don't have noted what category that was, but it was $3,941. All right, thank you. Wellness approach and update. Yeah, and I think the key word is update, that this is a topic I plan to come back to, but I wanted to give the committee a taste of the work that the administrative team and others have been doing, particularly on two topics that relate to wellbeing. One is vaping education and intervention, and the other is LGBTQ plus and intersectionality work. As I noted, most of the slides are courtesy of the Collaborative for Educational Services and Jason Wheeler at Massachusetts Safe Schools. Those are two people who are two organizations that have been working with us on this topic. So these are slides that were pulled from a lot of their presentations, but I thought they would give the committee a flavor of the work we're doing more than kind of a bulleted point list of topics. There's bulleted points in there, but for the most part, I'm trying to get to the content. So I'll start, excuse me, I'll start with vaping and vaping education. And so this has certainly been, as Mr. Demi noted to me earlier, it's in the student newspaper, it's been in the Gazette quite a bit beyond, not talking about Amherst particularly, but talking about another high school or high schools in our area as well as MassLive. It's certainly a topic that is a pretty critical topic for all schools and about adolescents. I mean, people in the health community are talking about this as an adolescent crisis that's going on. So we've been doing a lot of work on this and this again comes from the collaborative, but what puts youth at risk for generalizing it just beyond vaping? What are we talking about when we talk about substance abuse? When we think about the community, family, school and self-friends, those are the four sort of areas that we look for for risk factors. The Spiffy Coalition, which we're a part of, we do surveys of our students as well as other schools in Hampshire and Franklin County every other year that they're organized. Those surveys, there's a lot of work that's been done and you'll see that there are long longitudinal studies or surveys that have been done and what they find is that students are pretty honest. There are some trends and they have some like dummy questions in there to try to figure out are students being honest in this and they really do a lot of work. It's not put together in someone's basement. High levels of reliability for that. And so community looks a lot about alcohol and drugs, easy to get, pro-use message, advertising laws are unclear, it's not enforced. And one of the things that we also talk about is when it comes to family, not just exposure, but what is the kind of family belief structure and around permissibility? Do families know where their children are at different times of day? Do families feel like it's okay for youth to drink? There's a lot of risk factors that we look at. School is one of them and the reason I put the slide up is that when we do our work, we are looking familiar during the school day but what we know is we need to partner with the community, family and the youth culture. It's not just about what happens from 745 to 215 each day at the secondary level. There's a much broader constellation of factors that get into high risk behavior and substance abuse. And when we look at the right side of this chart, it's what do we do to prevent these risks? So what are proactive strategies that both schools, families, community and we can work on youth culture? All of those things, there's a lot of evidence both locally and then nationally have huge impact on the reality for our students in substance abuse. So here's some of our data and the great thing is there are data, they provide excellent data for us and it allows us to compare ourselves to other communities in Western Massachusetts. What we find, although we often think of ourselves as unique in Amherst, is the trends that we're seeing in Amherst are very similar to the trends that we're seeing in other communities in Hampshire and Franklin County. You can see that the red line, orange red, is e-cigarettes or vaping and that wasn't assessed in 2015 because people weren't doing it in 2015. So I think that's one thing on the survey data to note is that it's such a recent phenomenon and as you'll hear later, a lot of university settings, a lot of research is being done because there really wasn't good research and even now there's starting to be research but it's such a recent phenomenon, it feels a little different than cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana which are the other items on our chart. In general our community, if you look at 2007 to 2019 data, most of it holds, at least the cigarettes hold pretty constant, six, seven percent. We have fortunately seen a drop in the use of marijuana from 31 and up to about 40%, about 10 years ago and this is student self-reporting. Again, we have a lot of confidence in this data, down to 24% now. Similarly with alcohol, we're not quite as low, we did see a dip and then an increase but it's on a general downward trajectory but we are seeing this rapid increase. Again, this is 10th grade students' responses. We have 8th, 10th, and 12th grade data by the way from 2017 to 2019 on e-cigarette use and so these are pretty similar trends. To be honest some of our trends in terms of alcohol and marijuana are better than some other communities that haven't seen a downward trajectory but the e-cigarette is certainly the growing trend in schools across Western Massachusetts. So is the, what's being e-cigaretteed? Is it, I mean what I'm trying to understand is you have 24% of 10th graders reporting that they have used marijuana or used e-cigarettes in 7% saying, I presume that's some sort of traditional cigarette and then I'm wondering an e-cigarette delivers or a vaping device often delivers the active substance of marijuana or in cigarettes, nicotine. And I was curious if there's any understanding about any of the relationship between these things and also whether, I don't know. So we do have that data. Any further elaborations? Yeah, so we do have that data, I tried to condense this slide deck but in general the majority of students self-report that there's not marijuana in their e-cigarettes. It's not a zero number and I can get to that data specifically, I can follow up with it. But one of the challenging pieces of information both locally as well as nationally is many students aren't clear what's in the e-cigarette. So if you ask national survey data, is nicotine in e-cigarettes, I think it's 40% in a recent survey said that there is not nicotine in the e-cigarette. So I think one of the challenges and that one is compared to some of the other substances is that there's a lack of clarity on the user of what they're actually using. Can I ask a follow-up question? It's just that if, I mean, in many ways, I guess it'd be a relief if it's, if there's a general thought that it's not a marijuana related product. But wouldn't that imply then that if, I mean, I don't know, maybe the world is not divided between marijuana-based and nicotine-based vaping devices and that there are other, like there are, I know there's a lot of admixtures with chemicals on them, but my point is maybe people who are vaping something that authentically has neither nicotine nor a cabonoid in it. And if that's the case, I need to become better educated and be interested in knowing. But if that's not the case, and it's largely nicotine-based, then wouldn't that suggest by your graph here that we went from having around 4% or 5% of our 10th graders reporting, inhaling a nicotine-based substance to 31%? Yes. Unless, of course, some of those kids are doing both the vaping and the cigarette, at the same time, but that would still mean even if 100% of the kids smoking facial cigarettes also vaped, that would still be an increase of 7% to 24%, which is a massive, massive increase. That is correct, yeah. And that is the trend both locally and then nationally as well. I think without getting too deep in the weed, this isn't a weed's comment more generally, I guess, is that the frustration, I think, in the public health community is that if you look at the, if we did charts that go back to the 80s, you could see the cigarette use just going down, down, down, down, down. And for us, it stabilized around 6%, 7%, and that's pretty typical. And so from the public health campaign perspective, that was like, that's pretty much a success. We want it to be as low as possible, but it stabilized dramatically lower than it was 20 years ago. And to have the sharp increase that was unexpected four years ago, three years ago, that's why people are using the word crisis, absolutely. So this is how they track their data. They asked past 30 day use. So that's how they try to, the survey tries to gather it. How do you use this in the past 30 days? Because if you don't put a finite marker on it, then the data is less clear. So what you'll see is grade eight, grade 10, and grade 12. This is Amherst data from last year, from 2019, we did the survey in the winter. And you could see that the numbers increased throughout grade eight. The numbers are lower than grade 10 and grade 12, which you would think is typical, but we see the large increase between grade eight and grade 10. And that is highly concerning for us to see that growth from 12% to 23% in a two year span. This is Hampshire County data, so not our local data, or ours is included in this, I should say. How youth are getting e-cigarette, and you could see that the majority has borrowed, used the friends, gave money as a different way of buying, saying purchased or bought from someone under 21. So I think this is relevant in terms of, and I'm not trying to take a policy position on this about marijuana shops in the communities, particularly Amherst North Hampton and there are other communities in Hampshire County, East Hampton that have stores that the majority of students are not at least directly buying it from established marijuana stores. It's much more coming from borrowed, used the friends, and bought it from someone under 21. So that's not to say