Minutes – June 15, 2017

BERKSHIRE HILLS REGIONAL SCHOOL DISTRICT

Great Barrington      Stockbridge     West Stockbridge

SCHOOL COMMITTEE MEETING

Regular Meeting – Monument Mountain Regional High School – Library – June 15, 2017 – 6:30 p.m.

Present:

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

Administration:                      Peter Dillon, Sharon Harrison

Staff/Public:                            M. Berle, B. Doren, S. Soule, K. Finnery, A. Walto, L. Tomich, 2nd Graders from MBE

Absent:                                   D. Weston

List of Documents Distributed:

BHRSD School Committee Minutes of Meeting dated June 1, 2017; Letter from Berkshire Taconic Foundation Re: Charity Buzz
Memo from Mary Berle, Principal Re: Early Childhood Programming at Muddy Brook; Personnel Report dated June 15, 2017
MASC Conference Registration Information; Project Connection Summer Operations Custodial Operations

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:  – hours  1 hr. 12 minutes.

CALL TO ORDER

Chairman Steve Bannon called the meeting to order immediately after completion of the 6:30pm Executive Session.

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.

EXECUTIVE SESSION:    Negotiations 

Motion to adjourn to Executive Session pursuant to M.G.L. c. 30A, Section 21 (a) (2) (3) for the purpose of negotiations of the Cooperative Contract for Support Staff.   Following Executive Session, the School Committee will reconvene in open session.:  A. Potter                    Seconded:  B. Fields                     Accepted:  Unanimous

MINUTES:

BHRSD School Committee Minutes of Meeting dated June 1, 2017

Motion to approve all minutes:   B. Fields                Seconded:  A. Hutchinson                  Approved:  Unanimous

TREASURER’S REPORT:

SUPERINTENDENT’S REPORT:

• Good News Item(s) –  See Below
• Dillon – in your packet, I sent around a note about the MASC Conference. It is the School Committee Conference.  We haven’t sent people in awhile.  If anyone is interested, reach out to Steve, me or Doreen or a combination of us.  I think it would be fun to send a small contingent, probably not ten of us, but….S. Bannon – when I first joined the board, we had between 8-12 School Committee members, some spouses, superintendent, and we were well represented .  Budget cuts kind of did that in, but I think we need to be represented there.  It doesn’t have to be the whole School Committee.  R. Dohoney – what was the deadline on the sign-ups?  P. Dillon – July 14th or 15th.  A. Hutchinson – It is $375 by then but it goes up to $475 after that date.  P. Dillon – if we do it, we should get the lower rate if we can.  B. Fields – I would like to go if I can because there are at least two things that are near and dear to my heart and you know what they are.
• Dillon – I just sent this letter around. A year ago, you approved the children’s study home to open the Mill Pond School at the former Eagleton Campus, and a few nights ago at the Richmond School Committee meeting, they made a proposal to move their program from where they are out past Butternut over to an underutilized church and office space in Richmond.  The Richmond School Committee approved that, and it then went to the state and now they are notifying us that they are leaving our geographical boundaries and going into Richmond’s.  They are also going to dramatically reduce the size of the program to about 24 kids.  Your formal responsibility is done; mine continues on.  They were nice about it and said thank you for helping them.
• Charity Buzz Grant – BHRSD Enrichment Funds – B. Doren – The Charity Buzz Grant is pretty amazing. We have an anonymous donor who now for the second year in a row donated two tickets to James Taylor’s concert in Foxborough.  These are VIP tickets where you get amazing seats and get to meet James Taylor, etc.  Last year it fetched us well over $15,000, and the money went to Monument Valley.  We obviously, because it was James Taylor, used a chunk of it to support the music program, but it also went to support some other pretty amazing things such as Shakespeare & Company and scholarships for students for our trips which makes a huge difference and gets us to our commitment of having all students participate.  This year, the person donated two pairs of tickets and it was well north of $25,000.  Some of that is going to focused specifically on special education by request from the donor which is great and the rest of it will be scheduled toward other things that will make a huge difference.  Our focus will again be on music, scholarships, Shakespeare & Company as well as some technology.  Dillon – I think a formal request to the School Committee is that somebody makes a motion  to approve the acceptance of the $22,504 from Charity Buzz through Berkshire Taconic.

