Minutes – Mar 9, 2017

BERKSHIRE HILLS REGIONAL SCHOOL DISTRICT

Great Barrington                   Stockbridge                 West Stockbridge

SCHOOL COMMITTEE MEETING

Regular Meeting

Du Bois Regional Middle School – Student Center

March 9, 2017 – 7:00 p.m.

Present:

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

Administration:                      P. Dillon, S. Harrison

Staff/Public:                        S. Soule, B. Doren, M. Young, M. Berle, J. Briggs, K. Burdsall,
E. Mooney, Pamela Hassett, Kimberly Cavanaugh, Sharon Connolly,                                                       Michaela Thierling, Jack Curletti, Glen Chamberlin,

Absent:

List of Documents Distributed:

Minutes of Meeting dated March 2, 2017
Minutes of Meeting dated October 27, 2016

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  50 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

BHRSD School Committee Public Hearing Minutes of Meeting dated March 2, 2017
BHRSD School Committee Minutes of Meeting dated October 27, 2016

Motion to approve all minutes:    A. Potter     Seconded:    S. Stephen           Approved:  Unanimous

TREASURER’S REPORT – None

SUPERINTENDENT’S REPORT–

• Continued Discussion FY18 Budget; Vote – FY18 Budget
  • Bannon – We closed the public hearing but I said I would give the public time to speak and we will do that before we take our vote. Anyone wishing to speak, please come to the microphone, give your name and town you reside in.  You will have three minutes to speak.  We will then take as long as we need to discuss the budget and vote on it.   Pamela Hassett, OT, New Marlborough – I would like to acknowledge this is a very difficult time of the year for administrators, school committee and for the community.  I am here to talk about the riff that is being proposed for the OT department at Berkshire Hills Regional School District.  Last Thursday was the first that we heard about this so we have put some things together for you.  I really want it known that in the related service area, specifically in Occupational Therapy, our interventions and our supports for students go unnoticed by those who are not directly involved.  We have a caseload, directed by IEPs and by meeting and that contract is binding.  Our caseload, year to year, is fluent.  It changes.  It is dependent from administration to students coming into the district’s, students leaving the district and Berkshire Hill students coming back into the district.  In addition to that we also have a workload and our workload differs because these are the responsibilities and the duties that we do that are not written into our schedule but they are things that we do on a daily basis.  All of these workloads vary for each student depending on their disability, the frequency that they are seen; who works with them whether they are paraprofessionals, the classroom teacher and of course the parents.  We attending meetings to benefit these students.  These meetings include IEP meeting, student support team meetings and specific student planning meetings.  We complete evaluations and screenings and evaluation can take typically up to four hours to complete.  Another crucial element that we complete is spending time in the classrooms.  This is considered a Tier II intervention or preventative intervention.  We reach more students this way and can co-treat with classroom teachers.  The OTs assist students by building the motor foundation by which they learn from.  This also means our services are more visible in the elementary school than they are in the middle or high school.  In closing, reduction in the force of the COTA position will have great impact on the students requiring services.  The students refer to us as their writing teacher but we do much more than that.  We provide a skilled plan in our intervention program so they can be successful with their future.  Thank you.
  • Hutchinson – should the letter be read that one of the parent’s sent? S. Bannon – we got a number of letters.  We don’t normally read them in the meeting.  I believe there are three or four letters.  R. Dohoney – do we want to make them part of the record or not?  S. Bannon – as long as everyone got them and read them that is all I am concerned about.  They will be made public, I just want to make sure we do it the right way.  R. Dohoney – I am not sure that they are all public documents depending on who they were sent to.  S. Bannon – if they were sent to school committee members as a group, then they are public documents.  There was no one that asked for them not to be made public.  R. Dohoney – there is information in them that pertains to certain students by name.  S. Bannon – we will redact them.    A. Hutchinson – so when we were presented with that budget last week, the OT positions were listed under the high school but my understanding is that they are not really part of the high school.  They are primarily elementary school positions.  S. Bannon – they didn’t have any tag on them.  R. Dohoney – that is a good question.  Kate, could you discuss where….K. Burdsall – all of our related service providers are districtwide.  The majority of the caseload is at the elementary school but there is a small caseload at the middle school and an even smaller case load at the high school.  All speech/language, occupational therapy, physical therapy all have caseloads K-12.  R. Dohoney – would it be fair to say this particular cut/reduction in hours would be mostly the hours spent at the elementary school?  K. Burdsall – yes.  It goes to numbers on the caseload then the things that Pam was talking about in terms of workload and some of the things that are not seen.  If you looked at straight numbers, it potentially can be done that way.  I think when you take into consideration some of the things that Pam referenced, some of the supports that they are able to provide just over the course of a school day that don’t get written into a schedule, that don’t get seen in the IEP, it is those things, the preventative things that would be impacted the most.  J. St. Peter – I had one question while Kate is up there.  How much do we spend on out-of-district placements in the course of a school year; either private or not.  K. Burdsall – I am not sure, Sharon?  S. Harrison – about a million.  K. Burdsall – I was going to say $900,000.  J. St. Peter – my concern after thinking about this for a week, is Kate has done a great job in the last year trying to get some of those close to a million dollar out-of-district placements back into the district and anything that impacts our in-house services might have a detrimental effect on bringing some of those kids back.  Again, we would have to go through IEP meetings and the family has to agree and if they don’t, we have legal costs that we have to incur.  I think we have done a great job in the last couple of years trying to move that back and for the amount of money we might save in this budget, I am wondering if it is going to come back to haunt us in the amount of lost revenue not being about to bring kids back into district.  That is my main concern after thinking about this for a week.  R. Dohoney – we voted to cut this last week.  It is not in the budget right now.  If somebody is dissatisfied with it, they will have to make a motion.  D. Singer – I am dissatisfied with it.  S. Bannon – you have to make a motion.