it didn't derive from those stores, right? We can't track that data, but I thought it's useful to say where is this all coming from? Someone? On the other hand, the one, one of the takeaways I took from this jar is that if you combine the 15 and the 12%, that's 27% of individuals under 21 that are able to attain vaping products illegally. Yeah. Right, so that's, you know, 27 is less than 50, but it's still more than a quarter of what's going on. Online is very easy. Right, right. And so as, I just, I point that out because, you know, the community discussion around legalization of marijuana had a lot of crossover into what's the impact going to be in terms of availability to younger people and how much do we need to focus on that? And let this happen, at least at the county level, is that it is something we can focus on. Yeah. So then before I go to the next slide, what we had this data, so what we've decided to do is partner with the Educational Collaborative. They are our specific partner. They have kind of resources, particularly around well-being and health more generally. And the three areas we wanted to focus on to have in place, you know, we're working on this year, but certainly solidly in place for next year, one was on curriculum activities. And that's focused on having an aligned vaping education as part of our health curriculum in grades five through 12. So I know we're talking at a secondary level, but the reality is if we're waiting till kids get to middle school to do vaping education, which is not wildly different than what we're doing now, that's too late. And so, and that's not about grade configuration because I know that someone may see this and think about that. It's that if we're waiting till kids get to a middle school level before they've had education on this, we're waiting too long. The second was on policy consequences and interventions. And I think one thing I shared with this committee last spring, perhaps, was that I went to a conference with a number of staff members last year. And one of the things they said is if we're suspending kids for vaping and they're addicted to nicotine and physically aren't able to stop without support, that's a really false method of intervention. It's not gonna help kids stop vaping. Like if that's the goal, that's not gonna be a successful goal. So we wanna have a clear policy, and by policy, I don't mean school community policy, lower case P policy consequences, intervention plan for students who are found to be vaping in the school setting. And the last is on parent and family engagement. How are we, right? If you think back to that chart at the beginning, how are we working not just with the school community in during the school day, but the larger community give them the tools they need to support students? Because one of the things that comes up all the time is vaping devices are small. They look like the USB drive that is in the computer right now. Someone was telling a story the other day that a parent came in and they thought their kid had a vape pen and it was at last night actually, and it was a writing pen. But I think the concern is how do families keep up with the evolving quote unquote technology as it relates to e-cigarettes? And so that's the way we wanna have a consistent approach in those three areas. Over time, we'll need to refine that, but those seem to be in our determination that three carriers to work on. So working with, and I'm sorry this isn't, it's not unclear, it's just not as clear as I'd like. Working with the collaborative, you can see some of the ideas that they've worked on us with around curriculum activities, because we do have some of this in place, but I wouldn't say that our curriculum and activities in grades five through 12 are consistent. Policies and consequences and interventions, we wanna be really clear on what, do we have a treatment plan instead of a consequence plan, so to speak, when students are found to be vaping in school? And again, how do we engage families and provide them resources and support? So this is sort of our map that we're working on completing this year. Just a note that top part, which I didn't talk explicitly about universal prevention curriculum. So some of it's around health and some of it's about social-emotional skills and some of it's around school climate. What does it mean across the school? I'm not on the individual level. In the school level, how do students feel? Are they able to talk to a counselor, to the nurse about things that are happening? And how do our policies engagement and equity and social justice play into that? And the collaborative shares our viewpoint on social justice that we are highly concerned about who this is affecting and is this having a greater effect on some of our, on some populations as opposed to others and how do we support students in those ways? Not every student has a family member who can make it to a family information event. So how do we have multiple forms of outreach for all of our students? So here's our follow-up actions. This is just again a summary. So as was shared with you last spring, we were fortunate to get a DPH grant and it took us a while to find a nurse manager that we were comfortable with and felt like was going to be a good fit in our community and with this district. Unfortunately, we did. So she started to work a couple weeks ago. She's fabulous and she's taking on a lot of leadership role around vaping education doing own professional development, but she's worked in community health settings before as well as school. So she has a really nice way to think about what happens here, what happens with pediatricians, what happens with families. That's coming more from a clinical background than perhaps just a school-based background. I think in this particular instance that's incredibly helpful. We have two vaping education events as I shared earlier, planned for the larger community in February. We are one of the districts along with Northampton who is participating in grant requests that Harvard is working on and they're working on alternative approaches to vaping and some of that really has to do with getting away from consequencing students in a way that actually has no impact on the actual problem at hand. So we're doing our work, but if Harvard's willing to, and they are willing to have us and they get this major NIH grant that we can partner with them and that the collaborative is working on curriculum and how to respond to vaping incidents. Next week they'll be here two days, they'll be here in one afternoon with health teachers and other teachers as well as administrators working on the curriculum piece and aligning our work. And the next day they'll be back with our administrative team on how do we, what are the logical consequences that promote support for students and families in the case that students are addicted. I think the two other quick things that aren't here is that our nurse manager is also doing professors' development through Northeastern University who's done some research in this area as well. And really the framing is that from Northeastern's point of view, vaping is a pediatric crisis, right? This is where we are and what are both school-wide as well as individual responses that are appropriate. So I know I'm just doing an update and there's one other part of our update tonight, but maybe I'll pause here and see if there's a question. That's particularly helpful. Yeah, that's right. I just want to go quickly around the table because of the time, but also this is important and luckily it's not the last time that we're going to be talking about this. Certainly not. I'll start over here and just run around the table. Stanza? A quick question about the Harvard support. Is it through a research study that they're... Can you send us the slides? Oh, sure. Because the packet we got had the note function like you're at a conference and you have a cup of coffee and you take your notes. And because they're really dense slides, I found them completely impossible to read. Oh, I see what you're saying. And so ideally we would get a copy that's both in color and ideally full-size, frankly, because they're just so... I'll just send you a PDF from the full-size. That would be awesome. Thank you so much. I like the approach I'm thinking about how to treat the problem as opposed to discipline the problem. So one more tactical question. Do you know are we still locking the bathrooms during the day in the middle school and high school? And if so, is there a plan for figuring out an alternate approach to that? Yeah, well, that's... Mr. Demling's reading an article about that right now. No, but we're not. Actually, you know, Northampton's gone this approach. This is a complicated issue, so I'll try to give a short answer and certainly we can follow up in the future because I don't think I can do it justice in a 30-second soundbite. But a lot of the approaches have gone the opposite way of locking doors. It's actually keeping doors open in Northampton, for instance, they have the... Not the doors to where people would... Not the stalls, but the door to the bathroom stays open. And that seemed to be an effective method. It's odd as it sounds. I think the Northampton superintendent said, well, oddly we want to reduce privacy, not privacy in the stalls, but privacy into the bathroom spaces. And yet, not everyone's comfortable. And we've had the same experience at our high school where not everyone has been comfortable with that approach, although it was effective. And I think that gets at some of the challenge of how do we talk about spaces where we're never gonna have video cameras, we're never gonna monitor, right? We're not gonna have, you know, the surveillance piece doesn't make sense in that setting. And yet, we get reports from students who less so this year than last year, particularly at the middle school less so this year than last year, but who are concerned about, you know, do I wanna walk into the bathroom because I just wanna go to the bathroom and yet, you know, when I walk in and the students are vaping, it's not the environment that feels comfortable to me. And so that's the conundrum