BERKSHIRE HILLS REGIONAL SCHOOL DISTRICT

Great Barrington           Stockbridge        West Stockbridge

 SCHOOL COMMITTEE MEETING

 MONUMENT VALLEY REGIONAL HIGH SCHOOL

 September 17, 2015

 Present:

School Committee:   S. Bannon, R. Bradway, R. Dohoney, D. Weston, A. Potter, J. St. Peter, W. Fields,  K. Piasecki, C. Shelton, F. Clark

 Administration:        P. Dillon, S. Harrison

Staff/Public:  M. Berle, B. Doren, M. Young,  Briggs, D.Long, K.Sullivan, Mike Dessero, Stephanie Adler

List of Documents Distributed:  September 17, 2015 agenda; September 17, 2015 Pers. Report

RECORDER NOTE: Meeting being transcribed from recorded DVD provided by CTSB after the fact. Length of meeting: 1hr 54min

 

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CALL TO ORDER

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

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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 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.

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MINUTES – None

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TREASURER’S REPORT  -None

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SUPERINTENDENT’S REPORT

GOOD NEWS ITEM(S)

Muddy Brook Elementary School (MBE)

Berle, Principal:

  • Ukulele Club starts next week w J.Briggs
  • Unicycle and Chess Club in full-swing (a little earlier than previous years)
  • 4th Grade- Great field trip to The Clark & whole class hiking Monument Mt tomorrow, 9-18-15.
  • Open House- last night 09-16-15. Wonderful. Proud and appreciative of teacher. Combination of formal/informal. Hands on presentations. Many happy parents & helpful information.
  • 09-18-15 Half Day PD: aligning PD, supervision evaluation, & school improvement planning. Teachers will reflect on last year’s classroom and grade level data, look at preliminary data from this year, reflect on and identify priorities with goal setting and action plans that will be supported w PD teamed by K.Birdsall & J.Briggs.

Monument Valley Middle School (DBM)

B.Doren, Principal:

  • Open House- Alignment between MBE and DBM means both have open houses on same day. Convenience for families. 5th & 6th grade open house last night. Social time w teachers. Students take parents around open classroom. Teachers do a short presentation on curriculum w Principal presentation at end in cafeteria. New 5th grade families.
  • Great energy in the building. Students are working hard. Academic time has been expanded. 5th/6th grade work allows for a lot of enrichment activities, reading, mathematics, writing. Focus on enriching academics not just core curriculum.
  • 6th grade hiking Monument Mt.
  • 8th grade teaming- Team Avengers: teachers/advisors are superheroes
  • Restorative practices as a way of building culture. Advisory for the first time on Wednesday. PD at beginning of school year before opened. Faculty meeting on Tuesday. All going over the Circle building restorative practices. Students really embraced in all grades. Getting to know an adult and each other. Students wanting to lead the circle for talk input.
  • 09-18-15 Half Day PD: Restorative Practices. Look at ways students relate to each other and adults. Working on long-term goals for school year, aligning w progress assessments.
  • District Level: had first Berkshire Hills Farm-to-School Committee meeting- 17 community members attended. Looked at agenda, formed sub-committees. Outdoor learning sub-committee met today and meeting again Oct 8th 3p-4p open invite to Committee. Meeting dates posted to district calendar.

Monument Mountain Regional High School (MMRHS)

M.Young, Principal:

  • Kara Staunton: started Tues Tech Tips- new app info to teachers to try in classes.
  • Jody Drury: Tues Topics- teacher collaboration every other Tuesday afternoon to talk classroom topics and earn PDPs throughout the year. Jody will lead teachers in conversations about SPED and differentiation of instruction.
  • Freshman: electing class officers.
  • Scott Annand ran class meetings in every grade: reviews all school’s guidelines, policies, protocols. Scott and MaryAnn will meet with Senior Class next week to discuss Senior privileges management and positive school culture influence.
  • 09-18-15 Half Day PD: setting performance, setting questions to ask/answer throughout the year, finalizing self study. Working on Atlas; making sure curriculum and new initiatives are there, new approaches are being documented.
  • Sports up and running
  • School-wide challenge: every member of MMRHS (students, teachers, staff) donate something to the Joe Spartan Account- account set up for students who need $ for fees, field trip funds, lunch, equipment, prom dress, tuxedo, tickets to school event. Theme was to take care of our immediate community first. $1 max limit; not dollar amount, it’s about the community contribution.
  • X-tech working well: Health & Wellness- partnering w PE, Kirpalu, Railroad St Project, DA office, Brien Center, Elizabeth Freeman Center on drugs/alcohol, emotional/sexual awareness, stress management. DA office offers community outreach and education programs; we participate in 1) youth advisory council- a junior and senior students who join monthly other county juniors and seniors at DA office in Pittsfield and help develop programming around wellness/ healthy choices.

2) SBIRT- adding screening components to current screening. SBIRT is screening, brief intervention, recommendation, treatment around teenage drug/alcohol use. Brought to the freshman.

  • Du Bois Lecture Series: working with John Warren. Focusing on social justice. Committee of teachers and community members. E.B.Dubois was Gt Barrington member who believed social justice, equality, humanitarianism, respect is what this community’s foundation is made of.
  • Transgender students: seeing more students entering the high school who identify themselves as transgender. May see in other campus schools too. MMRHS has 4 transgender students; training teachers, staff, whole school community on the concept of transgenderism and how to support a young person going through that journey.

P.Dillon:

  • Southern Berkshire Shared Services Project- 6 South County schools have been meeting regularly and will inform some professional development kicks off on election day and a couple days following.
  • Shared Services: Sharing our psychologist w Richmond. Sharing our Food Services Director in role as mentor with Southern Berkshire. Support, Training, & PD.
  • NEA (Nat’l Ed Assoc) grant won last year, went to Washington DC. Sending two more people this year and all expenses paid by the grant. Updates forthcoming.

Programmatic Overview – Food Services: The meeting presentation is a high level overview for the viewing audience and those not able to get through the very detailed report provided. Report available as meeting notes attachment.  Q&A to follow presentation.

Presenting: Sharon Harrison, Kathy Sullivan (Food Services Director), Mike Dessero (SYSCO rep), Stephanie Adler (Farm-to-School Committee/ Cafeteria Sub-Committee)

Sharon: Focus is on the food. There is plenty that goes on behind the scenes, but the focus for the development of the school lunch program in this country was to provided healthy, delicious meals to students who did not have it available at home.

Kathy: Focus on balance, variety and multiple daily options for students. Try new things. Diversified menu focusing on the different age groups and what is “popular” with each so students will enjoy a school meal. Mostly fresh fruits and veg vs. canned or frozen. Local sourcing when possible.

Mike: MMRHS has the BEST food services program he has ever seen. We buy more fresh produce than most restaurants. Last year we bought more than 2,017 cases of fresh produce at average 20lb case = 40,000 pounds of fresh produce to our students. Our order guide reads like a restaurant, not a public school. Buy from 25 farms locally when available to source to MMRHS.

Stephanie: Visited other schools to pull from other schools to put together bits to form our own food program. Work to source locally whenever possible with SYSCO within a 60 mile radius of the school. What can be done to support Kathy and expand on it.

Sharon: Grant opportunities with Free/Reduced lunch. Some state guidelines have changed to count ONLY direct certification families (MASSHealth, WIC, SNAP, homeless, foster children) towards the 40% to gain certain grants for District-wide funding from the state. Change has affected some grant programs  as to do not count reduced/free meal applicants (those not in group above but meet guidelines).

Kathy: Direct certification families always get free lunch. Reimbursement to the District for reduced/free is the same whether its for a direct certification student or an applicant student. 325 students were direct certification as of August plus ~20 more add-ons. Meaning, if anyone in the house is free, then all students in the house is free across the 3 schools. We feed Headstart kids at MBE because it’s a federal program=free. Application income guidelines determine whether meals are reduced or free but if an application comes in with a SNAP #, then that child is “free”. By law, direct certification is done at the 3 month and 6 month mark of school year. DBM this summer was newly certified as a severe needs site because over the past two years, more than 40% of meals served were to students on benefits. Severe needs means mandated breakfast is served.

