Minutes – January 11, 2018

BERKSHIRE HILLS REGIONAL SCHOOL DISTRICT

Great Barrington                   Stockbridge                 West Stockbridge

SCHOOL COMMITTEE MEETING

Regular Meeting

Du Bois Regional Middle School  – Library

January 11, 2018 – 7:00 p.m.

Present:

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

Administration:                      Peter Dillon, Sharon Harrison

Staff/Public:                            B. Doren, M. Berle, A. Rex, K. Farina

Absent:                                   S. Stephen

List of Documents Distributed:

December 7, 2017 School Committee Minutes of MeetingRECORDER NOTE:  Meeting attended by recorder and minutes transcribed during the meeting and after the fact from live recording provided by CTSB.  Length of meeting:    1 hr. 0 minutes.  

CALL TO ORDER

Chairman Steve Bannon called the meeting to order immediately at 7pm.

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:

December 7, 2017 BHRSD School Committee Minutes

MOTION TO APPROVE MINUTES OF MEETING FOR DECEMBER 7, 2017:  B. Fields              Seconded:  A. Potter           Accepted:  Unanimous

TREASURER’S REPORT:

SUPERINTENDENT’S REPORT:

• Good News: What we have decided to do, there is so much good news that we could go on and on, but we are going to go back to sharing a written report for good news.  The principals will write it in advance.  That will go out before our next meeting as part of the packet.  We have a place internally that we are collecting that.  We will take some of that information and also use that for the occasional district newsletter or to share with others.  As we transition to that new protocol, each of the principals can take a couple of things from their written remarks that they will share tonight.
• Peter – Kristie, do you want to take a minute and tell people about the latest grant? I don’t think we have talked about it since we got that one.   Farina – Last time I had the opportunity to share with you that we had the Resource Allocation Grant and the second grant we applied for was the Safe and Supportive Schools Grant which we were awarded mid-December.  It is a $10,000 grant and we are forming teams in the district that will review our work in relation to the behavior health of public schools and from that $10,000 stipends will be used to do that work.  We will then create action plans and we have an opportunity to apply to the state for fund to implement the action plans next year and moving forward.
• Good News Item(s) from Schools: See below:
• Approval of Rotary Grant to Support Kiva Project – S. Bannon – I am on the board of Rotary and I voted for this but I am not in conflict because I have no financial stake in this. Doren – This is a wonderful thing that I have seen Peter help it come to fruition.  Rotary is very supportive of the school year in and year out but what they have done in the past is use some of their funds to buy us reference materials for our 7th graders.  They used to buy a thesaurus for every 7th grade student which is wonderful but in this day and age, it is not  really a useful resource for 7th graders.  We have the internet and other resources so it didn’t seem like a thing that was necessary.  I talked with Peter and him being involved with the Rotary really came back to what would be a relevant support that they could do for the school.  They came back to us with an idea of giving us an amount of money to donate to a Kiva Account.  If you are not familiar with Kiva it is an awesome online resource called Microloans around the country and around the world.  They give $20, $40, $100 to somebody who wants to start a business, if they are in Iowa, Kenya, Australia or some other place around the world.  It is  really great social service where they give direct micro loans then the people pay them back and it helps people start a business or do these barebones living and actually make a difference in folks lives.  Across the world you choose who you are lending to and get your money back.  They have given us $250 and they are going to give us $150 every year.  For this year, it is nice because we have a chunk of money over the next couple of year and it is going to be a significant amount of money.  We are going to do it through the student council and it is going to be a great service project for the kids to have to decide where they are going to lend money to and get money back.  They can then lend that out again.  It is a very relevant project for the 21st Century.  We are asking for an approval of two things – the approval of the activity and the donation.