we have. So we're trying multiple approaches and I think I'll probably leave it there because it's a larger question. So I should actually say, I appreciate, are you done? Yes. Okay, because I realized I started in as if you were done. I like the comprehensive way in which you're approaching the topic and sort of the all hands-on duck way of looking at the different members of our community who are an important part of our students' lives and play a role in understanding this issue, but also obviously helping intervening in support with kids. I also think I really appreciate the fact that you're looking, you're doing lots of things, but also you're looking at ways to try to address better understanding education and support for students who might have reported that they used one of these substances in the last month but might not again for another seven months because it was literally just a matter of, yeah, well, like when you do a survey that says they've ever tried such and such, the answer a kid might give, honestly, is, well, yeah, I have tried it, and I nick Michael's beer. But if you ask a further question of, was this something you've done in the last 30 days or you do regularly, the answer might be no, right? And I'm not saying there isn't support and engagement for that population, there absolutely is and you've talked about it. But then there's also, as we've talked about here, a really strong correspondence between kids who present significant at-risk challenges or identifying markers of at-risk behavior, social behavioral issues, sometimes mental health challenges, whatever they are, that undiagnosed, unsupported, untreated can then also lead to much more significant problems with these substances. And I just appreciate the fact that you're, without judging any of it in terms of how you intervene, you're trying to look at the thing holistically and take kids and families and our community where it is and try to find ways to be supportive and helpful. So I just, I appreciate it because all of those things in my opinion are necessary. So I mean, I guess my general comment would be the same to the next topic you're gonna talk about, which is, I really think for an issue like this, we need to make sure that we engage students directly in trying to design what eventually our approach is going to be, because like for cigarettes, for example, we still don't want kids to smoke traditional cigarettes. And it's not great that it's at six or seven percent. But that's much lower than it used to be. And I think reading through this article here on the graphic by Judy Katz and graphic staff, he does a really good job about interviewing different students and how the bathrooms are ground zero for this. And there's so many different issues and Principal Jones says this is not an easy problem to approach because it brings up these issues we've mentioned about privacy and rights and that most kids are bothered by it as well. And so trying to engage people who are doing it in a non-punitive way like described, I think it's impossible to do that without talking to people directly about what's your experience with this and how do we flip the script on that kind of aspect of student culture. To get it to zero is probably next to impossible, but to get it down to those lower numbers, I think that's going to be essential. Mr. Menino. A point of clarification. I did not hear you correctly. You locked the bathrooms during the day. So no, what I said was that one thing that has been a method, so that was happening. That's unhuman. So last year I think there were problems at one particular bathroom in the middle school and there was another bathroom to use. So at no point were students unable to use the bathroom in school. And we don't, that's not a current method that's being used, but I want to be clarified at that point because I can understand how that concern would be a rise that students wouldn't have a bathroom to use and that was never the case. Yes, Mr. Smosh. Yeah, I understand all the issues surrounding this matter, but it's yet another social issue, social problem that schools are being told to address in the confines of a six and a half hour day, 180 day school year, and the same amount of funds you have for everything else. I'm wondering if there are any public health resources, CES is not a public health organization, are there public health resources in the area that we could look to for providing the kinds of services that you're talking about that wouldn't put a burden on the school district? Does that make sense? It does, so I would respectfully offer a perhaps different perspective, which is that I don't disagree that this is yet another, I don't disagree with the core premise you have, but like any substance abuse issue or any wellbeing issue, we feel like it's our responsibility to affect our students, then we're gonna take it on. And the reality for us is we do offer health classes at the secondary level, and health curriculum have been slow to catch up because this is such a recent phenomenon, but just like alcohol or any of the other substances that exist, we feel like it's our obligation to do our part in that work because we know it's affecting our kids' education, and I know you'd agree with that. As it relates to public health resources, for instance, the family sessions that we're planning are funded by a public health agency, so they are cost-neutral for us to put on, and where it's possible we do access those resources, and it's something I have talked to the town manager of Amherst about in particular, just because we have regular conversations about issues in our community, and vaping is something that crosses that boundary, as you noted, but we do feel like we have a pretty critical role as the primary caretakers for our children for significant parts of the day, because you said the hours, but we know our students are here many more hours than that to affect the school culture and to provide accurate information, just I don't think it'll be too long, but just to think about the cigarette campaign that's got our numbers here locally at six or 7%, and then statewide nationally, we'll hire them that, but so much better than it used to be, the most effective strategy was giving accurate information to students, to children, and to let them know that what was really in the cigarettes, what kind of advertising the cigarette companies were doing, and right now the same trends, they're modernized for 2020, are happening in the e-cigarette world, so if you look at the e-cigarette commercials, it's the 2020 version of Joe Kool, I mean it's not Joe Kool because that wouldn't be cool in 2020, but it's really the same strategies updated and they're savvy, they have people paying, they're paying millions of dollars for marketing, all that kind of work, so how do we catch up and provide accurate information for our students, because if we don't do it, where are they going to get it? So that's how we're approaching it. I want to wrap this section up so if you have a nice one. But it did remind me of a question we had when we were debating, we're discussing, retail marijuana sales, and I think this is one of those things where regardless of what the percentage is, it obviously overlaps, and anyone says it doesn't, it's crazy, not reality-based. Is there, we talked about approaching the town, about providing some resources for this kind of campaign, this kind of effort, is that in the offing, is it in this, I don't remember any follow-up on whether that's going to happen. Yeah, I think now that there's income coming in, something that I will be, I have talked loosely and will be talking more specifically with the town manager of Amherst. I mean it's slightly orthogonal to what Mr. Hunt was talking about. He was talking about literally other agencies and other stuff, but it just occurs to me that if we can bring in resources, that could support even more effective work on this, we should be, and that's a very appropriate use of some of that revenue from retail establishments in Amherst. Yeah, thank you. Cool, keep rolling. So I'm going to roll through the second part kind of quickly, because I am noticing the hour. Well, take your time in purple, I don't want to. Yeah. We haven't talked about this, and I don't want you to feel like they're blowing up the topic. Sure, so the next one was some slides from Jason Wheeler, who I mentioned before, it's a consultant, he's been here twice for the first time, he was with Carmen Paulino who works at, has a connection to Mask Listen. And the first time, these are mostly slides I pulled from the second presentation, but the first time was really focused particularly on the T in LGBTQ plus and thinking about how to support transgender students. And the second session was taking that at a broader level, because one of the things that we noted is, as we dove into the experience and did case studies with transgender students, the other parts of those students' identity played a critical role in how we approached, analyzed and what interventions or supports we would be able to offer. And so fortunately, Jason worked with us on the second session, which was a follow-up to that first one. And again, he's outstanding to work with and works with schools all over the state on this topic. And really, the goal of the workshop with our administrative team was exploring, the bolded words are intentional, exploring the complexity of student identities and that this intersectional framework was really important to us. And that really came from our first meeting, that when we were role playing, when we were talking about supporting transgender students, the other parts of their identity was critically important. For instance, there were situations where race was involved as well as that, where religion, where family's acceptance or non-acceptance of students' identity unrelated to those other identities, but that becomes an identity in and of itself, poverty played a huge role in that. So for instance, when we did a role play of a student who was going through a gender transition, or gender transitioning, I should say, having the capacity to buy clothes that would