Minutes – Jan 19 2017

BERKSHIRE HILLS REGIONAL SCHOOL DISTRICT

Great Barrington               Stockbridge         West Stockbridge

SCHOOL COMMITTEE MEETING

Du Bois Regional Middle School – Library

January 19, 2017 – 7:00 p.m.

Present:

School Committee:    S. Bannon, D. Weston, A. Potter, J. St. Peter, W. Fields,  K. Piasecki, R. Dohoney, D. Singer, S. Stephen, A. Hutchinson

Administration:          P. Dillon, S. Harrison

Staff/Public:                B. Doren, M. Young, M. Berle, J. Briggs

Absent:

Motion for Executive Session: S. Bannon     Seconded: W. Fields and A. Potter;  Approved:  Unanimous Executive Session ended at 6:58pm.

List of Documents Distributed:

January 19, 2017 Revised Agenda; Updated 2106-2017 School Committee Meetings Schedule; FY ’18 BHRSD Budget Development Timeline; January 13, 2017 Letter to Select Board Chairperson and Finance Committee Chairpersons re: Proposed FY18 Budget; Amended Agreement of BHRSD after conclusion of RAAC meetings.

RECORDER NOTE: Meeting attended by recorder and minutes transcribed during the meeting and after the fact from live recording provided by CTSB. Length of meeting: 41 minutes

CALL TO ORDER

Chairman Steve Bannon called the meeting to order @ 7:00pm

PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE 

The listing of agenda items are those reasonably anticipated by the chair, which may be discussed at the meeting. Not all items listed may in fact be discussed, and other items not listed may be brought up for discussion to the extent permitted by law. This meeting is being recorded by CTSB, Committee Recorder, members of the public with prior Chair permission and will be broadcast at a later date. Minutes will be transcribed and made public, as well as added to our website, www.bhrsd.org once approved.

MINUTES – None

BHRSD School Committee minutes for:

Presented by

Motion to approve minutes:       Seconded:      Approved:

TREASURER’S REPORT  – None

SUPERINTENDENT’S REPORT–

• Good News Item(s) – See below
• Dillon, Superintendent – Steve Bannon and I attended the Berkshire County Education Task Force meeting. The group voted unanimously to pick the District Management Council to do Phase II of the task force’s study. The first phase was done by The Donohue Institute at UMass to look at the numbers, demographics, capacity and space; the second phase, being the more complex report, the District Management Council will work with the task force to come up with a range of possible models for things we might want to consider doing in Berkshire County.  The task force has no authority except to gather information and share with elected bodies, school committees, finance committees, etc.  They have an ambitious timeline and will report back as it goes forward.
• Dillon, Superintendent – Doreen sent a letter out today to the committee, schools and all parents, about ALICE training. For those new members, ALICE is an approach to safety in schools.  We have done a lot of work with staff on it, particularly principals, but Joshua Briggs and Steve Soule have done a lot as well.  Please read over the letter.  People may ask you questions about it.  It is the natural progression around how we work with safety in schools.
• Budget Calendar & Discussion
  • Dillon, Superintendent – There was some confusion around the budget calendar so updates have been provided. For our home audience, we are going to hear from Berkshire Health Group about our insurance costs after their vote on the 23^rd and a finance sub-committee meeting is scheduled for the 24^th.  In early February we will get budget materials out to everyone on the school committee.  There are different ways you can get materials.  Many of you are entirely online, some like a hard copy, there is a thick budget book and there is a thin budget book so it depends on your preference.  The thick budget book has everything, the thin budget book is more of a high level summary.  S. Harrison – the only thing that the thin budget book doesn’t have is the detail pages which you will find online.  P. Dillon – we will send an email around asking you your preference.  We will do a formal presentation to the School Committee on the 16^th and the proposed date of the public hearing is March 2^nd but is subject to change.  There are requirements around when we post and share things.  On the 28^th, we have an open meeting in Stockbridge with the three towns’ Select Boards and Finance Committees.  We are holding an additional date for a meeting if we need it and a recommended date to vote on the proposed budget of March 9^th.  If our whole process unravels, we could potentially vote on the 17^th but that has never happened.  We usually have been able to finish in the existing timeline.
• Vote on State Changes to Regional Agreement
  • Dillon, Superintendent – You should all have a copy of the Regional School District Agreement. After you voted on it last time, we received some additional minor feedback from Christine Lynch at the State, which is highlighted in yellow.  I have been advised by our consultant that it makes sense for you to reaffirm your vote on the amended agreement with the new changes as recommended by the State.  It is just a technicality.