MOTION TO APPROVE THE ROTARY GRANT TO SUPPORT KIVA PROJECT:  D. WESTON              SECONDED:  B. FIELDS              ACCEPTED:  UNANIMOUS

• Initial Appointments – Monument Mountain Next Steps – P. Dillon – I think it might be a little premature to do that and I would like to extend the application process for a little longer. We reached out to the three communities, both the selectboard and finance committees and the citizens as a whole; we got a lot of response from Great Barrington, very good response from West Stockbridge and a little less response from Stockbridge.  I would like to make another call out to people and I’ll reach out to some individuals as well to see if a few more people are interested.  I think at our next meeting Steve and I will be able to come back with a recommendation.  Dohoney – I have one question that a lot of people have asked be about, I may have given the wrong information…do we think it is about a year duration?  P. Dillon/S. Bannon – we did say that.  R. Dohoney – it will meet probably once a month?  S. Bannon – that is our theory; once a month for a year.  There may be subcommittees off of that may meet for often but the main group would be once a month.
• Technology Presentation by David Long – Essentially the footprint hasn’t changed. We are trying to move forward and evolve and get better within the footprint we have been given.  We need to figure out where those allocations really need to be put. A few years ago it was really about getting rid of things we didn’t need and reducing the number of total licenses we had on things that were under-utilized and weren’t actually consistent with Rich’s vision which we are essentially continuing with.  We are trying to consolidate around cloud services, streamline our own internal services and build out the parts we need specifically to make the campus work.  The general framework of cloud services are outrageously explosive with growth in educational tools which create a lot of opportunities we are trying to figure out the best way.  Most programs are $15 a student so if you start multiplying that by the number of students…there are a lot of hard choices left to make.  We are trying to find new ways of making those decisions so we can allocate those monies.  We want to stay within the footprint that we already have.  This isn’t about growth.  It’s about renewal and changing direction; being more nimble; having more devices to to kids; simplifying the devices that are required to participate; being device agnostic so the new ticketing system that goes with the new backbone of the printing fabric we are putting in is basically going to include chromebooks, ipads and sharing between staff and faculty in a variety of ways.  Those are the things we think we should be building the value in.  If you look at what is going on in each school, cultural preconditions are really happening.  The elementary school made a big shift into adopting Google this year.  Ben is the intrepid and has been pawing away for quite awhile.  The high school, Amy just brings a wealth of experience using Google and is a great role model.  A lot of the things that were stuck in the mud awhile back, we are now rolling over those things.  There are still bumps in trying to get processes in place but I think we are doing well.  In terms of the big money items that we are worried about; it is not just the software behind printing but the hardware behind printing.  What is the right kind of device to print on?  There are a lot of cost implications to that but we have really been focused in our conversations in the past about moving to copiers where we can.  We are definitely implementing that.  Steve has actually deployed a number of things this year and we are going to continue from the high school down the hill.  We have watched the existing fleet of printers, that are all over 10 years old now, but the good news is they are of an age when you can actually repair the printer.  Anything we buy now, that is probably not true.  However, there is great news in the smaller printer category that they are really cost effective and competitive with the copiers.  They don’t have the duty cycles of the copiers so you don’t put them in high volume spaces but it give us another alternative to get very inexpensive flexible printers.  There has been a big push to make sure we have enough chromebooks to be able to support the MCAS.  There are alot of people including myself, that we are not really eager to be organizing my life around the MCAS but in this case it has given us a good swift kick in the rear around the right time.  I am happy to report that we have expanded the number and will continue to expand the number of chromebooks as we go.  The last thing, there are a couple of pieces of the network that will need attention because they are aging.  We are doing well with them in general; we need some more access points here and there but everything has been built.  We have push what we have a far as it can go.  There has always been one controller for all of the access points so that is the last of our single points of failure we have for the whole network.  We are trying to figure out how to get a second controller in there so at least we can use the old controller as a failover.  Right now, everything is really dependent on wireless network.  Losing our wireless network is a cataclysmic failure.  That is something that we worry about.  The other thing is, we have consolidated our server architecture to virtualize servers.  Those machines are getting old and we have to somehow figure out how to move forward.  There are services, directory services, storage, etc. there are still things that need to run here even though we are trying to use the cloud for as many things as possible.  Those are the big ticket items we are thinking about.  We are changing the way we buy curricular software.  Dohoney – you mentioned the controller but you didn’t mention any real big ticket items that you are looking for in this budget.  D. Long – there are expensive items in that chunk but it is about renewal mostly and the expansion really comes by getting more devices in the hands of students.  Printing is not a cheap thing.  It is kind of split because Steve handles copiers.  Overall, it makes perfect sense that we should be able to dramatically reduce cost.  When we are done, there will be no printer drivers at all.  Any device will print anywhere.  That will cost some dollars.
• Continued Discussion & Review – FY19 Draft Preliminary Operational Budget – P. Dillon – we will respond to questions people had. We also have Dave here to speak briefly about technology and I think since our last meeting we might have some time where people read things or had conversations.  Maybe we can start with questions then have Dave come up.  Are there things people are wondering about?  There will be several other meetings that you can ask questions as well.  Dohoney – Do you have any indication as to what the Governor’s budget will be?  S. Harrison – we have not heard anything yet.  P. Dillon – the two things that often get talked about are regional transportation is never fully-funded and there is a group out of Wachusett that is making some noise.  They are trying to push for more funding.  A separate group is trying to push for more funding connected to Circuit Breaker.  That is for this year and that is a for very high needs kids that have extraordinary expenses and trying to get reimbursed at a higher rate for them.  S. Bannon – we are still early enough so just ask the questions if they are one you want an answer at the next meeting, email Sharon and Peter and we will come back to the next meeting with them.  We are still in a comfort zone.  In a few weeks we won’t be.
• Updates:
  • Southern Berkshire Shared Services Project – Dillon – It is getting complicated.  Even I am getting confused now because there are so many shared service opportunities.  I see the Southern Berkshire Shared Services Project as the tail end of the grant we got for the community compact.  We are finishing up that, reporting out and spending down the remaining dollars there and submitting a final report.  Steve and I were talking before the meeting.  We had an outside consultant do a big technology report and we will have him come in and share some of that.  That has led to the Technology Directors doing some ongoing work and then maybe supported by Jake Eberwein who is the former Pittsfield superintendent and new superintendent in Lee.  I think when we get to the other one, we can talk about our last shared services meeting.