Motion to Approve the Acceptance of $22,504 from Charity Buzz through Berkshire Taconic:  A. Potter                 Seconded:  S. Stephen             Approved:  Unanimous

• Proposed Vote – Cooperative Contract for Support Staff – P. Dillon – The Cooperative Support Staff is a large group of people from food service, technology, custodian, maintenance, secretarial, greenhouse. You have the contract in front of you.  Some folks on the negotiating team could talk to it if you want or I am happy to highlight a couple of things if that is helpful.  Bannon – why don’t you highlight a couple of things.  P. Dillon – the raises that are here as in any contract we try to get a sense of what is going on in the market, both in other schools and other similar jobs.  The raises range from 3% to 3.25% and in particular we tried to pay attention especially to the food service employees.  Our previous contract was on the lower end and we were losing employees to restaurants.  We want to be competitive so we can serve high-quality food and do it well.  The role of some of the secretaries has changed in the advent of  incredible state reporting needs and while one could argue that that it is in their job description, the role and the amount of work has increased dramatically.  There is a differential there that grows each year.  I think it starts at $2,500, then $3,000, then $3,500 to compensate them for the extra work they are doing.  It is highly-detailed work that when they came into those roles they were not expected to do.  We are appreciative of them.  A couple little changes: for the food service folks, our maintenance people get a small reimbursement for boots so they don’t get injured.  We are now giving a small reimbursement to the food service staff so they can buy a pair of appropriate shoes each year as they are on their feet all day.  That is common sense.  In the past, we have given them three shirts a year but they have to serve food five days a week and sometimes six days a week with special events so we are upping their shirt allocation to five shirts so they don’t have to do constant laundry.  The last one is, and this is parallel to what happened about four years ago, we have a wastewater treatment plant and we need to manage that and check that our water quality that is going out is good and within legal limits.  The folks that do that roll have been getting a stipend.  We used to outsource it to a company but we have saved quite a bit of money bringing it in house.  This year the state and federal rules around drinking water have also changed and we have a water treatment system, so there is a new stipend to do that work.  Again that is instead of having it be outsourced to a company.  Our people are agreeing to do it and get certified to do it.  That way it is consistent and saves us quite a bit of money.  I think the contract is good.  I think it is good for the district and good for our employees.  It treats people fairly and professionally.

Motion to approve the Cooperative Contract for Support Staff:  B. Fields                       Seconded:  A. Potter       Approved:  Unanimous

• Requests – New Positions (Early Kindergarten Teacher, Projection Connection Summer Custodian) P. Dillon – Mary and I will argue that this is not a new position but a shift of an existing position that both Mary and I highlighted in the budget process.  The other one (PC Summer Custodian), is a newer position and that is to try to make that program sustainable in the context of all the other work that Steve and his team do.  The summer is really the time to crank on maintenance and make the buildings sparkle and catch up on painting, etc.  Over the years, we have run this robust after-school program and summer program which is great for kids but the downside of using our buildings so intensely and having kids in them all the time is we are making it harder for Steve and his people to do their jobs.  In the Project Connection Summer Custodian position we are not relying on Steve’s existing team but we are creating a new position that is half custodian and half operational support during Project Connection.  That let’s be a little flexible and takes some burden off Steve and lets the program take responsibility for its own impact on the district.  Soule – When we started running the summer program, we didn’t hire anybody.  It was just kind of dumped on our full-time custodians.  The past three summers we have hired an outside contractor to come in and clean specifically just the areas that Project Connection uses and this position that we are proposing tonight will be at a considerable savings as opposed to contracting it out to a cleaning contractor.  We are saving money; we are achieving the cleaning that we want and we are also achieving some of the support work for Project Connection.  P. Dillon – I feel it is responsible.  There is a job description there.  If you are willing, my hope would be that you approve this job description and we go forward with it.  We are not paying for it out of district funds.  We are paying for it out of the grant funds.