match the gender identity of the student, when you think about poverty that has a huge impact on how that transition would go. And so I think once we got much more into depth, we realized that looking at it through an intersectional framework was really helpful and Jason supported us in that work. And so I think the particular part, and I like some of his language on this, is that when we think about inequality and we think about historically oppressed groups, they don't work in isolation from one another. And that's not exclusive to LGBTQ students, but it's part of how we approach students in support, regardless of their identity. And this was a really helpful analogy that he did. I'm gonna go through it, not rush through it, but a little more quickly is he used, I don't know if anyone's read the book, The Borderlands, but by Gloria Anzald, excuse me, Anzald Dua, and I could send that to people if they're interested in reading it. And it's really, she uses The Borderlands, both literally and figuratively in the book, to really describe the center, right? So we think of the center as kind of groups that in our culture and in the United States have been at the center in terms of power and power dynamics, a white male, heterosexual, married Christian, Anglo-American, English-speaking, upper middle class, able-bodied, educated middle-aged and embodying a certain, a particular standard of beauty. And how, again, using this book sort of as a metaphor, how do we knock it in the place of trying to assimilate students and adults in our community who don't fit into one or multiple of those identities in the center? Because that's been the, that has been a trend in America, and it's trend in American schools, is there are students who don't fit in those categories, how do we mold so that it pushes students into a center and actually how do we change what the center is as our goal? How do we shift what's called The Borderlands to students and communities who often feel like they're on the outskirts of the focus of any organization, and how do we get away from the assimilation model to really change what the center is? And so that was a helpful tool for us to be thinking about is when you're in certain categories of those, it's much more apparent. So it was interesting, even in our administrative team, which is quite diverse, how people viewed themselves and viewed others and what part of their identities came out and that some of those kind of identities are more visible and some are less visible for a whole host of reasons. So it was a really helpful centering tool for us to think about what is in the center, how might people feel on the borderlands or outside the center, and what do we actually do to change that model where people have to change behavior, change who they are, change their identities, because it's a perception that they need to fit in there to be successful. So I know that that's a bit of an aside or it might feel like a bit of a side, but it was really foundational for us in the work around intersectionality. Additionally, we worked with the framework, again, this is adapted from racial justice and education and resource guide to guide our intervention supports and decision-making. And I won't go too into depth because I think this more or less is easy to follow, but it's really trying to do root cause analysis, understand how students are experiencing the school setting, what's the history, what questions do we ask, working only then working towards solutions, strategies, and leadership. And the solutions and strategies tend to be a little more on the individual side. And for us, it was a workshop for leaders, how do we take that individual experience, because again, we're doing case studies and getting really into what would you do in this situation, making it very real? And what will we learn as we get more and more of these not case studies, but actual experiences? And how do we learn to embed those into our practices and policies? And I think the key piece is that, and it starts right in the beginning, what inequalities are you noticing or experiencing? So really shifting the dynamic from thinking about, that would be the problem, not the student as a center, what problems are the student having, what are the inequalities that might be leading to those challenges? And so I know it could seem semantic to us, to some, but for us really to reframe the conversation about how are inequalities in our school system, in our culture, in our society that students are experiencing, how is that driving some of the challenges that our students are facing in the school? And how is it intersecting with the multiple identities that students have? And really using this framework as whenever we're working through challenges that students are assuriancing, so can I come up with a real clear decision-making pathway that doesn't rush a process? It considers the identities, because I think all too often, more generally, I'm not speaking specific to our district. People are stressed, though it's true, people are stressed for time, and our teachers are incredibly experienced, our administrators are incredibly experienced, and to really take the time to dig in and say what are factors we're not considering here? What are factors that are affecting our students' academic performance, social performance, how they're getting along with peers, and understanding those better before we get to solutions, and I think it's sort of like the, it's not on here, but the ladder of inference. People often, I think it's just life in 2020, can rush up the ladder of inference and without really digging in more directly into understanding the student experience. So some of our follow-up actions, our schools are developing individual follow-up plans based on these professional development sessions. We're actually talking about those on Thursday at an administrative team meeting. And to be clear, this isn't just our principles, this includes central office staff as well, so I should have, that's a sort of mistake in the slides. Our information systems department is part and parcel of this work. How are our students, and I think we have good systems at this point, when we have, when students express a gender preference, how is that being reflected in power school and the database, all those pieces. So it's not just about what happens in the schools, it's actually what we do centrally as well. From a facility side, there's a huge impact of how we approach things, bathrooms, facilities. So it's not just about school leaders, it's about district leadership as well. Our keynote speaker, Elijah, at our fall curriculum day, spoke about it with every all staff, but also led to breakout sessions that were widely attended on the support of transgender students. He'd build it as transgender students 101 and 201. So 101 for staff members who felt like they didn't have much experience and 201 for staff members who really want to take more of a leadership role in the district on this to sort of build our internal leadership. As you know, all the school's strategic plans include explicit components of social justice and oppressed groups. And we've accessed additional supports from other trainers such as from the Stonewall Center at UMass, Mass Safe Schools as multiple trainers who have led trainings for our staff members. And at this point this spring, schools be implementing plans. I mean, many have started already, but implementing more formal plans for LGBTQ youth based on this work. And so that's sort of a summary of where we are. And again, I feel bad, I feel like I'm rushing a little bit, hopefully it didn't feel too quick. But that's a summary of the work we've done and much appreciation to Jason Wheeler and Carmen Polina for facilitating work that was incredibly meaningful for our leadership team and got to nuts and bolts. I mean, I think that's sometimes on work like this, you could stay at a very theoretical level, which is helpful. When we get into case studies and it's like, no, what would you do in your role, whatever that could be IS director, could be assistant principal in a school, that really shifts our thinking and makes things much more tangible. And in my experience makes things much more practical for implementation. So we will sneak around the table again, starting over here. I don't have much to add from our previous conversations. I think it's essential to include individuals at the school, to the extent students want to be included in order to gather feedback and drive the policies from their own lived experience. I mean, you just mentioned the same theme, so I don't belabor the point, but not having it all topped down from an academic-theoretic level, but from the actual real experience too. And if I could comment very briefly on that, I think that's spot on. And the middle school has been a good example where they have a student group that's been advocating very strongly around school culture and certain language being used, working with the leadership team, both at the school, actually the district level on that. And I think the benefit of having advocacy groups at the schools is that they're able to take a leadership role in that. And it's to your point, hearing it from directly, the people most directly affected. Do we have non-gendered bathrooms at the middle school also like we do here? So I will email you that. I think I know the answer, but when I'm not 100% sure, I don't want to say it. All right. Are you done? I'm done, thank you. Just, this sounds really great. And I look forward to hearing more of what the follow-up plans will be for each of the schools. Does this intersect or conceptually, or has it intersected with the restorative justice and the circle work that is done? Is conceptually I could see at least the methodologies for engagement in student empowerment, leadership, and articulation to being similar? Yeah, I think it, not directly, but I think indirectly it has because students have reached out to the RJ personnel around some of these issues. So I wouldn't say it was explicitly by design, but because we have restorative justice practitioners or schools, they've been an incredibly helpful