Motion to approve minor changes made to the Regional Agreement:  R. Dohoney   Seconded:  B. Fields.  Approved:  Unanimous.

• Proposed Vote – Memorandum of Agreement – Cooperative Contract
  • I have a recommendation that came out of the negotiations. It is a memorandum of agreement for the Cooperative Contract.

Motion that the Berkshire Hills Regional School District hereinafter referred to as the District and the Cooperative Contract support staff, hereinafter referred to as Cooperative Group, hereby agree to the following terms, conditions and understands for the remainder of 2014-2017 Cooperative Contract. 

1. A recognition of additional work performed outside the regular day and transitioning to and building out PowerSchool, three impacted secretaries will each receive a one-time stipend of Two Thousand and No/100 ($2,000.00) Dollars.

2. This stipend is non-precedent setting. The Cooperative Group and the District represented by the School Committees Negotiating Team agree to discuss a range of issues during regular upcoming negotiations to include but not limited to, job descriptions, roles and compensation.  

Motion to approve:  D. Weston    Seconded:  A. Potter      Approved:  Unanimous

• Updates – Regional Agreement and Special Town Meetings
  • Dillon, Superintendent – I am fine-tuning a couple URLs on a letter that Doreen updated. There is a Special Town Meeting in Great Barrington on January 26^th at 6pm at the high school to approve the amended Regional Agreement. I will be doing some outreach and hopefully people watching this will come.  It is my understanding that we need at least 100 people at that meeting in order to have a quorum.  I think we will have more than 100 people but it is important that people come to that meeting if they are voters in Great Barrington.  There are only three items on the agenda so it should be short.
  • There is also a Special Town Meeting in West Stockbridge on February 13^th at 6pm. We will do outreach in West Stockbridge as well.
  • The third meeting will be part of the Stockbridge regular Town Meeting. They made a decision not to put us on their special warrant for next week but instead at their regular Town Meeting on May 15^th at 6:30pm in the gym at Town Hall in Stockbridge.
  • I have done a “Save the Date” for the Great Barrington meeting on the district website and that’s easy for the social media people to share with friends. Just remember to share the one in Great Barrington with your friends and neighbors in Great Barrington, the West Stockbridge one with people who live in West Stockbridge and the Stockbridge one with people who live in Stockbridge.  Bannon – we only have a week left.  We haven’t, as a School Committee, done enough so I think in the last week we really need to push because we need to get people out.  Peter is confident that we will get 100, and we need 100.  I’m not so sure people know about it so we really need people to know what the agreement says and get them to the meeting.  I don’t want to take this for granted.  Our track records at Town Meetings have not been terrific.  Please spread this among your neighbors and friends and let’s get people out.  I think the important thing is there are three items on this.  The agreement is first; second the Selectmen have put on Chip Elitzer’s recommendation to change the way funding is done statewide which is simply a recommendation that would take a lot to change and third is a housing trust which shouldn’t take long at all.
• Re-Imagination
  • Dillon, Superintendent – We met with the finance sub-committee and the re-imagine group is meeting again on Monday. The group, just for people who weren’t there, and just to summarize, is really looking at possibilities in three areas.
  • The first group is looking at school schedules and bussing which may include the start of the school day ie: what time the day starts and the possibility of having all three schools start later and at the same time. There are lots of details to be figured out and research to do with scheduling and bussing.
  • The second group is looking at student grouping and how we group students in different schools and what our intention is; are there shifts we can make that would benefit student learning and opportunity for student growth. There are a whole range of possibilities at the elementary school ie: do we group students by mastery, by age, in looping circumstances where they work with the same teacher or set of staff for multiple years.  There are many of other ideas coming.
  • The third group is the catch-all group and they have a million ideas but we narrowed it down to six for this year. They included the idea of an education team leader, and we will explain this more at a future meeting.  Right now all the Special Ed teachers spend about 20% of their time in meetings and doing paperwork and that is time they are not spending in classes.  It is mandated and required they are at those meetings.  The idea would be to shift that role from everyone doing it all to having one person doing the bulk of it.  That is an idea that has some promise.  There was a discussion about seven years ago when we eliminated the department chair roles at the high school, and this came up in the self-study, we saved some money and achieved some things but we also created some internal communication problems and separated the administrative leadership from the teacher leadership.  So there is some interest in rethinking that.  There were some discussions around sick days and personal days and three-hour clauses and if there are opportunities to shift that some.  Last year you will remember, where we had an agreement where folks could convert unused personal days into days that sat in their sick bank and low and behold, people used many fewer personal days at the end of the year.  There are financial implications and also instructional implications.  Every time people aren’t there, then to some degree or another, kids suffer.  There is a discussion about revisiting sustainability both from a financial perspective and a curriculum perspective.   What are we doing with recycling; what are we doing with disposable plastic items; are there opportunities to change some of our practices there, etc.?  Some financial implications and some structural opportunities will possibly lead to greater financial implications a year or two out.  We shared some draft papers.  I think we are going to revise those and put them all together as a packet and share them with you for your consideration.
• Southern Berkshire Shared Services Project (SBSSP)
  • Dillon, Superintendent – Small update – we are reaching out to Dart Technology Group to try to do some additional technology work. We were not awarded the second round of the grant for Berkshire Hills and Richmond but it was like we weren’t rejected either.  We were deferred to the next round.  I spoke with people at the state and they are considering our application for the next round.