Motion to approve Project Connection Summer Custodian job description:  R. Dohoney                     Seconded:  S. Stephen                            Approved:  Unanimous

The other one I was talking about was for the Early K teacher.  Mary put together a nice memo about it.  She could speak to it or I could or we could simply respond to questions.  My assumption is that everybody has read it.  S. Bannon – do we have any questions or comments about it?  R. Dohoney – do we still maintain the cut-off for this program?  Who is eligible for the program?  M. Berle – children who turn 4 by September 1st.  R. Dohoney – was it February at some point?  M. Berle – yes, we changed.  Thad had moved it to February at one point and when I started, we normed all of the start dates so the PK, EK and KDG all have a first day of school or September 1st cut-off.  That just made sense.  R. Dohoney – so anyone scheduled to start kindergarten the following year is eligible to be in this program.  M. Berle – yes.  However, they have to be in district.  There is no school choice.  Part of what I want to convey is I am not making an assumption that we will always have two early-kindergartens.  We are really working hard on paying attention to the numbers and right sizing both staff and addressing needs.  This year, we have a very significant bubble in the EK group.  The census numbers are much higher than they are even for kindergarten.  The other thing that went into our thinking is that 40% of our incoming kindergarteners this year were not kindergarten ready based on the basic screenings that we do.  That EK year, as Lucy Prashkar described so eloquently last week, gets the best economic investment that we can make.  I am not assuming that we will do it this way every year but I think staying fully staffed and maintaining a strong staff and also creating an opportunity where the community needs it, is in our interest right now and in our interest to enroll these families and have them in our district.  R. Dohoney – how kids to we have signed up now for EK.  M. Berle – we have two full classes of 16 and 17.  We had no waiting list last year, and we had one class of 19.  This achieves the same goal of getting everybody in that has requested it, but we needed two classes to do that.  Our kindergarten numbers look good.  We had a few more people enroll since then and they are still manageable, but what we will have is a very robust early-childhood program if we do this.  R. Dohoney – so a few years ago, you had a presentation where the conclusion was that we were not looking to have an universal PK program and now it seems like that is what we are trying to do.  There was a lot of thought about other programs in the community and how we …. There were others and myself that were advocating for this program at that time and then we backed off.  M. Berle – I think that we can all agree that strong early-childhood is one of the most important things we can do.  I can’t remember what the context was exactly but I think we don’t want to destabilize other program completely.  The one program that is potentially impacted is Kathy Roy’s, and she and I have met about this.  I think we both agree if we can involve more of the high school kids in the programming at …. If there is a big impact on her program, over time it is in our interest for her program to be more connected to Muddy Brook and the high school kids could get a lot out of working with us.  The main goal from my perspective right now is I believe in early-childhood, I believe in supporting our community partners and if we can get more kids showing up kindergarten ready that is very good for our community.  Part of why I am not saying this has to be this way forever is I think we addressing immediate needs here but overtime it is in our interest to be thoughtful about this being long-term.  We want to be nimble with the enrollment issues.  P. Dillon – going forward, we had this happen at different times, this might end up being a bubble class.  Next year, could be two EK classes or could be one and then a position moves with the kids to the next grade.  M. Berle – one thing to keep in mind is we have three kindergarten groups in this scenario, three 1st grade groups and we have other students from other districts who are choosing to come in and the really important conversation for us in the next years is are we a three per grade or four per grade school and what does that mean for the rest of the resources and what is our approach to people wanting to come in.  R. Dohoney – it’s not the main issue here, and I know it’s an enrollment issue, but these are conversations that really need to take place during the budget process and not at the backend.  It is not like this is a position that was requested during the budget process.  There was conversation about it but…M. Berle – in writing it put that I was thinking about it as a mixed age group or kindergarten.  Peter and I were in close conversation.  I hear you and I want you to be fully informed.  I am surprised that it feels like a surprise.  P. Dillon –  We want to be deliberate and transparent so what we might do going forward is layout a range of likely possible scenarios so it doesn’t feel like it’s embedded in a document or a comment made in passing.  