resource for students and faculty on this topic. Do you see doing more of that or more of that intentionally? I do believe that will be how this plays out over time, yes. Okay, sorry. Thank you. Just curious how this program intersects with whatever you're doing on social-emotional issues with kids. Quite a bit. And I think this slide sort of captures a little bit of that. So when we have a framework for problem solving, we're often thinking about more actively, not that we haven't, but more directly, what are students' identities that could be affecting some of those pieces? Because we know there's a comorbidity in, let's focus on LGBTQ youth, students who identify as LGBTQ and other challenges that students express. And some of the SPIPI survey that I mentioned earlier, it's not just on substance abuse prevention, it gets lots of other challenges and the comorbidity of that and self-harm thoughts is a good database reason why we need to do this work. Thank you. I would just say I appreciate, I have an understanding now of intersectionality which I did not before, so thank you for that. Next steps, I would appreciate if you would report back regularly to this committee on what you're doing. We'll do. Next, which I think is our last item. We have no gifts. We have no gifts. Then our last item before adjournment is agenda planning. I certainly heard, we heard the desire for food service discussion and presentation so that's on the list already. Anything, and obviously we need to get a budget session planned which will take up some time. Is there anything else that is of immediate interest? Mike, you want to just read through? Yeah, I'll just run through it. So the governance budgets will be released on 22nd so I'll get an update from the commissioner actually on 23rd on that. So 28th, we have budget, we're gonna start with the MCN student update so students who went to the MCN conference are gonna present their experience there as well as their action plan. So we'll start the meeting there so that they can get on their way and do all the activities they'd like to do and get some sleep. We'll have a budget presentation, as I mentioned earlier. We'll have a fee vote. We have a middle school roof. We did not, if you remember last year, we applied to the MSBA. We could maybe push this to February, it's not due till March, but so we'll talk about where that fits best, but we will need a vote on a statement of interest to receive support in funding the repair of the middle school roof or replacement of the middle school roof. Warrant review, so that will be on the agenda, Mr. Frange. Subcommittee rolls, we may push that, I think it's actually till. That's gonna get pushed, but also we're adding in a CTF. Right, I was just gonna say, because that was listed on today's meeting. Right, that's gonna be on the point. They asked to be there. Second quarter budget update, capital plan update. We talked in the fall about a bus contract and so we got bids in. I think at that point, I think we'll be able to present the results of that bid and there may be some decisions for you all to consider based on some of the questions you asked about buses and sustainability. So we'll see, we have all the bids in just of whether the timeline works out to happen on the 28th or February 11th. Okay, so let's just do it, I mean in terms of the highlights then, you can see the hearing on the 11th and then we've talked about overdue balances before. We were originally gonna do I think a November HR diversity department update, but we'll do that on February 11th. Math update, that's one that's, should be brief. No, I'm just saying it's new. It's not like, we have running topics, right, we'll kind of figure out what they are and why they're there. And then goal review update, I think that means you. That does. Indeeds. So anything else people, yes? I'm just noting that the investment of vote pub funds for a possible vote that was on the top of, for January 14th hasn't happened and as the OPEC has D, I think. Look at that. Do we have, it's too bad, Mr. Stuck, Mr. Flarsen. He was going to check whether that vote needed, I think that what needed to happen, we're gonna check, happened in the fall, so I think. Yeah, that's what I thought too, I just. I think it was a clerical error by me that I forgot that that happened. So that's why it didn't happen tonight. Okay, I feel like it happened when Mr. Mongano was here, so I was curious. Yeah, it was one of the housekeeping things that we took care of, I didn't do the housekeeping of removing it from the list. I'd also note the later start time that he's listed here also, didn't make it onto the agenda tonight. Right. That's a big issue. Yeah, I know, that's good. And obviously, because it's nearly 10 o'clock, we can all see why it wasn't on tonight's agenda. No, but we don't want to fall. No, no, no, without losing it. Yeah. I mean, I think my recommendation would be post budget. There'd be a little more space and capacity, my guess is to dig in there. Well, I'm going to remind folks that they can email to myself and Dr. Morris, other toddlers, is telling. Did I just miss, Ms. Spitzer's saying, did she say later start time? Yes, she did. Okay, okay. Yeah, the other thing I think would be where the... Wasn't that exciting? Yes. Someone else brought it up. It was so late, I missed later start time. I think it would also be worthwhile first to have a brief discussion on committee's feeling on the practice of yielding time during public comment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think it's called out in our public comment policy, and I think, I don't have any issue with it having happened so far, because I think it falls under chair's discretion, but I think it would be worthwhile for the committee to say a few words about it. Yeah, I mean, I think we could say some words on it, but I think we should be even more actionable than that.  We should say whatever words we want to say and point towards whether we want a policy to be developed or refined and then make a decision about whether you want a policy or refined. I mean, I suppose it is chair's discretion, but the reason, without debating it, I'm just explaining, that the reason why I followed the practice I followed is precisely because we don't have a clear policy prescribing it, and in the absence of that, it's not, I think, it doesn't feel like it's a good sort of native decision practice to say we're just gonna shut people off if there's not clarity around. Precedure in that the procedure is then widely published and everybody knows what it is. But anyways. The only other one is, I just didn't know if anyone in the policy subcommittee should we be adding any, you don't have to tell me now or the chair now, but if there are policies that are becoming or should pretend evaluation, just if people can preview that so we can get an agenda, it's great if we can get it like a week ahead of time, not the specifics, but just. Can we put superintendent evaluation as a topic whenever we're doing global review update? Mm-hmm. It seems like that ought to be a paired topic. Not only what's the update from Mike, but then what are we doing? You're okay? Yeah, okay, cool, awesome. All right, we're done with that. You have a motion? Oh, can I be? Yes, sir. Could it be just for a moment again? Maybe. One more time? Yeah, about something, agenda related or relevant or? It's relevant because, you know, we just approved the engineering materials and manufacturing process course. And I just want to point out that up until the school year 13, 14, all middle school students were taking a course to expose them to a range of common engineering materials, wood, metal, plastic, and composites. And that class was cut and that classroom is now leisure services. So I just wanted to point that out. Can I connect that to the budget, to an agenda item, rather? Which is perhaps that's a relevant conversation when we talk about budget next time about budget decisions that if funding was available, the committee would like me to consider. It is, but I think also, frankly, I mean, this is the challenge with the conversation we have really around new courses, is we get this momentary window into interesting things that are going on. And yet in terms of long term planning, the committee doesn't really, doesn't ever really have the conversation of, so, you know, to the executive argument, what would it mean to both not only have a production studio for music production, but also have that, I mean, just one example, there are others. And then connect that to what it looks like for career pathways, professional certification for music production engineers, or for what entrance requirements look like for Berkeley College of Music, right? I mean, I'm not saying you couldn't get answers, but my point is if we wanted to do this, we'd want to start looking at seventh grade or even maybe upper elementary and try to see where are we going with this connection to design, engineering, fabrication, you know, you know what I mean? Well, we never have those conversations. And we can't unless we're intentional about it. So Mr. Giles, do you have anything else on your mind? I move to adjourn. Is there a second? Second. Moved and seconded by Spitt. Moved and seconded by Spitt. Seconded by Spitzer. All those in favor? It is unanimous, we're adjourned.