Good News:

 Muddy Brook Regional Elementary School –  Mary Berle,  Principal:   Hello everybody,  It is good to be here.  Sometimes the best news is handling a tough situation well.  The tough news was a flood at Muddy Brook from a burst pipe, but I cannot say enough about Steve Soule’s response, our custodial team and all of the folks from the community that came to help.  Service Master from Pittsfield was present as well as about 30 people cutting out all of the wet areas.  Appalachian Construction has been wonderful; Gilmore Plumbing has been in multiple times and I think just about every inspector in the Town of Great Barrington.  To get back into the building, we didn’t open for a few days but opened with the school feeling really healthy and things being put back together.  Iti was reminder about what a wonderful community we live in.  One thing the construction folks shared, and they were very clear about this, they worked in many schools and they never had an experience walking into a school that was so positive in terms of the custodial team, teaming with and and being right there and everybody being ready to help.  I am very grateful.  Teachers have also rallied and gotten back into classrooms.  We are still not in a few rooms but it is quite extraordinary that things are going as well as they are.

Other good news, Flying Cloud is working with 1st grade this year.  They have renewed the Mass Cultural Grant that we had for a few year but this year the topic will be light and how very tistst and artists look at light in different ways. That will be a hands-on inquiry unit and lots of fun.

Today, the DA’s office came as part of a month-long series of events with different grades on anti-bullying.  That was very successful.  There are other things, but I was supposed to do two and I did three so….thank you.

Du Bois Regional Middle School – Ben Doren, Principal:  Good evening.  It’s good to see everybody.  Lots of exciting things to discuss but I will only do a few.  On Tuesday and Wednesday of next week, our English Department does a course on self-regulated strategy development which is an approach to writing.  This is going to be a 5-8 endeavor.  It has already been implemented with 5th and 6th grade somewhat but 7th and 8th grades are next.  It is a way of helping students enter the writing process and support them but also to gradually release the levels of support and responsibility so you can have proficient, masterful writers.  We often have students who need a process as well as some students who need significant support.  This is a way to do that.  It has really been proven.  I have talked a little about it in my MCAS Development Plan and has shown great results on the score side but actually shows great results from the self-esteem side where kids really feel confident in the writing process.  In addition, with the help of Kristie, we now have some 4th grade teachers joining us to see the program as well as some high school teachers.  We are looking at a K-12 endeavor in looking at writing and also reading for writing sake which is exciting.