R. Dohoney – if you look at the numbers from the beginning of the budget process, this wasn’t a proposal then.  We took a bunch of money out of E&D, too much by some people’s opinion, then we get here and we have an opportunity during enrollment in our compulsory programs and instead of letting that money drop, we are funding a non-compulsory program.  I am going to vote for it and I am fine with that but…S. Bannon – the flip side of that is, this is not necessarily something that was unexpected and I feel strongly and I think you do to, if we have a waiting list of our own students from our three towns, we need to educate them.  If it was unanticipated, I would still vote for it but I would be more upset and say why didn’t we think of this ahead of time.  R. Dohoney – those are my two….I agree, it was mentioned in the budget process and this idea that we don’t turn kids away is new news to me.  As a parent that had three kids turned away.  I took more complaints from parents about kids being turned away from this program, that’s what a few years ago I was advocating for building up this program.  M. Berle – I think that is real and I think in terms of young families to have it be free is very defining.  I think it is a good use of our resources and our investment.  B. Fields – choice is not involved in this?  M. Berle – no in our early-childhood.  We have accepted some choice students for kindergarten already.  Rich is right.  It is not compulsory; it is a very investment in the future of our community according to all data.  It is very helpful to our families but it is not mandatory according to the state.  B. Fields – so when does choice enter into the picture.  M. Berle – entering kindergarteners.  B. Fields – you have space for them now?  M. Berle – we have accepted eight choice kindergarten students already for next year.  P. Dillon – we continue to have space in almost every grade except 7th and 8th grade and we think we have space at the high school but it gets a little more complicated now that we have a schedule and can’t say we will take everybody.  We have to see what sort of schedule students would take and if there is room in those particular classes.  M. Berle – actually the number is nine and I just had one more come in but I won’t decide on that for awhile.  B. Fields – does that impact hiring at the current level?  M. Berle – yes.  This early-k spot is getting filled because I currently have four first grades and I am dropping somebody down.  R. Dohoney – Do we have any visibility as to in-district kids who are going to be kindergarteners but opted to school choice someplace else?  M. Berle – my visibility on that is the number of kids that appear in the census that have not enrolled.  There are nine of them.  They have not enrolled yet.  R. Dohoney – so we don’t know why?  M. Berle – last year, we had 17 students that were in the census that did not enroll.  We call everyone to find out why and 15 of them had moved away.  There is a very challenging piece right now of making sense of what numbers are reliable and what are not.  I have to say that I can tell you what is going to happen.  P. Dillon – then there are kids that are not on any census data who move here and they are residents and they just show up on our door the day before school starts.  R. Dohoney – does that happen?  M. Berle – yes.  We have had students that just show up.  We are working with the pediatrician on that as well.  We have had a few families that are new to the healthcare community that show up.  We are actively reaching out to try to find anybody we can.  I have accepted school choice at every grade level this year which is a little bit unusual.  This is the first year for me that I have had applications for every grade level.  A. Hutchinson – do you think that all the kids in the district that are eligible for early-kindergarten and their families have heard about this?  M. Berle – part of why we have two full classes is that, as you know we had a few staff changes; Sue MacVeety retired and Ann Kinne left so I have a new team and we work very hard this year to develop a very transparent process.  Notices went out to every pediatrician’s office, all the town halls, we advertised and we put lots of dates in; I think the yield was much higher because of that part in addition to the census bubble.  Our goal was not to disrupt the fact that there is robust early childhood programs in place.  A lot of the folks that we attracted are people that would not have been in a program and that is very positive.  A. Hutchinson – what kind of numbers of kids were not kindergarten ready two years ago or three years ago.  Nobody tracked it before me, but the last three years it was 33%, last year it was 40% and I think is this work we have been doing with United Way and Austin Riggs on all of the 0-5 projects.  That is a really important number for us.  If someone is coming in way below it is very hard to get them to third grade levels by third grade.  A. Hutchinson – we most of those kids not getting PK educated?  M. Berle – I couldn’t recite the data but it is something that I am tracking and I am in conversation with the programs about that.