Motion to restore the COTA position and restore the OT position to .8:  D. Singer    Seconded:  R. Dohoney   In Favor:  8;  Opposed:  3.

• Weston – how are we going to proceed? S. Bannon – we will have motion after motion until we are done.  D. Weston – that is what I am trying to avoid.  If you are saying let’s put something in or take something out, something else may want to come in or go out and that is how you cope with it.  I am trying to figure out how to best proceed.   S. Bannon – any further discussion on this motion?  B. Fields – I will raise this as a possibility.  I am not sure if that will be the solution.  I know it will not make Sharon very happy, but last week Rich substituted E&D money.  I am wondering if by keeping this position, can we take the $25,000 from E&D and add it to that amount from last week?  I am just asking if we can do that.  R. Dohoney – was the direction at the end of the meeting last week that the administration was going to make a presentation about the high school art position?  S. Bannon – no.  Peter asked me about that and I said not to.  That was the will of the committee.  Any other discussion on this motion?

Motion to withdraw $25,000 from E&D and add it to this year’s budget:  B. Fields      Seconded:  A. Potter.   In Favor:   7;     Opposed:  2    Motion passes.

• Dohoney – we are directly funding an operating expense out of E&D. We are blatantly doing it.  A. Potter – remind me, the package for the motion we voted on and passed last week was your motion for pulling money out of E&D is exactly the same thing.  It think $25,000 on top of that would get us to the magic number.

Motion that we approve the budget as presented by the administration with the addition of $100,000 set of reductions.  A. Potter      Seconded     B. Fields

Amendment to Motion by not affecting the gross figure but to transfer the amount of $70,433 from the high school art department and move it to the Muddy Brook Elementary School Student Activity line item.  R. Dohoney.     Seconded:  S. Stephen     In Favor:  3    Opposed:  7. 