Updates:

  • Regional Agreement Amendment Process-

P.Dillon: Next Committee meeting on October 1st at 7pm in Stockbridge’s District Office will have the 2 representatives from MARS confirmed to meet w Committee on that day to talk about the Regional Agreement Amendment process.  Reps: Mack Reid & Brian McDermott.

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SUB-COMMITTEE REPORTS

  • Policy Sub Committee- no date
  • Building and Grounds Sub Committee- met earlier today in anticipation of meeting with finance sub-committee. Working on info for upcoming budget and looking at/anticipating how to tackle future Building and Grounds needs in coming years- planning on paper but also putting money into stabilization fund.

Note: A.Potter put up the question/concern as to if 2 sub-committees meet whose members are all comprised of School Committee members, does the joint meeting constitute a quorum of Committee members and therefore the joint meeting becomes an actual School Committee meeting?  S.Bannon: Good question. Answers/guidelines will be obtained for that concern.

  • Superintendent’s Evaluation Sub Committee- meeting Monday @ 4pm
  • Technology Sub Committee- have not met. Meeting again in October
  • Finance Sub Committee- have not met since last time. Joint meeting scheduled for next week.

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BUSINESS OPERATION

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EDUCATION NEWS– None

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Bannon: Berkshire County Education Task Force has come up with a Whitepaper proposal. Partially at Steve’s suggestion every School Committee is going to look at it and make suggestions back to the task force if any/every committee members sees changes that need to be made. Discussion is opened.

R.Dohoney: Seems time to evaluate where our role is going with this task force. We have a lot of “balls rolling” in the right direction and if we refocus too much energy into another area we might dilute the fruits of our labor that are just becoming ripe. Reading this Whitepaper struck him as to that is what this may be doing. We are involved with one group right now that is very well suited to our needs beginning to show efficacy and joining another group that may not be as good of a fit because it is county wide and north-county driven, comprised of schools that don’t necessarily mirror BHRSD’s needs. It’s well intended but is in a very premature state; only been a few meetings, and concern primarily came from provision in Whitepaper that they want to start applying for grants and funding. These are funding sources we compete for and he doesn’t believe we can have interest in both areas and be competing for the available funding. It’s his position that we should not take any action that would implicate that we are getting involved with another group that is seeking funds. He feels we should have a broader discussion as to whether or not we should be part of it before we talk about amending the proposal.

A.Potter: Do we know how our partners in the group we are already involved with feel about this task force and is it possible we will be left behind if they are in favor of it and we are not?

P.Dillon:  Let me give some clarification:

  • The Southern Berkshire Shared Services Project is comprised of 6 school districts in South County; Southern Berkshire, Lee, Lenox, Berkshire Hills, Richmond, and Farmington River. Largely is meetings of the Superintendents and Committee Chairs who’ve been meeting for ~ 1.5years. Met initially to try to win a community innovation grant under the last administration with very positive feedback. Applied for a $300,000 grant and at last minute then-governor Patrick made 9C cuts which cut money for that type of grant. Since, the group has continued to meet around 5 points and has worked around PD and shared calendars, documents of shared services are on website.
  • The County-wide group was formed in North-County as a shoot off of Division 6 MASC (MA Assoc of School Committees) and a general call for participation and with application, Steve and Peter were selected; Steve Bannon’s in role as School Committee Chair and Peter Dillons as Superintendent and Chair/President of Berkshire County Superintendent Round Table. That group has met 4 times and has somewhat used the Southern Berkshire Shared Services approach as a model and some of that work has been shared with them. Group is broken up now into 3 sub-groups; communication, capital assets/inventory, budget.

The South County Group is a year and a half ahead of the county-wide group and So.County group has put together a grant application and having conversations with State House and Governor’s Office.