GOOD NEWS ITEM(S)

Muddy Brook Elementary School (MBE)

1. Berle, Principal: Presentation on Jerry Pinkney and the Norman Rockwell Museum

Mary Berle shared a serious of events, noting that it was probably one of the best days of her life to be in the presence of Jerry Pinkney.  Ms. Berle passed out a handful of his books for the committee to view.  Mr. Pinkney and his wife spent the entire at Muddy Brook and over an hour in each 3^rd grade classrooms in two-way conversations with kids about his life, his work and persevering over time.  In telling his own stories of growing up in Philadelphia in a segregated elementary school and how he found his voice over time with mentors and teachers who supported him was amazing.  Our teachers did a beautiful job of preparing children starting before the holiday.  They were looking at Rockwell paintings including the Golden Rule, and I believe you all saw the article and the letter to the editor in the Berkshire Eagle.  The third grade classes wrote a poem in response to the Golden Rule.

When they came back from break, they started reading Pinkney books and all the kids had ready at least 10 of his books by the time he came today.  The first week in January, the entire third grade spent a day at The Rockwell Museum where they toured the museum, spent an hour with Patrick O’Daley who is the education coordinator, had drawing lessons, put on white gloves and had a wonderful experience in the archives looking at Saturday Evening Posts from 80 years ago.

On March 11^th, all families are invited to come to the museum free of charge.  Student’s artwork, writings and drawings will be displayed.  Our music teacher is working with children on a program and our PE teachers will be getting kids out on the landscape.  Additionally, the museum handed every student a free family pass they can use anytime.  This is all part of a really concerted effort so the kids from our community will know that the Norman Rockwell Museum is their museum.  I am very grateful to the Norman Rockwell Museum staff for being creative with MBE.  They did some filming today and will use some of that footage for their website.  We did receive permission from all parents, etc. and the Berkshire Eagle also attended.  Overall, it was a very stimulating experience about hearing what is possible in life.  Also, Jerry Pinkney shared that his favorite book was The Lion and the Mouse and lion on the cover is actually a self-portrait.  He was dyslexic as a child, he didn’t read until late but he always knew that he loved to draw.  He talked about the journey about finding his voice and how he was bullied so it was a therapeutic moment to write about The Lion and the Mouse.

Du Bois Regional Middle School (DBM)

Ben Doren, Principal

In classrooms, wonderful things going on and we hit the ground running after break.  It’s great to see all the kids engaged.  There is a good buzz in the middle school.  I was in four classrooms this past week making some observations.  One was a 7^th grade science class; they were studying atoms and states of matter; geared toward getting ready for 8^th grade chemistry.  I walked into the classroom and there are kids basically huddled in the middle of the room and other kids buzzing around them.  They were modeling the atom; they were trying to figure out how to be protons, neutrons, electrons and then broke up and within about five seconds were all able to pull it back together very fast and could regroup back into teaching.  It was great to see kids very engaged and then able to go back to taking notes and paying attention.  There is a lot of training that goes into that and many months’ work.