An email just went out today to 7th and 8th grade families about a new way of grading in English.  It is a much more student-centered approach.  We are doing conferencing with the kids, getting involved with rubrics and portfolio of work.  They are really assessing themselves.  So instead of us telling them assignment by assignment how many points they get, they are going to get a chance to take responsibility for their own work; have to be able to speak about it, conference with the teacher, give their opinions about their work and the way they have developed and grown and then work with the teacher to come up with a grade that works for both of them.  This is a really excellent step toward student-centered learning but also efficiency-based learning where students are evaluated on the things that they do and how they understand how they are growing and the goals they set for themselves.

Lastly, just a wonderful bit of news, in our autism and behavior center, it has been a great experience bringing this program into Monument Valley and bring some of our district kids back into the district but in the mornings we do adaptive PE which is kids in wheelchairs, cognitive disabilities, etc. and working well with the PE teachers and getting integrated in.  Our design teacher, Danny Odell, has also brought them in and the kids are working on wood working, using drills, files, etc. and creating projects and setting goals.  It is beautiful to see a program that in the past always existed outside but is now being integrated into all of the aspects of the curriculum.

Monument Mount Regional High School – Amy Rex, Principal:   Happy New Year everybody.  At Monument Mountain there has been lots of activities with both student learning and co-curricular activities.  Just to highlight a couple of things:  our girls and boys varsity basketball teams are still undefeated and are having an outstanding season.  There is a lot of good energy around that.  Wrestling and skiing are getting off to a strong start.  They haven’t had a whole lot of meets or competitions yet.  Our boys and girls swim team are both undefeated and doing really well.

The social studies projects that students are working on are very interesting.  One student who is hoping to go on to be a teacher, has been doing some research and collecting her own data which was by surveying all the teachers and students in the school around their perspectives of teacher and learning.  She is in the process of collating that data and is going to draw some conclusions based on the research she has done in the field and do a presentation for our faculty come March.  That is pretty cool and exciting.  Another students is leading a group of his peers.  They have been reading the Souls of Black Folks by W. E. B. Du Bois.  They are putting together a project that his going to be a part of the Du Bois 150th Celebration Series and that work will be submitted and on display at the Great Barrington Historical Society for the month of February.

One last piece around students, I have been working with a small group of student trying to build a principal’s advisory group.  They are a fabulous group across all grade levels and they have selected some projects around teaching and learning and school improvement that they would like to work on.  Some students are going to look at the transition between 8th and 9th grade and how to strengthen that.  Another group is wanting to look at our community period which is sometimes called Teacher Advisory or a way for community to be built in a school and for students to be well known and way to improve that.  There is a group that is looking at grading and reporting to understand what is best practices around that and how can we have high quality practices at Monument Mountain.

Sub-Committee Reports:

• Policy Sub Committee: N/A
• Building and Grounds Subcommittee: St. Peter – We met earlier today basically about the Muddy Brook water pipe burst and what can be done in the future to prevent it and what the actual damage was.  We are just waiting on Steve getting some quotes and coming back to determine in future if it will be cost effective to try to prevent these type of occurrences or would it not be from the actuary standpoint cost effective.  Hopefully we will have that in next few months and we will present to you the different options.  Steve did a full review of the rest of the buildings to make sure that he did everything he can do to prevent any further problems.  The high school had a couple of main issues.  A couple of rooms were freezing cold because of stuck dampers.  The rest of the building was hot because of compressor problems but that is now hopefully fixed.  People were there fixing that.  Nothing to do with the age of the building just normal wear and tear on the compressor with the degree of energy that is needed with these cold days.
• Superintendent’s Evaluation Subcommittee: N/A
• Technology Subcommittee: N/A
• Finance Subcommittee: N/A
• District Consolidation & Sharing Subcommittee: Dillon – we had a meeting in Southern Berkshire on Thursday going into vacation.  It was an interesting meeting.  There were representatives from Southern Berkshire, Lenox, Lee and Berkshire Hills.  We had a number of conversations and there will be minutes that we will share.  Lots of conversations about the low-hanging fruit; what we can do quickly and easily and then some other conversations about the more complicated things.  Out of that meeting, one of things that lots of people saw as low-hanging fruit is getting the professional days of the four south county districts aligned.  We have done that in terms of the election day for PD but now quite the other days so we will look at our calendars and try to come up with that.  There was also an ask that each group do some homework around visioning and what they thought working together could afford us opportunities.  At that meeting, two of the districts shared something.  Southern Berkshire had something and we had something.  Lenox got distracted and didn’t have an opportunity to do it and Lee didn’t realize they had homework to do.  Everybody gets a pass on their homework assignment and gets another shot at doing it.  We anticipate that people will bring those to the next one and the superintendents might go through them and try to analyse them and see if there are points where we can work together.  S. Bannon – I think the one thing that you left out that is important is the facilitator.  We are doing this dance about whether we will hire a facilitator to help us work through this project.  After two meetings,  I am more convinced than ever that we will go nowhere without one.  They are great discussions.  We are not moving very fast and we are doing the dance.  I think each group, I feel I can come here and we are all reasonable and would agree to a facilitator.  If anybody disagrees, we don’t have prices yet, but please tell me.  In order to make this work effectively, we really need to have a facilitator.  I think the first meeting, the pendulum was back and forth on if we really needed one but I started to see more people at the second meeting saying it would be a good idea.  Hopefully, after this next meeting, I don’t know if we will have made a decision but we will have a consensus.  R. Dohoney – I am starting for form a belief that shared services is more a superintendent responsibility then a school committee responsibility.  I haven’t fully developed that thought but it is just really staff allocation and I assume it would be approved by us but the actual negotiating terms  and sharing certain things is more of a superintendent function.  It is just a thought going forward.  I don’t think we need to be meeting about sharing a lawnmower.  S. Bannon – I don’t want this to be taken the wrong way by other communities, in general I think some superintendents need a push to do it and other superintendents don’t.  I think that is how their school committee is run.  We don’t have Peter come back to us for everything he does everyday and other school committees may not be as flexible so it is helpful for the school committee to give a little push.  B. Fields – can you give us some examples of this low-hanging fruit?  I would assume food services would be one.  Technology?  P. Dillon – part of what is hard is the absence of facilitator and everybody trying to play nice in the sandbox.  Nobody feels they are in a position to step up and organize the conversation so it is not the most…it is more of a circular conversation.  There are interesting ideas but the go around and around.  There was this notion that we shouldn’t try to do something extraordinarily complicated as our first challenge.  