S.Bannon:  Addressing Rich Dohoney, your concern was addressed in a discussion a few weeks ago in way of the group being concerned about there being only one pot of money to go around and also that the Southern Group is so far ahead. Question of, “How do our partners feel in South County?” : Richmond and Farmington River are not right now part of the county-wide group. Richmond may be asked to joining. Lee and Lenox seem to be very supportive of both the county-wide and southern Berkshire task forces. Where we belong is excellent question, but Steve thinks it’s too soon to tell but he does agree that at last meeting there was a good amount of time spent talking about So. County Group. Also, to be considered is the geographical distance of the county-wide group.

F.Clark: Southern Berkshire Shared Services Group’s focus is really on sharing services, PD, team manager, admin, etc between the schools while keeping distinct political lines the way they are now. Thinking that committee doesn’t really have an initiative to go beyond that. BUT, the county-wide group, at least in its conception, was talking more about population trends, building occupation numbers; ex: long trend goals. He sees them as working together and not having cross purposes at all with different time lines.

S.Bannon: The county-wide group is focusing a lot on the politics aspect of things and have talked in broad terms as to what the entire county could look like down the road, they are just so early in their forming to know exactly where the focus will go.

P.Dillon: While we’re working on short term/easy wins, the problems for both groups are about the same; the changing times and how we adjust through them. More proactive, less reactive. South County is starting small with shared services so we can build trust so that down the road, reporte is built for larger collaborations.

S.Bannon: Lots of good information is being gathered that hasn’t been looked at and compiling information that will be used county-wide, by all groups. Legislative assistance in clearing building debt for future possible district consolidations.

P.Dillon: The South County is full steam ahead and will continue to pursue shared services.

F.Clark: We need to bring this back to us. We need to remember that we need to renovate the High School. We have to look at what groups can help us get closer to our goals.

S.Bannon: Do we put this on hold to see where the group leads? Each school committee needs to vote for and/or support what their individual representatives are bringing back to the county-wide group as a voice for the whole Committee, not the individual.

P.Dillon: Took away 3 things from this discussion to bring back to the county-wide group. 1) reality-check on financials for next fiscal year. 2) Tension around competition for grants. 3)Vocational education to be in So. County as well.

F.Clark: Feels like Whitepaper is full of short term goals and feels a sense of betrayal on what they represented themselves to be initially. That the county-wide group could have gone about it differently by talking in general terms but none of that is included.

Motion to disapprove Whitepaper: R. Dohoney     Seconded: F.Clark  

Discussion:     R.Bradway : What is the Fairbanks Group in all this?

S.Bannon: He is the financial guru in this group. Very smart, has great intentions. Sees that Boston is not being as supportive as initially promised.

B.Fields: If voting to support the motion, is this sending a message that we don’t want any part of the group?

S.Bannon: The motion is not supporting the Whitepaper only, not the whole group.

Weston: To R.Dohoney: can you restate your motion?

R.Dohoney motion to withdraw his motion to restate better    Seconded: F.Clark

R.Dohoney: Voiced his concern that if he was this Committee’s representative, he would vote, “No” on this Whitepaper and Peter or Steve abstaining from voting is not the same as voting, “No”.

J.St.Peter: Asked for S.Bannon’s option, as someone who attends the county-wide group meetings and as this Committee’s Chair.

S.Bannon: Think, politically, the Committee could be doing itself harm but honestly he hasn’t figured out how we and most other So.Berkshire bodies fit into the county-wide group; it’s just too soon. He feels the So.Berkshire group is a better fit BUT that doesn’t mean the county-wide group couldn’t do some good things. Concerned that the input for this came from up-north and it was not brought to the individual Committees in the early stages. He has some concern about voting, “No”, but not convinced this county-wide task force is the answer for Berkshire Hills; it’s just to early to tell.

P.Dillon: Slight concern is to leave a perception is to say we are not going to stay & play.

D.Weston: Option might be to send Peter with the directive to try to amend the Whitepaper. Which he believes amendment won’t happen but it will send the correct message from the Committee that the Whitepaper isn’t complete.