• Bannon – can you clarify why? R. Dohoney – there is $5,000 in the student activity line item for Muddy Brook.  I am not looking to cut the budget, I am just looking to move some money around.  S. Bannon – but you are moving $79,000.  Do you have a use for that or any logical reason?  R. Dohoney – I am sure the administration will make good use of it there to enhance student activities.  It has been underfunded for a number of years.  S. Bannon – I have an amendment to Andy’s motion.  Discussion on the amended motion?   R. Dohoney – the reason I made the motion is because we have had presentation from the administration that the third high school art teacher is not needed due to enrollment and use is no longer necessary.  I don’t think as good fiscal stewards we can let our precious dollars not be used in its best possible use.  My impression has always been that our great needs in terms of allocating money at this present snapshot in time is the elementary school.  Not knowing where the best to go and respecting generally our recommendations from administration in terms of professional staff, I have always thought that the student activity fund was not existent.  This idea of Project Connection as a substitute for that, I never agreed with.  When my oldest daughter started there, there was a very vibrant after-school program that was offered to all children, administered primarily by PTA.  That has died on the vine.  We have heard nothing since that time about increasing need.  I am a huge believer in after-school programs as a benefit to all the problems that we hear and we face at the elementary school.  We have no capacity to fund those whatsoever.  We have diminishing need in one area at the high school and an increasing need in one area at the elementary school.  This is not about cutting the budget but properly allocating our resources.  That is why I made the motion.  I am not saying that allocation is perfect.  It is not coming from the professional staff at the school.  I am open to other suggestions for it but we always have to be properly allocating the precious dollars we have and the data that has been presented to us is that the allocation at the high school is not the best allocation.  This item was discussed at length.  I have emails about numerous issues.  Nothing on this issue in the past week which confirmed my belief that maybe that these funds could be used somewhere else.  My belief is that it is in the student activity fund at the elementary school but I can be dissuaded from that.  S. Bannon – You are not suggesting as part of your motion that they have to put it all in the after-school program?  R. Dohoney – no.  I am stating that as one of my concerns.  They have no resources to do anything outside of the basic curriculum at the elementary school.  They have no money to do anything.  All the field trips are funded by the PTA.  S. Bannon – my other concern is that our budget, as hard as we try, for a variety of reasons, was a little slimmer, I am all for adding money into the elementary school but I would also like to see us reduce the bottom line and lower the percentage.  M. Young – I want to clarify my position on the art position which is it is not necessary, that if you are asking the high school to cut enough for the school committee to reach a $100,000 reduction or a $200,000 reduction, to see what that looks like, then that is where I would recommend it.  I am not saying that third art person is not necessary.  I would also add that if you are going to be taking money out of the high school to move to another program in the district, that you are continuing to underfund the program that we have there.  If you are going to move a position out of the art department, but you are going to keep that money in,  I would like a chance to argue that that money could very well be used at the high school.  It could be used to offset the $40,000 deficit that we seeing in our transportation costs for athletics, for our science labs, for our CVTE equipment.  I understand what your point is but without any opportunity to debate, if you are going to take this money but then keep the money, I would like an opportunity to share with you what we are not funding at the high school and the needs that are increasing every year not only with the facility but in terms of equipment and programming we are offering.  R. Dohoney – I don’t disagree with that.  As I said in my proposal for the allocation, it was not with a high level of confidence.  I will tell you, my other motion that I contemplated today was using it to transfer to the high school activity fund to then eliminate or drastically reduce activity fees that we change kids to participate in sports and after-school programs and theatre programs, which I hate to see too.  M. Young – being able to fund them all is absolutely a challenge.   J. St. Peter – so right now there is $5,000 in student activity fund for Muddy Brook.  How much is in the middle school and the high school accounts?  Middle school as $20,000 and the high school has $76,000.  M. Berle – I actually don’t know what to say about this, but I can tell you about the $5,000.  That $5,000 funds our early morning library program.  Parents drop off from 8am to 8:30am.  I am impressed with your creativity and I am really happy to work with you but….thank you for considering it.  A. Potter – Mary, off the top of your head, how much money for student activities is from the PTA?  M. Berle – the PTA has been raising between $15,000 – $20,000 a year.  P. Dillon – it is about $25,000.  M. Berle – it varies a bit year to year but our goal is to use that money for field trips.  Kids would not go on them without it.  S. Stephen – your early-morning programs, how much involved in that?  M. Berle – that also varies.  We actually run on volunteers in the morning.  We have two people that help out in the library but we also have a ukulele club, a unicycle team and a chess team.  The chess person is getting a very small stipend that is coming out of PTA.  It is a $1,000 stipend for two mornings a week for the school year.   P. Dillon – so maybe thirty kids in the library, chess team, 10 – 15 in ukulele and how many in unicycle?  M. Berle – that varies between 15 and 25.  I think we have a lot of people who would take advantage of after-school programming if we were able to expand Project Connection.  The point about opening that up to the entire population is absolutely an aspiration.  It is a need.
• Weston – I have less concern with eliminating the art position than to funding something that wasn’t requested.