Motion to approve the early-kindergarten position:  B. Fields                   Seconded:  S. Stephen               Approved:  Unanimous

• GOOD NEWS ITEM(S):
• Du Bois Regional Middle School – B. Doren, Principal: Since our April break, we have had James and The Giant Peach which was an amazing musical at the Middle School.  The 5th graders went to Nature’s Classroom.  Three quarters of the school visited the Mahaiwe to see Chinese Acrobats.  Ali Fischer, one of our esteemed 6th grade literacy teachers, got MCLA’s and the superintendent’s Educator of the Year Award and had a great celebration at MCLA.  We had an eco-artist come in and work with our art teacher and our science teacher and 7th graders.  The Science Club is finishing off the year with a full recycling program and also did a trout release.  They raised trout in the classroom and did a release field trip to Lake Mansfield.  The 8th grade took MCAS on computers which was a big deal for us but we did it quite smoothly and the kids were surprisingly quite interested in taking it on a computer.  The Spain trip that you approved, went to the Canary Islands which was part of the exchange.  The other students came here before the break and over the break our students went there.  The 8th grade did MidSummer’s Night Dream with Shakespeare & Company.  The reimagination process with our faculty was amazing using open space technology and choice.  The faculty reached some consensus on very important pieces and we really came together as a faculty.  The 5th and 7th grades did a field trips to MassMOCA and the 8th grade met some artists working at MassMOCA.  Band and Orchestra had their concerts.  They were amazing.  Remember we have all 5th and 6th graders taking it so the numbers were huge compared to past years.  The quality has continued to be exceptional.  The 8th grade went to DC for three days which was amazing.  The 7th grade took a day trip to Mystic Aquarium.  What was amazing about both of those is the 8th graders and the 7th graders prepared ahead of time so they researched trips not just field trips but field study.  They responded very well to that.  The science team took a day to study the next generation science standards and our focus is on claim, evidence and reasoning; very important critical thinking skill.  Our dress-up dance is tomorrow night which is a lot of fun.  Next week the 6th grade takes two field days.   One is to French Park to do a community day and then an adventure day with challenges at Jiminy Peak.  Of course, we do our annual water fun day with the whole school which is a lot of fun on Wednesday.  Graduation is next Wednesday at 6:30pm and I invite all of our to come.  Please let Julie Duffin in the office know if you will be joining us.  Project Connection which is always kind of an amazing program has really reached it’s goal from back in 2012 when we wrote the grant.  Our vision was for kids to go through service learning projects then come back and lead.  We have our first intern posted to 8th grade coming up.  These are our high needs kids that are learning closing gaps of opportunity and learning how to give back to our community by doing service learning projects and now will be shepherding 6th and 7th graders through service learning.  Lastly, one of the things from reimagination is how we do instruction in 5th and 6th grade.  We are going to have a full language-based program integrating special education and regular education along with enrichment and a collaboration between the four literacy teachers and a really amazing schedule that keeps time on learning.
• Muddy Brook Elementary School (MBE) – Berle, Principal:  We are really happy to have some very lovely 2nd graders and their families here tonight.  Greta Love has actually organized on how to introduce the students so she will do that.  We also have Kristin Finnerty, Lizzie Tomich and Abby Walto, all 2nd grade teachers with us.  Dianna Lupiani wanted to be here but was unable to attend.  I think their work stands on its own.  I have other good news I can share after.  Greta Love – hello, my name is Greta and this is Ian, Eli, Gus, Lucy, Olivia and Alex.  We are 2nd graders at Muddy Brook.  Lucy – 2nd graders learned about Earth Day and our environment.  We decided to work on poems.  Eli – Every student wrote about a poem about nature and also the environment.  Ian – We wrote many drafts and our final copies. We wrote in pen.  We made the pictures with marker.  Alex – when we were done, we sent the book to Scholastic and asked for it to be published.  They said that they would make a hardcover book for us.  We have brought copies of our book for you to see.  Gus – we would also like to read a few of our poems.  (Poems were read).  K. Finnerty – These were just a selection of the poems.  They brought copies of the books to share with you.  We had the hardcovers that each class received from Scholastic and parents had the option to order them.  We are hoping to have it in the library at Muddy Brook as well.  For students who chose not to order it, we were lucky enough to make color copies for them to take home.  (Books were handed out). M. Berle – thank you to Anjani, Greta, Alex, Eli, Ian, Gus and Lucy.  They did a great job.  We have lots of great things happening at Muddy Brook.  This week on Monday, we had 22 volunteers from the fire department, EMS and the police come to our third annual safety day.  It was the best one yet.  Every single student got onto the back playground and learned very helpful tips about bike safety, fire safety, etc.  Kids took home little first aid kits.  Officer Balestro was a really winner with watermelons encased in bike helmets falling off of ladders.  