Remember, a Hallmark card when you will carry enough to send the very best. The card will bring you Hollywood's greatest stars. An outstanding story is chosen by one of the world's... Gentlemen, this is James Hilton. Tonight on our Hallmark Playhouse, we present our dramatization of a rather charming story called The Big Build Up by a very interesting American writer, Michael Foster. He has also written some excellent novels. But I confess that one of the reasons I enjoyed The Big Build Up is because it has a background familiar to me that of the Hollywood Picture Studios. This, which is really a world of its own and a strange world of that, is the scene of Michael Foster's story. And he not only handles it with skill, but has given a new twist to a familiar theme. He even makes a romantic hero of a press agent. And why not, in a world in which so many strange things can happen? Well, anyhow, for the starting role tonight, we've certainly chosen one of Hollywood's finest and most deservedly popular actors, Dana Andrews. And now a word about Hallmark cards from Frank Goss, before we begin the first act of The Big Build Up. There are Hallmark cards for every memorable occasion on your calendar, for every occasion that calls for remembrance, for a friendly greeting, a word of good cheer, and expression of sympathy. There is a Hallmark card that says just what you want to say, the way you want to say it. And that identifying Hallmark on the back. Well, that says you cared enough to send the very best. Now, Hallmark Playhouse presenting Michael Foster's The Big Build Up, starring Dana Andrews. Remember that it came straight to the point. Mark, the studio wants the works for this girl. They're bringing her in from New York for a featured role in Night of the City. She's a complete unknown. But by the time the picture's released, they want her name to be a household word. In other words, she's to get The Big Build Up. Here's a picture. He handed me a photograph, and there she was, smiling back at me from a glossy print. I had loved her briefly, then hated her much longer than I'd loved her. And an old sorrow that I had thought long vanished, moved restlessly, disturbingly inside me. And for a moment, all reality was gone, and there was music and perfume. And Claire's eyes looking up at me in the old, remembered manner. What do you think of her? Yeah, she looks all right. No better than that? Depends on what type you go for. Well, the boss is completely sold on her. She gets in from New York this morning. You'll meet her this afternoon. Well, look, can't someone else handle this assignment? But what reason? I don't know. She does nothing to me. I don't think I'm right for her. Look, all we're asking you to do is handle a publicity when not asking you to marry her. The boss asks for you particularly. Okay, that's the way you want it. That's the way we want it. Be on the boss' office at two. I'll be there. I'd like you to meet Mr. O'Neill. How do you do, Mr. O'Neill? Nice to meet you, Miss Conroy. Mr. O'Neill is the best publicity man on the line. Really? Mark, I want you to forget every publicity trick you've ever used before. This is a fresh new personality, and I want a fresh new approach for her. Sell dignity, sell charm, sell wholesomeness, and a bobble. A bobble, sell. That's right, my boy.  Miss Conroy, you go along with Mr. O'Neill now and give him the basic details of your life so he can get right to work. Yes, Mr. Sittman. Thank you very much. Good afternoon. I'd like to look over the coffee when you have it ready, Mark. I'll send it in. Send in my next appointment, Miss Morrison. I'm familiar with them. Why, out of all the publicity men in Hollywood, it'd have to be you. Honey, I was just thinking the same thing. Are you going to spoil things for me now? If you knew how hard I've worked the last three years to get here... Why don't we go down to the music stage? I think this would sound better to a background of hearts and flowers. Oh, you're absolutely inhuman. I wasn't once, if you'll think back a little. Well, you've got a wonderful opportunity right now to avenge yourself for anything you think I did to you. What are you going to do about it? I'm going to do exactly what I've been ordered to do, my girl. I'm going to give you the big build-up. Late in my office that night, I sat there staring at a blank sheet of paper in a silent typewriter, trying to figure out how to sell clear Conroy to the movie-going public. And at last, I decided that one of the ways to do it was to tell them how a man might feel about her. Saw her, she was laughing. I was walking down Fifth Avenue on a bright March day holding onto my own hat when all of a sudden a big floppy hat was blown right smack into my kisser. I heard her laughing before I ever saw her. I'm awfully sorry, but I'm afraid that's my hat to wear. Well, just let me get untangled up these ribbons, so I'll give a hug. Do you want me to hear a cab for you? There isn't one in sight. Well, come on, let's get in the shelter that's building. All right. That storm certainly came from nowhere.  We're silly to come out without a coat, but it looks so beautiful out this morning. You must be freezing to death. There's a restaurant inside. Why don't we go in and have some lunch? Well, I don't know. After all, we've never met. Well, that is, we've never been introduced.  Well, so did mine. But if you'll take a chance, I will. How about it? It doesn't seem to be anything else due to. My name is Claire Conroy. Mine's Mark O'Neill. Hello, Claire. Hello, Mark. It should be. One girl has a smile you remember. Another has a way of walking. You're like some of them because they have brains and some of them because they haven't. And then you meet one girl and something in her eyes touches off a spark and everything. You're as excited every time you see her as you were when you were a kid. Christmas Eve came. Talking in central parts. This is talking a mile a minute. The producer's office. And he looked at me and he said, I'm afraid you are not the type we're looking for just now, Miss Conroy. And I said, oh. And he said, but you are a very interesting type. So keep in touch with us and maybe something will come up later in the season. But I did get into the producer's office, Mark. I was right in the inner sanctum. Isn't that exciting? Hmm? I said, isn't it exciting? Isn't what exciting? Oh, Mark. You haven't heard a word I said. Oh, sure I have. You said, isn't that exciting? Claire, how long have we known each other? Oh, about three months. Why? You know, I decided a long time ago to remain a bachelor. Years ago, I decided that marriage was not for me. Well, every man has a right to his own opinion. Well, after all, a man's freedom means a lot to him. Of course it does. And a man likes to be his own boss to come and go as he pleases, to live the way he wants to live. Very understandable. Marriage means that he's got to give up his independence and he's got to come home every night on a time clock. Marriage is a terrible problem for a bachelor to be up against. Yes. Yes, I can see that it is, Mark. Claire, stop agreeing with me. Now stop it. But I do agree with you. I don't want you to agree with me. I want you to marry me. You don't want me to marry you. But you were saying... I was saying that was the way I felt before. I met you. But when I met you, everything changed. Now when I come home, I think, wouldn't it be wonderful if she was here waiting? Why? Will you marry me, Claire? Will you please marry me? Oh, Mark, we'll have to do a lot of thinking about that. We'll have to do a lot of thinking. How does a man feel about a girl like her? A man looks at her and thinks, now at last I've found the answer to my seeking. Now at last are all women one woman, all dreams one dream. Now loneliness is forever gone from me. I will be if she'll have me. I tried to tell her that, but there's one thing to know things in the heart, and there's quite another to bring them to the tongue. Mark, you realize you've been staring into the fire for almost an hour without saying a word? Fair enough. I'm sorry. What are you thinking about? I was thinking about you. I was thinking about me. I was thinking about the future. You still haven't given me an answer, Claire. Mark... I'm not sure it would be fair to marry you. Look, ever since I was a little girl, I've wanted one thing. I wanted to be an actress. I never are good. It's still the thing I want to do more than anything else in the world. I've got to be honest about that. I'm not going to stop you from being an actress if that's what you want. Oh, Mark, I'm afraid I'm all mixed up. I want to marry you and I want to prove I can act. Well, you could do both. Could I? Maybe I'm a cynic. Maybe I believe that if you ask for too much, you don't get anything. Let's make a try for it, baby. Let's take our hats and throw them at the moon and start climbing after them. Take your life out in advance. Let's just start living it. If you'll take a chance, I will. How about it? Darling, that's exactly what you said to me the first day I met you. Claire, you do love me, don't you? Please, say you love me. Looking back into mirrors that I hadn't looked into for a long time, at last I began to write down in words what a man might feel about a girl like Claire. I kept it all pretty objective. I sat there, the door opened, and my young assistant, Kathy Martin, came. If you were going to work, I would have been happy to take your dictation. I couldn't impose on you at this hour, Kathy. What are you doing around here so late anyhow? I left a book that I wanted. Why don't you dictate the rest of that to me? It's finished. It's plenty long for the first story. May I read it? Why do you say it like that? Is something wrong with it? You're in love with her, aren't you? In love with her? You're crazy. Am I? Anything about her. And I get that through your head right now. I don't like anything about her. I didn't say you did. I said you were in love with her. Now, I must say, it certainly happened fast. What time did you meet her? Two o'clock? No, why don't you mind your own business? Thanks, I will. Good night, Mark. No, no, I didn't mean that. I'm sorry, Kathy. It's all right, Mark. I was nosy. I have no right to question you. Look, I'm going to say this once so you'll understand. I'd appreciate it if you kept it to yourself. Maybe it'll clear things up in your mind. I was married to Claire Conroy. Married? Yes, I would declare Conroy. And I still am. We'll return to the second act of the big build-up starring Dana Andrews. Let me tell you about an experience I had today while walking along a busy street. Every store I passed seemed crowded with shoppers, intent on buying new fall clothes or something for their houses, perhaps. And then as I stopped at one store, suddenly this thought struck me. Here, people were doing a different kind of shopping. Different in that each was buying something not for himself, but for someone else. A greeting card to remember a friend or loved one. You know, you buy cards only to send to others.  