Amendment to Motion to eliminate the high school art position and allocate that money across the district for student activity funds to be determined by the administration: A. Hutchinson       Seconded:  R. Dohoney In Favor:  3      Opposed:  7   Motion fails.

• Fields – I would like to say, based on last week, we haven’t done a real impact study of what the elimination of this art teacher will be at the high school. Last week I felt the administration needed much more time to study the impact and to get back to us.  From what I understand, registration for classes isn’t going to be done until late May or June.  This has come up on my tenure here, three times.  This is the third time.  Obviously, the program needs to be looked at.  I think it is hasty for us without input and information to make a decision on something that is so significant to a position and then to start spreading the money around when I learned tonight it wasn’t really asked for.  What would the impact of only having two art teachers be?  What courses would not be offered?  Is it possible that during the reimagination there will be a look at course sequence; what courses can be offered every other year?  What courses if they don’t get certain enrollment are going to be cut totally?  We don’t have that information.  We don’t have the information of how many kids will be impacted by this change.  I am hesitant to do that this time.  P. Dillon – I hear what you are saying.  Last week we were willing to pull together that information for this week and this committee voted to not let us do that.  S. Stephen – I was asking for it last week and apparently that was not important.  We got the impression that if we cut this position, it would be okay.  That was exactly what was said.  I asked specifically what would the ramifications would be.  It was voted down.  A. Potter – over the course of the year that is when we should be doing it, not in a room like this.  Diane had a great point last week.  I will throw it out there again this week.  Basically, when you talk about art, you are not talking about some sort of approach.  What we have in the program is a broad-based approach there are a number of aspects and approaches …. There is a broad brush of styles and schools of formats and potentially without knowing what we are doing, we are wiping out opportunities that are really significant.  D. Singer – there is a program where all of the students in 9th grade go through art at some point through the year which may increase interest in art across the board and may increase the number of students that take it.  M. Young – this is the second year that we have done it.  D.  Singer – it is possible that it may increase interest.  D. Weston – we, the school committee, asked the administration to come to us with the best budget they could and it is really rough that we second-guessed the cuts.  I think this is not the time to reallocate.  I think we need to respect the budget they came to us with.  They sat in a room and discussed what they needed and I would hope that if they thought they needed $78,000 for activities or for something else, they would have already put that together for us.  I am not inclined to rearrange the budget at this time.  I am willing to listen to cuts for the purpose of, not that I want to make cuts, but because I need the budget to pass.  For that reason, I am willing to entertain the notion of eliminating funds from the budget but I don’t want to rearrange the budget.  S. Bannon – this is the first time that I can recall that we were entertaining a cut that was reallocated and now trying to move on it.  I really think that if you really wanted input from the administration to reallocate we should have done it.  I find it interesting that we asked if we had cuts or reductions what they would be and the first two on the list were tough ones and we have so far ignored.  We have gone against the recommendation once again of the administration.  It is difficult for me to see how we can reallocate money when our bottom line is still high.   A. Potter – I would respectfully argue that the administration bring us recommendations because they were told to cut $100,000 and $200,000 in a subcommittee meeting and that is what they presented.  I wouldn’t call those recommendations.   D. Singer – last week we heard from one of the selectmen on whether we would be discussing this further and I think it would be unfair, not only to the students, but to the district to eliminate the art position without having input from some of the students.  S. Bannon – we never said we wouldn’t be discussing this further.  D. Singer – he specifically asked whether it would be in the best interest to bring this to the town and let people know that this was something being discussed.   D. Weston – if we are considering moving money laterally and not reducing, maybe this committee is at the point that we should have a straw poll to see where we stand about the dollar amount then maybe we can move forward on the vote.  S. Bannon – that seems logical to me.  Those that are fine with the bottom line as it stands right now, after last week’s vote and this week’s discussion, raise your hands.  The majority of us are onboard.  D. Weston – if we are thinking about reallocating and moving sideways, it sounds like we have reached the level that we are ready to send it to the towns.  I don’t want to have a split vote like we had last year with Great Barrington tearing it down.  That is not my favorite thing to do but I think in the long term it is bad for the district.  I would take the $78,000 out for the art teacher provided we had some documentation of what it would look it.  We voted on that last time and there was not a consensus to do that so I think that maybe we have a number and let’s see where it ends up.  S. Bannon – who seconded Andy’s motion?  C. Kelly – Bill did.  B. Fields – I will withdraw my second.