We got to see what the results are if you wear a helmet and if you don’t wear a helmet.  The real thrill for a lot of us this year is the fire department let us know that Officer Balestro doesn’t really love heights but he is really curious and loves science.   We had someone ask what would it be like if you dropped a watermelon off the top of the hook and ladder.  We got all of the 3rd graders out and he tried it.  All of the volunteers ate lunch with our 3rd graders.  They met very briefly with Amy Taylor and myself to talk about the word project that Lisa Prashkar and Amy Taylor introduced at the last meeting to build interest within the departments.  The first year, Jonathan Finnerty, is one of the big organizers and he really got behind this three years and begged people to come volunteer from the police and fire departments and what he shared with me the work was to make sure that there was enough people at the fire department and the police station doing shift because everybody wanted to volunteer. Our kids are so grateful; we had a great assembly and cheered our servants and it was a great community day.  This week we had field trips.  Third grade went to Bartholomew’s Cobble.  Second grade tomorrow has a wonderful open house with their Landmark Project.  They have been studying history of their families and each one chose a country and made wonderful landmarks of the countries they studied.  That will be happening tomorrow at 1:30pm.  Last week we had the 3rd and 4th grade concert.  It was quite remarkable.  It was an amazing combination of music that was the voice of every student.  Our orchestra and band are twice the size they were a year ago and the sound was amazing.  Ali Benton, our art teacher, also collaborated with Kim Chirichella and Juraye Moran and there was dance and art and music and even some gymnastics.  A some point it stopped feeling like a kids’ concert and it was an immersive arts experience.  Everyone loved it.  Fourth grade went to the Science Museum yesterday.  Fourth grade goes to the Middle School on Friday for step-up day which is a big deal for them.  We have an Ice Cream Social for our whole community Friday afternoon including incoming families.  Nan Thompson, the PTA leadership, including Adrienne Rynes our current president, and I will do a question and answer session from 4:45-5:30 then we will have ice cream at 5:30pm which was donated by The Scoop.  We also had great field days this week.  There is a lot happening at Muddy Brook.  P. Dillon – Mary do you want to mention the Chess Tournament?  M. Berle – The Chess Tournament was awesome!  It went on for months and Dr. Kalish is extraordinary.  We had about 30 children involved and we had an All School Assembly on Tuesday with all of the club players receiving medals.  Max Wood won the tournament.  Most kids played 4-6 games so there was winning and losing but it was double-elimination.  We are extremely thankful for Dr. Kalish and what he has created with this club.  He has done a beautiful job of sharing with kids the joy of being in the game in being in relationship with the people that you are playing with.  It couldn’t be better for Muddy Brook.  He is reaching a wide-range of students including kids who might have never thought of chess to those getting coached at night by their parents.  It is a great scene.
• Updates:
  • Hiring: Dillon – I sent an email out to the School Committee.  The Director of Learning and Teaching has been filled.  We interviewed three candidates and we hired Kirstie Farina who is a current math teacher at the high school where she has been for 27 years.  We are excited to welcome her to that role.  She is really fired up about it.  We will bring her up to speed quickly.  Joshua is going to meet with her.  Mary will do the same and Sharon is chomping at the bit to talk to her about budget and I have a long list of things for her to do.
  • Vacancies: The principal process; where we are with that is, we had ten candidates then we had another 11.  The first round we interviewed three people then reopened the search and interviewed three more people.  Tomorrow from 1-3pm, the three finalists will be coming to the high school.  Each of them will be going through a rotating schedule where they go on a tour with a couple of students and Scott.  Each one is about 40 minutes.  They have a conversation with faculty and community members and they have a conversation with students.  They will all be happening simultaneously.  After that, I will check in again with the search committee that both Bill and Andy were on and then I will appoint somebody to the role with the support and consent of the search committee.  Potter – did you have anybody from the first round for this final three?  P. Dillon – no.  They are all from the second.  The first round was advertised locally and in SchoolSpring.  The second round we did all of those again plus we put an ad in Education Weekly which is national.  One candidate is coming from Massachusetts via California, one from Vermont and one from Connecticut.  Lesson learned is Education Weekly gets more attention, but I hope I don’t have to do a search again for awhile but if I do I would advertise with them.  B. Fields – the caliber of the second round is stronger.
  • End of Year – P. Dillon – Parents and teachers are all a little bit frazzled but vacation is right around the corner.
  • Southern Berkshire Shared Services Project (SBSSP) – we are waiting for our technology consultant to come back and so a presentation. I hoped to schedule that this coming week.  It may happen or maybe a little later in the summer.