That's why if you ask your friends what name they think of in greeting cards when they want to send the very best, invariably they'll answer hallmark cards. So it's easy to remember it would be difficult to forget. To look on the back of the card you choose for the hallmark, to say you cared enough to send the very best. Now back to James Hilton and the second act of the big build-up, starring Dana Andrews. We continue Michael Foster's story about a Hollywood publicity man and the strange, ironic trick fate played on him. The order had sounded so simple when it was first given. It was a complete unknown.  In other words, she used to get the big build-up. About how she looked on a picnic and how she looked sitting by a fire. I wrote about her love of books, her love of music and her love of children. And never once wrote of Claire as I had known her coming in night after night for that hot, sticky little apartment looking white and unhappy. Anybody home? Another day I've had. They sent me clear over to Brooklyn for a story and when I got over there... I know, I know. I've been pounding the pavements all day too. I'm beat. Oh, I'm really beat. I don't know why you keep going around and it's heat. Well, it's the casting season. This is the time you have to go. Why don't you quit knocking yourself out, Claire? You've been going like this for over a year now. Nothing ever happened. In the name of heaven, don't start that again. I can't take it today. I'm worn out. Well, I'm worn out too and I'm getting good and sick I don't have to come home at all, you know. No, Mark, no. I didn't mean that. I'm sorry. Mark, what's happening to it? I'm sorry, baby. I know how you feel. It's just that I can't bear to see you coming home like this. Disappointed and applied. If just one person would say, I know you can do it. I'll give you a chance. One person believed in me. Right. I guess that's just a break, kid. Come on. Let's go out and get some dinner. I was young and we were both selfish. We were both wrong. And so we let love slip through our fingers. I came home late one night and there was the note popped up against the lamp on the table. You must know as I know that it isn't any good anymore. Please don't try to see me because we've said all we have to say to each other too many times already. I'll get in touch with you later when I'm more financially stable about a divorce. Believe me, I wish you every possible success and happiness. Clear. I quit my job and I hit it for Hollywood. That was the last time I heard of it. For Frama, I wrote about her day and night and thought about her endlessly. We'll be happy to do a feature story on Miss Conroy. We'll use her picture on the cover of the magazine. And I'd like to use your own copy on her as the basis of the article. It's really great stuff. It's one of the most famous North Stein pictures that's had a better build. Miss Conroy, may I present Hollywood's most celebrated columnist, Miss Glockler. How do you do, Miss Glockler? All my it's to talk about. It's a much, my dear. I'm very happy to meet you at last, Miss Glockler. I've read your column for years. Oh, sweet.  Sweet. Yes, sensory pictures think so too, Miss Glockler. Won't you sit down? Is there someone outside of Hollywood, a boy back home? Miss Conroy's whole attention has always been centered in her career, Miss Glockler. That isn't true. I was married at one time. Married? Oh, dear me, is that a fact? Yes. He was a young newspaper man. We were both... very young. What happened? Nothing. That was the whole trouble. Absolutely nothing. Miss Glockler, I'm sure you understand it. This conversation must be off the record. I haven't told her studio she was ever married. It might do her quite a bit of harm if it were to come out now. Oh, all right. We'll forget that it was ever mentioned. Tell me about your childhood, Miss Conroy. Did you always want to be an actress? Yes, always. And now you have what you wanted. Yes. I couldn't figure why Claire suddenly started talking about her marriage unless she was doing it just to get back at me. I began wondering about the kind of work she was doing and if she did have something. And I called up and asked them to run off the day's rushes for me. I sat alone in the dark, watching her. I made them run the rushes over and at last I went back to my office. Well, how was she? She was reading some of your copy while you were gone. I like this. Highlighted in the world's most glamorous profession. She is still the kind of girl a man would like to meet after the weariness of a day's work. Look, I wrote it. I don't have to listen to it too, do I? Why don't you admit you're in love with her?   No, you don't.  Kind of funny when you stop to think about it. Your job has been to sell her to the whole world. You've done it. You've sold her to the whole world, including yourself.  I thought... I thought if I stuck around long enough, maybe someday you'd look at me like... I could really saw me. But I've read every word of copy you've written. And I know the end of the picture. No, Kathy, I'm sorry, kid. It doesn't matter about me. All that matters is that you wake up. Wake up before you lose each other again. Good night, Mom. I sat there for a long time after Kathy ran out. I sat there staring in a blank wall. And I knew that I'd done a lot of things wrong, and I could never undo them. I should have helped Claire when she needed help. And I should have gone after her when she left me. And suddenly I felt more tired than I'd ever felt in my life. Worn out. Because I knew that it needn't have ended if we'd only shown a little more understanding toward one another, a little more kindness. And then the door opened and I looked up. And there she stood staring again. It was rainy. And I didn't have a coat or an umbrella. Raining?  Why did you come here? That girl from publicity came over to my apartment, Kathy. She brought me all the press releases you'd written. She told me where you were. Nothing when I read what you'd written about me. I'll be that girl. I swear I'll be that girl if you'll just give me the chance.  I never stopped to realize that you had to give something to a marriage. You had to fulfill the needs of what I mean. Yes, I do. I know what I mean, but I just can't say it. I know what you mean to. And, Mark, I've been thinking the same things for the past few weeks. Maybe down underneath I always thought them. Maybe that's why I never got a divorce. What was the finish of that routine we had? My mother never let me talk to strangers. But if you'll take a chance, I will. That's it, darling. And then I said, my name is Claire Mark O'Neill. And the world settled back to the way the world should be. Samuel Taylor Collaridge, the great English poet, said what comes from the heart goes to the heart. And, you know, when you send a hallmark card, whatever the occasion, you can be sure your message will speak directly to the heart of that friend or dear one you've remembered. You see, the makers of hallmark cards understand the importance of words in a greeting card. They know that there are times when the things you feel in your heart are difficult to say to others. That's why those who make hallmark cards take special care in choosing words to express your warm congratulations on happy occasions, such as birthdays and anniversaries, or a heart-to-heart message of encouragement in time of illness or grief. Yes, to say what you want to say the way you want to say it, you'll always find hallmark cards that mirror your own good taste. And remember that identifying hallmark on the back says you cared enough to send the very best. Here again is James Hilton. That was a fine performance, Dana Andrews, and we're glad you could be with us again on Hallmark Playhouse. Thank you, Mr. Hilton. Your invitation is always an honor. And always a pleasure to us, Dana, because of distinguished talents like yours. And we have news tonight with most distinguished talent on hallmark cards. Frank Goss, I think our listeners would like to know about that editorial feature on Winston Churchill, the one you were telling me about just before the program. Thanks, Mr. Hilton. I was just waiting for a chance to bring that up. In Collier's Magazine this week are reproduced in full color some of the paintings by Mr. Winston Churchill that will appear on Hallmark Christmas cards this season. Oh, excuse me. Are you talking about THE Winston Churchill? Yes, I mean THE Winston Churchill, England's great statesman, who is also the most famous amateur painter in the world. And you'll understand why when you see the Collier's article. Well, that will be something. Christmas cards by Winston Churchill. I'm anxious to see them. And I'm sure you'll be anxious to hear our story next week, Dana, for we are presenting Gladys Hastie Carroll's fine love story, West of the Hill. And for our star, we will have that charming young Hollywood actress, Ms. Elizabeth Taylor. Our Hallmark Playhouse is every Thursday. Our director producer is Bill Gay. Our music is composed and conducted by Lynn Murray. Our script tonight was adapted by Jean Holloway. And the part of Clare was played by Joan Banks. Until next Thursday then, this is James Hilton saying, Good night. The March cards when you carry enough to send the scene in the Golden Production Edge of Doom. This is Frank Gosling. Good night to you all until next week at the same time when James Hilton returns to present Elizabeth Taylor in Gladys Hastie Carroll's West of the Hill. And the week following, Theodore prats the barefoot mailman. We've invited John Hodeac to star. And the week after that, Sir Edward cooks the life of Florence Nightingale on the Hallmark Playhouse. And may I remind you to look for the full-color reproductions of Winston Churchill's paintings, which are displayed in Collier's Magazine on sale tomorrow. This is KMBC, Kansas City, Missouri.