We should try to work on a few things that are easier than somebody from another community said “I’ve been telling our superintendent for years that we should be on the same calendar as the other districts” and I bit my tongue and said that is not a policy issue, that is a supervisory issue.  If you want your schools to have the same calendars then tell the person you hired to organize your school system to do that and then if they do it, say thank you for doing it.  If they don’t do it, then ask why you didn’t do it?  S. Bannon – Some of the issues I see is there is so much low-hanging fruit that is out there and eventually we have to get to the meat of the issue.  It is nice to be friendly and we all get along but eventually we have to say, ok these are the two or three major issues that are going to be really difficult to tackle but we have to do it.  I think without a facilitator it is not going to happen.  J. St. Peter – when this actual group started I thought we were going to meet solely with Southern Berkshire.  Maybe I was confused but now with Lee and Lenox in the mix, not that I’m against it, anytime you can collaborate it is great but if our goal is to expand the district or look into different steps, sometimes if you have multiple communities or districts in there it can muddy the water.  Everyone has a different agenda and idea.  I think this is a good idea  but also maybe it would be quicker if we met separately with each of these districts.  As far as I’m concerned the more we can expand the district the better.  My question is are there any plans to just meet separately with these districts or are we going to see how these four districts go along for a certain period of time and go from there?  S. Bannon – Our first meeting was with Southern Berkshire and we were planning to meet with at least Lee.  When we had the meeting with  Southern Berkshire, Lenox showed up which was terrific because there were interested.  Southern Berkshire said they had a meeting scheduled with Lee and I said this dance is going to take forever.  Let’s just get everyone in the room which is what we did.  I think your point is well taken but I think with a facilitator they can steer the discussions.  I think meeting separately would be counterproductive.  P. Dillon – I am just looking at the minutes someone sent me.  A lot of talk was around vocational education.  There is a general concern that there are fewer high-quality vocational opportunities in south county then there could be.  Some of those should be connected to the hospitality or tourism industry.  There was also a lot of discussion about technology and opportunities around that.  There is more conversation that has to happen there.  S. Bannon – A lot of things we talked about, we said have the superintendents come back to us.  That is helpful.  I think some of the superintendents are more open to that than other because some feel their plate is full and other don’t.  Peter’s plate never fills up because he doesn’t tell us it is.  I think that is something we have to look at too.  If we start a major project with these four groups, forget about the fact that we are looking at the high school,  I am not sure we have the staff to do it on our own.  It is going to be important that we have help to do that or something else won’t get off the ground.  Shared services is one path.  Consolidation and regionalization and some sort of major sharing of services is another path.  We have to figure out which path we are going down or are we going down both of them and how are we doing this.  R. Dohoney – I am starting to believe, as an early supporter of shared services, that they are divergent paths.  S. Bannon – that’s what I’m saying.  R. Dohoney – they are separate but equal.  S. Bannon – I absolutely agree with you.  I think we have to be very careful because shared services does not have the impact on the budget that people think it could.  It may have the impact on improving education but as far as the budget it has a minor if any impact and I think people’s hope are too high on shared services.  I have kind of switched.  It will be interesting.  A. Hutchinson – it was interesting to me that there were some high school students there from Southern Berkshire and they were interested in AP courses; they were interested in getting access to higher level courses that they don’t have access too except through technology and they were bringing up the issues that don’t meet their needs.  S. Bannon – one of the interesting things is there are the same calendar days but then the real one that is going to cause people to pull their hair out is to get the same schedule which I am not sure it is ever possible.  Starting time and everything  else.  There are two paths there.  One is we will try to come up with the same calendar but then there is a whole discussion about same exact high school schedule and that is a whole different tough nut.  I have heard it in discussions for the last 19 years.  We will see.