Sub-Committee Reports:

• Policy Sub Committee – need to set meeting date
• Building and Grounds Sub Committee – None
• Superintendent’s Evaluation Sub Committee – S. Bannon – we met last evening. It will be on the next meeting’s agenda.  One positive outcome was this involved both Shaker Mountain and Berkshire Hills so it was a joint venture which was terrific.  Next year, the chair of that subcommittee will be Duey Quiet who is from Shaker Mountain and the plan is to rotate every year from Berkshire Hills to Shaker Mountain.    Dillon – I got thoughtful feedback and it was near unanimous participation and all of the folks on that committee got feedback as well.
• Technology Sub Committee – Meeting will be on Monday at 5:30pm.
• Finance Sub Committee – R. Dohoney – Meeting will be on Monday at 5:45pm
• Regional Agreement Amendment Sub Committee –
• District Consolidation & Sharing Sub-Committee – met last night with Shaker Mountain to talk about next year. The discussion was very positive.  We agreed that we would meet in September.  Doreen will schedule a meeting with both the Superintendent Evaluation and the Sharing-Sub Committee on the same evening.  We very honestly said that we were happy; they said they were happy but we all agreed that at the September meeting we have to decide if for the following year we are planning on going ahead.  It is not fair to them if they are going to start a superintendent search to start it some time later than that.  They agreed.  They are going to talk to their school committees in August and anticipate some negotiations at that point.  We will also be negotiating tuition agreements with Richmond and Farmington River.  It was very positive.  When Peter went and talked to them, we said that it was not just Peter; Steve has a small role but hasn’t been brought in fully but Sharon has been.  There has been a lot of bumps and they were very happy with the results.

Personnel Report:

• Certified Appointment(s) – reopening search
• Non-Certified Appointment(s)
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8. Adler – I am a resident of Stockbridge and also graduated from here as did my two children. I was also a former member of the School Committee. I came to you a year ago to discuss with you how valedictorians and salutatorians are picked.  At the time we had a nice frank discussion and you suggested that I meet with your Policy Subcommittee.  I had some great emails back and forth with Fred Clark, who at the time was on that committee and 24 hours prior to that committee meeting, Peter called me to say that we weren’t going to meet and that we would do it at a different time.  It has been since last fall.  I think that is unacceptable.  I think that the policy we currently have to pick salutatorians and valedictorians has been in our policy manual for decades.  It is an old policy.  There is almost nothing to it.  I feel it needs to be brought into this century nevermind this decade.  I would ask that when the Policy Subcommittee meets, if they could please give me a call, I would love to have further conversations.  I don’t think it is necessary for me to come back here but if we would rather not meet, I will see you in June next year.  I don’t mind coming back and asking again.  S. Bannon – the Policy Subcommittee fell behind, and I apologize for that.  We will schedule a meeting for probably early fall, and you will be on the list of people invited.  D. Adler – I worked my schedule last time.  I will be here this time.  Please let me know.  I would appreciate that.  Thank you.  B. Fields – I have to tell you where I am coming from in this.  Having gone through this for many years, and seeing some other variations, I am not sure…shouldn’t this start with the high school and shouldn’t the new principal who is going to be onboard be involved in it and shouldn’t the high school be the first one to make the recommendation since what David is talking about affects the high school.  It doesn’t affect K-8.  It affects 9-12.  Why are we doing the Policy Subcommittee?  Shouldn’t it come from the high school to the Policy Subcommittee?  R. Dohoney – the valedictorian policy is set by school committees.  B. Fields – is that a state law?  My feeling is that we should get rid of all of this valedictorian/salutatorian stuff and have the faculty choose a speaker and the students choose a speaker.  That way there is no hard feelings, there is no argument.  A student having a 100.2  vs a student having a 100.222….why are we doing this.  Why don’t we have the school recommend to this committee a policy.  Monument does things the Monument way.  I just can’t understand why we don’t give the school a chance first then discuss it.  P. Dillon – if Marianne were here she would speak more eloquently than I will about it.  Her daughter is about to have a baby so we are all excited.  Marianne has met with a group of faculty around this.  They are making some progress on it and our intention for that group to do what you are talking about and come forward to the Policy Committee.  The other thing that I want to be really careful on is that we don’t shoot from the hip on this.  There are a whole bunch of implications that many people in this room many not understand around the valedictorian and the salutatorian.  There are implications for what happens if you go to the state university or college system; there are significant financial implications tied to tuition and scholarships.  There is a whole host of things.  Whatever anyone thinks about it, the notion of just doing away with it entirely would disadvantage kids.  How we construct it, how we do it, what it means, who speaks to graduation, those are all nuanced conversations but to take two or three kids that have an opportunity to go a state college or university for free or dramatically reduced and take that off the table for them would be problematic.  I just wanted embedded that in the context of practice in this building, practice in other schools, research and then the concrete financial implications.  S. Bannon – the way it works is not in a bubble.  So what you are suggesting is absolutely correct.  For instance, when we had that painful, nut-free discussion, that went on forever with the Policy Subcommittee.  We brought the nurses in to talk to us about it.  We don’t pretend to be the experts; we just come up with a solution with Peter’s recommendation will work on policy.  We do have people come in.  There are some Subcommittee subjects that are so dry and so obvious that we don’t bring people in because they wouldn’t want to sit through it but this is not one of them.  The high school will be included.  R. Dohoney -when parents come forward, it is really important too.  P. Dillon – I apologize that this has been an extraordinarily busy year, trying to juggle multiple districts and it’s not that this discussion got shortchanged but a whole lot of policy discussions got shortchanged because of that.  There are advantages and disadvantages to that.  We will make a commitment to get back to it relatively quickly.