R.Dohoney: Agrees with Dan but also feels there are things that need to be deleted, things that are wrong in the Whitepaper.

S.Bannon: Is there anything that can be said/done to bring to Saturday’s meeting, to be helpful? Likes and dislikes?

A.Potter: Sees this as early in the process, after only 4 meetings, and doesn’t commit the Committee to anything or pull away from the collaboration down county. Unsure of value of putting down a hard marker.

S.Bannon:  Thinks the answer is to give constructive criticism.

F.Clark: Is this a draft document? Is this to be adopted by the county-wide? Why does this say, “Approved Unanimously?

P.Dillon: We were asked to vote on bringing this Whitepaper back to our individual Committees for discussion, not to vote on the acceptance of its terms.

S.Bannon: Unsure. Asked that it be a draft document This Saturday’s meeting is not the deadline. Meeting after on October 7, 2015 @ 6:00 is the final meeting for input. Peter could put something together for the Oct 7 meeting and on the October 1 meeting, it could be an second agenda item.

R.Dohoney: Goes along with that idea. He doesn’t want to take a symbolic vote that sets everybody off. His motion is withdrawn and after today’s conversation, he is confident in Peter and Steve that these concern will be tended to properly.

P.Dillon: Will attend the county-wide meeting and express the concerns voiced, to the best of his ability. That will provoke a reaction that he will share back with this Committee at the next meeting.

S.Bannon asks for an official motion withdrawal.

R.Dohoney motion to withdraw his motion (without amendment/restatement)  

 Seconded: F.Clark

D.Weston asks for final comment: He worries about expectations of cost savings through these approaches. When he does the math; started cutting salaries doesn’t cost-save as much as the public thinks and then the budget goes up the next year anyways after minor cost-savings. There is not “rabbit being pulled out of the hat” here and that’s what the public expects and when no rabbit is pulled, the backlash is going to be strong.

S.Bannon: Feels that is absolutely right. Hope is that we can continue to give quality education and slow down the increases seen. If that can be done, then it should be called a success.

R.Dohoney: The train coming at us now is cutting costs/ cost-savings that will result in a decreased quality of education.

A.Potter: Feels like the local, regional, state legislation is focusing on cost cutting  and not a lot has been done out east in transportation and other needs and there is a huge missing piece that’s not being addressed.

R.Dohoney: Or is it but not the way we want? Gt Barr tax rate goes up largely in part because of the school budget, but when was the last time the federal tax rate went up? 20 years almost!

A.Potter: Agrees

R.Dohoney: Fear of mandated consolidation coming along? It’s already happened by way of budget cuts. “Death by a thousand cuts”.

P.Dillon: This is not just a school issue. Berkshire County has 13 school districts, 40-something fire chiefs, 3 registry of deeds for a much smaller population than other registry of deeds. All political things, but all these things, goes on and on.

W.Fields: Agrees with not being in two places at the same time but really feels the focus needs to stay on our school and the immediate surrounding schools. He wants to see the school committee meeting with Lee. We need to bring in numbers to this district and find the district that will help us do that.

F.Clark: Feels we could overload the schools with choice but that wouldn’t be fair to the rat- payers. Would one of the “work arounds” make it so payments are more fair Our problem is not populating the school or educational quality, we’ve got those nailed. Our problem is getting everybody to pay fairly and equitably for that quality education

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PERSONNEL REPORT

  • Certified Appointments
  • Non-Certified Appointments
  • Resignation
  • Extra-Curricular Appointments       

No questions

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OLD BUSINESS- None

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NEW BUSINESS-None _________________________________________________________________

PUBLIC COMMENT– None

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WRITTEN COMMUNICATION- None

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S.Bannon made a motion to adjourn the meeting        Seconded: R.Bradway      Unanimous

Meeting adjourned at 8:54pm

The next meeting is scheduled for October 1, 2015 – Meet & Confer – District Office- Stockbridge

Submitted by:

Rebecca Burcher, Recorder

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Rebecca Burcher, Recorder

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School Committee Secretary