Another classroom I went into was a music classroom – 8^th grade music, where they were doing a percussion unit.  There was a lot of technical stuff they had gone over before but they were in the middle of the project toward the end of the learning cycle. They had to do five different percussion beats but they couldn’t use percussion instruments.  They had to find things like buckets, chairs, music stands.  They had to create a composition with teams.  They could use devices like iPhones, iPads, Chrome books for recording.  They recorded and practiced until they had these polished pieces at the end.  It’s neat that it is not just a recorded performance they get to share but the teachers can show it to other classes. So again, another place they can express themselves, be creative, be active, but also be focused on some of the outcomes that are very specific to the content.

In a more serious tone, 7th grade social studies is starting a new unit; moving away from Salem and Early American History and moving toward mercantilism and slave trade.  When I came to this observation, in the hallway they had tape put out and the kids had to figure out how put themselves in a space on a slave ship.  It was a very interesting activity because they were thinking “oh, we’re slaves and we actually have to figure out what the experience of actually making the trip through the Atlantic was like” and “they actually got pushed in and there were shelves and they couldn’t put their knees up too far”, so it was a very visceral experience of what the actual history was like.  Part of the lesson was not just what was it like to be a slave,  but then also moving kids around with the understanding that slaves were actually property that they were actually slave movers and slave owners.  There was a really interesting discussion about what is it like to experience it both from one perspective and the other which you are the organizer, the one who is actually owning the slaves.  Those were very deep discussions for 11 and 12 year olds to have around American History and how it connects to very early America and the growth as an economy.  I am very proud of our teams or taking the courage to actually talk about important things.

Lastly, I went into a science class that as studying cell division but in the context of cancer using an interesting piece of software that a science teacher has put together.  The kids have to do a deep investigation of mytosis and the whole life of a cell but then in the context of cancer, cancer drugs, cancer drug development, the applications, really a lot of very speculative things on the kids, challenging them really hard to make some decisions about what the application cell division is.  Kids were really into it, again working in teams, working on Chrome books, answering questions, then what they are going to do is share with each other their ideas of being cancer drug researchers.

Monument Mountain Regional High School (MMRHS)

1. Young, Principal

At the high school, we are right in the middle.  Freshmen are wrapping up their first semester of exploring technology.  It’s a program where half of the freshman class during first semester spends ten days in each of our CVTE programs, they get a yoga class, they have an art class where they work on one project, they travel in groups of 10, they end up creating a video of learning all the technology around videography and editing and they end their semester with Scott Annand and me.  This year our program is the real talk on race.  Multicultural Bridge with Gwendolyn Vansant and JV Vansant will be with us for eight days this semester working with freshmen on the program on racism, power, privilege, and diversity.  The second half of the freshman class begins the second semester with Scott and me and they will be going through the real talk on race program before they begin the exploring technology program.  That was kicked off about six days ago.

Our advanced drama class put on a great performance of the Farnsworth Invention last week which was all about the invention of television and had a lot of history, comedy and theatre so it was well attended for a really valuable program.

Tom Roy, Aaron Fisher and Kari Staunton have all attended professional conferences over the last two weeks on all of the STEM initiatives and science technology, engineering and mathematics.

Jodi Drury and Marcie Velasco kicked off a new program today for juniors and seniors who are not planning on college right after high school.  They invited the Berkshire County Regional Employment Board to join them today.  Heather Williams came and worked with juniors and seniors on career skills, what kind of job opportunities are available in the Berkshires, and we have a host of colleges and universities that send representatives to Monument all through the fall.  Jody and Marcy are now working with the Regional Employment Board to have Berkshire County employers come in and offer to meet with students about their businesses, what kind of careers are available in the Berkshires, as well as the skills and presentation these young people should be putting together in order to move from high school to into employment.

On Saturday January 28^th, MMRHS is going to hold the Western Mass Rubic Cube Competition.  There are 120 cubers coming.  It will start at 9am and run until about 5pm.  Kevin Costello organized this event and it was his initiative to bring it to Monument.  He has been competing for years and he is a national champion but he asked if he could bring the competition to Monument so it could be a fund raiser for the senior class.