1. Fields – I have been very concerned with the fact that the high school building has not been addressed in a full meeting….S. Bannon – July 27th it will be on the agenda. That is our next meeting. It’s going to be talking about a process.  We are not going to make a decision that night.  We will not be talking about new building, school building assistance, none of that.  It will just be an overview of where do we start.  R. Dohoney – I think we need to make decisions that night about process and timeline.  S. Bannon – process I agree with but what we won’t make is if we are going to use SBA money, etc.  R. Dohoney – I think we need a deadline to make that decision in the process.  B. Fields – I think that by the middle of September we should have some direction of where we are going.  Are we going to go the SOI route?  R. Dohoney – the SOI are in the budget for January.  B. Fields – with the Stockbridge vote being the way that it was, now that issue is out front.  The other issue why I brought it up is a resident told me that basically we have not maintained that building and that is why you want this project.  It has already started.   I said that is not the case.  Things that were said in the Stockbridge town meeting, I know they were said out of the intent to get people to vote yes but as Steve will say, some of those things were not true.  Kids are not skating down the back hall on ice, kids are not carrying buckets with them.  There is a heat problem here.  I said to this person that these things are being addressed.  We are doing a boiler repair.  We are doing the band-aid approach.  I just want to get the public out there that is watching and this committee to know that it is already starting.  Some of this little innuendo that we are sitting back and letting the building go to piece and that is not true.  If anybody has a problem with what we are doing here, let the Building & Grounds people, Jake and myself, are honest and we would be more than happy to show you what we have done and Steve would be too.  I take umbrage at that comment because it degrades the staff and the custodians that are working here trying to keep this building unbelievable fit.  S. Bannon – let me ask Steve a question because I think I know the answer.  Steve, any building project we have attempted have we gotten extra reimbursement points for maintenance.  S. Soule – yes.  S. Bannon – that just happens to be a fact.  The two newer buildings, there was extra reimbursement points and in these projects there would have been.  B. Fields – renovation is very important and for people to say…I saw a letter to The Edge and we are now starting to mix the landfill issue and GE and the last comment was “we have a renovation possible” and they are starting to mix those.  Being the pessimist that I am, I think we ought to be aware that this might not be a sell.  S. Bannon – anyone that thinks this is going to be an easy sell, better talk to me.

Public Comment:

Written Communication

MOTION TO ADJOURN:  R. Dohoney             Seconded:  D. Weston                   Accepted: Unanimous

 The next school committee meeting will be held on July 27, 2017 – Regular Meeting – Du Bois Regional Middle School

Meeting Adjourned at 7:42pm

Submitted by:

Christine M. Kelly, Recorder

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Christine M. Kelly, Recorder

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School Committee Secretary