Live from Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts, it's theCUBE. At the VTUG Winter Warmer 2015. Oh, here is your host, Stu Miniman. Welcome to theCUBE. SiliconANGLE Media's live video program go out to all the big enterprise IT shows, help extract the signal from the noise. I'm Stu Miniman, senior analyst with Wikibon here at the Virtualization Technology User Group, Winter Warmer 2015. It's the ninth year that this event has been at Gillette Stadium. It's the second year we've had theCUBE here. We've got really, it's a great user group to talk about what's going on in virtualization. Cloud, SDN, hyperconvergence, a lot of the big trends. It helped give some of the good educational training, what's going on, good thought leaders here, lots of vendors saying the latest in their wear. And it's a new year and we're happy to be here. And joining me for this introductory segment is Chris Harney. Chris Harney is the founder of the VTUG and the leader of this long time group that we've loved to do work with. Chris, thanks for joining us and congrats on all the success here at VTUG. Stu, thanks. You know, the success is really the users. They drive the attendance, they drive the content. So it's nice to have a user group that's run by users. Yeah, and Chris, it's a great venue and it's great content. I love, we've got Teddy Bruski right behind us here, full tilt, full time for the show. The Patriots are going to be going to the AFC Championship this weekend against the Colts. We were talking a little bit about the game planning and you never know what's going to happen on Sunday. We'll of course be rooting for the Patriots here because we're homers. Absolutely. But let's talk about the conference, Chris. We've had you on a couple times before. What are some of the highlights from you? Give us some of the stats. How many people are here at the VTUG event? So we just have just over a thousand people here this year. We are talking lots of different things. You know, we heard Joe Onasek talk about software-defined networking, but policy-driven IT. We had a hyper-converged panel that was really interesting. We had, in the morning we had Dan Stolz talking about why you need to learn cloud. Chris Kalati talking about why certifications still matter. And Hans is saying, listen guys, virtual networking is here. You need to learn this NSX because it's going to be here whether you want it or not. Yeah, and Chris, one of the things we really like about this, this is an independent event. So it is not driven by, you know, A agenda. There's, you know, the VMUGs are very much a VMware-centric environment. VTUG covers much more than that. So you want to hear about cloud.  This year Microsoft did a keynote on cloud. And of course VMware's here in the mix. But it's, you get a good, fair and balanced, you know, representation. Absolutely. You know, the one thing we try to be is agnostic. We don't want to skew the message. We want to make our users educated so they can make better decisions for next year and the year after. And put themselves in a spot to be successful. Yeah, so Chris, we were talking a little bit before. It's, some of it is education, some of it is training. Because, you know, there's dramatic change going on in the industry today. You know, talked with Joe Anasic with the networking side and the panel that I moderated on hyperconvergence. Many of you as administrators, what you're doing today, if you think that's the job you're going to have three years from now, you're probably going to be out of a job. I've had this discussion with so many people, it's not even funny. You know, if you look at your data center six or seven years ago, and you had stacks of servers, well, try to think of what it's going to look like in another five or six years. You have no idea. We had no idea how much virtualization was going to take over our data center. We have no idea how much hyperconvergence and cloud are going to take over. But you know what? If you be on the forefront, you know, be a beta customer, learn that technology and have some say on what's going to happen in the industry. Yeah, it's real interesting times here because users are often holding on to what they have a little bit longer. I mean, the challenge you have is you buy something and you feel like it's what I have to do. When I build a data center, that's data center I'm going to have for 30 years. When I buy a storage array, is it three, four or seven years before I'm really going to pull that out? When I buy servers, it might be a slightly shorter timeframe, but what I'd love to be talking about in the hyperconvergence panel, it's moving from kind of those upgrade cycles, which are discrete, painful occurrences where I have to migrate and retrain to really more, Dell uses the term fluid architectures more. Hyperconvergence talks about creating a pool of resources or what VMware calls the software defined data center. It's really about making an environment that is going to be able to grow with me over time. I can add changes in, but not have to be as manual. And therefore that is going to be a big change to what IT practitioners are doing on a day-to-day basis. You know, we talked, you're right, we talked about this and I think what the hyperconvergence does by bringing all of those technologies together, it gets you off the hamster wheel. You know, you're not doing storage this year, servers the next, backup switches, storage servers, backup switches. You now can add business value. You bring in a hyperconverged solution. The technology changes some. You're now really changing the data center. Virtualization makes sense. And now you can add policy-driven IT. You can now stop doing right-click deploy, stop addressing VLANs.  Yeah, so from an attendee standpoint, is it still, I'm curious what you see trend-wise, is it used to be, you know, it was storage administrator gave way for the virtualization administrator. You know, cloud architect shows up more. What's the makeup of the attendant to you? You said there's over a thousand. Is that users that are here? There's over a thousand users here. That's great. It hits the gamut. You know, I would love to see more networking people showing up to have a voice in this. I think they're still holding on to that last hold. And they don't think that networking virtualization is going to be true. I'm telling you, we didn't think virtualization was going to affect our worlds as much. But if you get on the forefront, you'll see what's really happening up there. Yeah, Chris, you bring up a great point. What's going to be true?  This is why it's going to be great. But tell me kind of what mindset, you know, you talk to a lot of users, you consult with them, you do various things with them. How do they understand, you know, what's real and what's hype? That's a great question. I don't think you can predict it out, predict out more than three years. You know, we used to have a five-year plan or a 10-year plan. Technology changes so much and you have to be willing to swing with that. So let's plan for three years and know that in a year that might change, that information may change. I don't think cloud's going away, whether it's a hybrid cloud, but planning policies and procedures in place to protect your data, that's important. Whether it's on-premise or off-premise. And knowing where that data's going to sit, I don't think it's going to matter in five years.  So we'll see what happens in 12 months. Yeah, it's interesting. Joe Anasic mentioned Linux containers in Docker this morning. And I think there were, you know, two or three of us in the room that weren't from the vendor community that had even heard of it. What's, you know, what do you see as the hot buttons? What are the users asking to hear from the events that you put on? The users are still asking for training. You know, they want to say, I've got this stuff, this equipment, these software pieces, and I don't know how to use it to my best ability. A lot of them haven't looked out three years. They're just trying to know how to take better advantage of what's in their data center. Yeah, better utilization of what I've got today. Great point. Chris, talk to us a little bit about VTUG in general. You've had chapters in other parts of the country. Give us the update on that. Yeah, so it looks like VTUG is still growing. We did Chicago. We did Indianapolis, San Jose, Virginia, and Florida may be coming on this year. Again, it's not a vendor-driven community. It's a user-driven community, and they just want to have more say in what's heard and talked about in their meetings. Yeah, it's a tough thing.  It's the user-generated content and user participation is so huge. I spent a lot of time looking at the open source environment, and more and more people are not just using open source, but contributing to open source. So a survey last year said that within, I think it was two years, half of enterprises will be not just using, but contributing to open source. So always love those ways that people can get involved. How do people get involved more in the community, Chris? I would just go to www.vtug.com, sign up to be a member. We will send you out more information. We've got a lot of changes coming up with the website this year. We want to put an events board, a job board, and there's forums coming up, and then just go to a meeting. You know, if you want to start a chapter, let us know, and just start meeting on a basis, and that will help you out. Okay, Chris, it's always great to catch up with you. We've got a bunch of the keynote people here. You're pulling in some of the users for us, so we put the users back in the user group, which I always love. Thanks again for all of what you do through the community and appreciate you bringing theCUBE again to help us there and, you know, go Patriots. Absolutely. What's your prediction for the score, Stu? Oh boy, let's see, we put this down. What I always say with the Patriots and the playoffs is if the Patriots can score at least 21 points, it's the type of game that we can win. So I'm going to go, you know, 24 to 17. I think it'll be close enough that, you know, one score could still swing it, but I see the Patriots going to Arizona and, you know, hopefully, you know, the Patriots can bring back, you know, another ring for the team. So we will be here all day at the VTUG at Let Stadium. So stay tuned for our next guest. We'll be right back after this quick break.