Motion to approve a Fiscal Year 18 Gross Operating Budget of  $26,464,952 which results in a Net Operating Budget of  $24,432,585 after use of school choice and tuition funds, with a total net assessment to the member towns of  $20,459,359:  A. Potter               Seconded:  B. Fields               Approved:  Unanimous

• Dohoney – my concerns are not necessarily in line with Dan’s about the town’s passing it. I think overall it is a solid budget and whether this passes in Great Barrington or not, this year everything has to do with the bottom line.  The town of Great Barrington is tremendously committed to education but to sustain the burden they have they have to be convinced that it is a tight budget and it has been properly composed to meet their values about education.  Every time we show that, it passes with flying colors.  S. Bannon – I will support this budget.  I would like to see further reductions.

Motion to approve the Fiscal Year 18 capital budget of $1,931,000 with a total net assessment to the member towns of $810,066:  R. Dohoney           Seconded:  A. Potter              Approved:  Unanimous

• Bannon – this concludes the budget discussion. P. Dillon – thank you everyone.  Two weeks from now is our opportunity to reflect on our budget process.  I think we have a lot of reflecting to do.  Every year we have met earlier to make this better and I think we have to do a better job of setting timelines around things, balancing how much direction the school committee gives, how much we trust or don’t trust professional judgment and where we can do better.  S.  Bannon – I think we can work harder.  I think we need to change the way we do things.  R. Dohoney – we had two years.  The finance committee proposed cuts and they were never implemented and the process was attacked.  A. Potter – I would personally would like to see more numbers over the course of a year’s worth of meetings.  Improvement, investments and maybe some cuts here and there.   We should be discussing it over the course of the year.  S. Stephen – we are looking at a budget and throwing out numbers and there is not clear picture of what would happen.  S.  Bannon – one of things that we need to look at, if the school committee wants to be involved in the process then work with the financial subcommittee and schedule six extra meetings with the school committee over the year and be there and listen to the discussions.  I think there were a lot of numbers thrown around but they weren’t done at the school committee level, they were done at the finance subcommittee.
• Weston – I have something that I have to say.  Just a comment.  This is maybe my sixth year.  This is the first time we have ever had minutes for one meeting and we get them for the next meeting.  I just think that we should acknowledge that we get the minutes in a timely fashion.  I should say it is extraordinary but I guess it should be expected.

SUB-COMMITTEE REPORTS

• Policy Sub Committee – None
• Building and Grounds Sub Committee – None
• Superintendent’s Evaluation Sub Committee – None
• Technology Sub Committee – None
• Finance Sub Committee – None
• Regional Agreement Amendment Sub Committee – None
• District Consolidation & Sharing Sub Committee – None

PERSONNEL REPORT

• Non-certified Appointment(s)
• Leaves(s) of Absence
• Resignation(s) – we would like to wish Jodi Drury well.  She has worked for us a number of years.  She is a special ed teacher.  She is taking on a new position in North Adams.  They are starting with special funding from the Governor’s office, special ed collaborative.  She will be the project manager of that.  We wish her well.   

BUSINESS OPERATION-None

EDUCATION NEWS- None

OLD BUSINESS- None

NEW BUSINESS:

• Public Comment
• Written Communication – none

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

Meeting Adjourned at 7:50pm

The next meeting is scheduled for March 23, 2017 – Meet & Confer – District Office

Submitted by:

Christine M. Kelly, Recorder

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Christine M. Kelly, Recorder

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School Committee Secretary