Personnel Report:   – R. Dohoney – there seems to be an uptick in volunteer coaches.  I am impressed at how many people are stepping up and coaching at the high school on a volunteer basis.  S. Bannon – coaching is tough when you have 12 kids and one coach.  If you have a couple of volunteers, it is very helpful.  P. Dillon – I very much appreciate those volunteers.

• Long-term Substitute Appointment(s)
• Leave of Absence
• Non-Certified Appointment(s)
• Resignations(s)
• Extra-Curricular Appointment(s)

Business Operation:

• Excess & Deficiency Certification – S. Harrison – this is exciting new. Our E&D came in at $1,302,544 which represents 4.9% of our current budget.  We are allowed to have up to 5% of the budget.  The wonderful thing about this that is has helped us not to borrow in combination with the change in assessment dates.  We haven’t had to borrow yet to date.  We normally have to borrow $2-2.5 million throughout the year.  We haven’t had to borrow.  We are actually making more money on our interest.  Our cash flow is better.  We are in really good financial position.  Bannon – This is seed month for our stabilization.  It think this is time that we put some money in the stabilization.  The two new schools are not new schools any longer.  The high school at any point could have major repairs needed and that is what the stabilization fund is for.  I think it is time and we have the opportunity we should put some money into it.  D. Weston – tell me again the mechanism for taking money out of stabilization.  S. Harrison – it is just a school committee vote.  D. Weston – to use money out of E&D is also school committee vote?  S. Harrison – it is a school committee vote and a notification to the towns.  They have 45 days in which to hold a special town meeting to vote no.  S. Bannon – if you will recall, one of the criticisms we have encountered over the last few years, rather valid or not, is that we haven’t put any money away.  We haven’t for a very good reason but this will give us that opportunity.  It will still give us some money to use toward next year’s budget.  S. Harrison – if the school committee does decide to put money in stabilization, which a recommendation I am going to make to the finance subcommittee on the 24th, it does have to be voted on as part of the annual budget.  S. Bannon -that’s fine but I think we make that decision prior to the town event.  It should be vetted by the finance subcommittee.  R. Dohoney – one piece of information I would like is what are the balances of the three towns’ stabilization funds and their free cash funds.  S. Bannon – free cash is the equivalent of E&D.  I believe Great Barrington’s is pretty high.  R. Dohoney – I will be reluctant to hold back money for spending on students to put in a savings account when our three shareholders have a lot in their savings accounts.  That is where I’m going.  S. Bannon – but we own these buildings and they don’t.  The whole point of forming stabilization account, which was a huge conquest when we were finally able to get the three selectboards all aligned to it, we have never put dime one into it.  The point was instead of having to borrow or get an emergency borrowing or appropriations for major repairs not covered by insurance.  If we are ever going to put money in the stabilization fund, now would be the time.  P. Dillon – this is a really big deal that our E&D is back up to here because we ran it down pretty low.  R. Dohoney – under 200 right?  S. Harrison – it was under 95 at one point.  P. Dillon – it was careful fiscal management, some good luck with some insurance things and a couple of other things but it is significant.  S. Bannon – I am not looking to strip this down to $200,000 again.  I am just looking to use the money in a manner that it should be used for.  R. Dohoney – how much do we have in our stabilization fund now?  S. Bannon – absolutely zero.  We formed it then we never did anything with it.  There is a reason for that, and I kind of alluded to it.  Every year, the budgets are so tight that even to put $50,000 in was a teaching position basically.  We just never did it.  I am not saying that I don’t think we should budget for the stabilization fund every year.  I think we should but this is the way to start it.  B. Fields – I will echo Steve you comment about that it came back to bite the district again with the project because that was raised.  Why weren’t you putting money in for these buildings; you let them go to waste.  They consistently point to that we didn’t have stabilization.  S. Bannon – I didn’t say I agreed with the agreement but I do also know that as cosmetic and other changes need to be mad to these two schools, they either have to be done by capital borrowing or budget items increasing our budget because we have nothing in the stabilization.  D. Weston – Sharon, I did notice that we avoided some short term borrowing.  That save everybody, taxpayers and the district money.  If we take a sum and move it into stabilization, we can still access that money to avoid short-term borrowing?  S. Harrison – correct.
• FY18 Q2 Transfer Report & Overview – S. Harrison – a moderate number of transfers. Three were done for operational needs, additional texts needed, additional supplies; three were for changed needs in professional development.  One was to cover the Jacob’s Pillow and the final one for moving salary, longevity from the contingency line to salary lines.  Most of those salaries were not set when this budget was made so we had it in contingency and moved it out.  There will be a little more of that as well.  It is pretty straight forward.

MOTION TO APPROVE THE FY18 Q2 TRANSFER:  A. Potter                      Seconded:  R. Dohoney             Accepted:  Unanimous

Education News:

Old Business:

New Business:

• Public Comment
• Written Communication

MOTION TO GO INTO EXECUTIVE SESSION, CHAPTER 30A, SECTIONS 21, #2, 3 TO DISCUSS STRATEGY WITH RESPECT TO TUITION AGREEMENTS AND WILL NOT RE-CONVENE OPEN SESSION:  A. Potter             Seconded:  J. St. Peter                 Accepted: Unanimous

The next school committee meeting will be held on January 25, 2018 – Regular Meeting – Du Bois Regional Middle School, 7pm

Meeting Adjourned at 8:00pm

Submitted by:

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Christine M. Kelly, Recorder

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School Committee Secretary