Monument will also be hosting the Southern Berkshire Chamber of Commerce Networking Before Nine breakfast on Jan 26^th.  This is a monthly event with business owners and business people coming together for a quick breakfast and presentations.  It will be in honor of the 50^th anniversary of the school.  Peter will speak a little bit on the state of education in Berkshire County.  I will welcome them with a brief history of MMHRS in its 50 years of successfully educating young people.  It will start around 7:30am.  A tour of the building was recommended by K. Piasecki.  It will probably be a video tour.

Our semester ends next week.  We have mid-year assessments on Wednesday and Thursday of next week and our next semester starts January 30^th.  There is still a lot happening, a lot going on and always good news to share.

SUB-COMMITTEE REPORTS

• Policy Sub Committee – have not met
• Building and Grounds – have not met
• Superintendent’s Evaluation – needs to be scheduled
• Technology – have not met
• Finance – budget schedule, presentation from re-imagination; meeting next Tuesday
  • Dohoney – we met and dealt with the budget schedule which Peter went through earlier and spent most of our time on that. Also discussed Re-imagination which Peter touched on pretty well.  After some probing by the committee, most if not all of the proposals will not be impacted in this budget round, but that’s not the final decision yet.  We will be meeting next week, next Tuesday night when we should have some information that we can start massaging.  S. Bannon – Sharon will be looking for direction.  We haven’t given her any yet and we need to start to give her some, both as a sub-committee and as a school committee.
• Regional Agreement Amendment –
• District Consolidation & Sharing – meeting schedule in Richmond but cancelled due to weather; need to reschedule asap.
  • Dillon – would like to schedule with Southern Berkshire about potential sharing as they go through their budget as well. S. Bannon – Roles for meeting and who is attending may have to be split up.  We are trying to schedule three different groups and we are scheduling into March already and having trouble.  We are already scheduling into vacation week so that be the only way to do it.

PERSONNEL REPORT

• Non-Certified Appointments
• Retirements – Cathy Finkle, secretary to the principal at Muddy Brook, acknowledged and thanked her for all her hard work.
• Extra-Curricular Appointments

B Fields – Marianne my question is directed toward you.  For the Monument Mountain play, I would like to ask you are students involved with some of these professional positions?  We are being asked to fund the lighting director as a student?  I remember students used to do that.  I don’t know what a Technical Director is but I thought students did a lot of this.  Are students given an opportunity?  M. Young – students, in my time at Monument, have never had these positions.  The Lightening Director, for instance, has always been an adult.  There has always been certain requirements and standard that we have to meet, but they have a lighting crew and students do that.  The Tech Director is the position, Bill, you would remember, that Fred had.  So he would supervise the set build but students worked with him on it.  Each one of those positions is a position that needs to be filled by and adult and students make up the crew.  The Pit Orchestra is where we have always had four musicians paid for through the booster club who are professional musicians and then music students from the band and orchestra join them.  Those positions are the ones that have been in place for at least 18 years.  S.  Bannon – I am just looking to see now if that is clear.  Some of those are funded by the district and some are not.  M. Young  – correct.  S. Bannon – the agreement we had 10 years ago is that everything would go through the district but the Booster Club pays the district then we pay the person so it’s clean.  M. Young – Kids can’t be up on the catwalk, for instance the genie that gets brought in where they come in and hang lights students can’t be up on that so there has to be an adult appointed to oversee it all but we do have a team of young people that do the sound, the lights, all under the supervision of these people.

PERSONNEL REPORT    January 19, 2017

BUSINESS OPERATION-None

S.Harrison:

EDUCATION NEWS- None

OLD BUSINESS- None

NEW BUSINESS- None

Discussion:

Motion by S. Bannon to go into Executive Session for purpose of negotiations BHEA, Unit A, Chapter 38, Section 21A, No. 2 and No. 3, not to come back into public session.       So Moved A. Potter           Seconded: B. Fields             Roll Call Vote: D. Singer       Adjourned:  Unanimous

PUBLIC COMMENT- None

WRITTEN COMMUNICATION-None

Meeting Adjourned at 7:41pm

The next meeting is scheduled for February 2, 2017 – Regular Meeting –Monument Valley Middle School

Submitted by:

Christine M. Kelly, Recorder

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Christine M. Kelly, Recorder

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School Committee Secretary