Minutes – July 25, 2019

BERKSHIRE HILLS REGIONAL SCHOOL DISTRICT

Great Barrington                     Stockbridge                West Stockbridge

SCHOOL COMMITTEE MEETING

Regular Meeting

Du Bois Regional Middle School, Library

July 25, 2019 – 6pm

Present:

School Committee:                 S. Bannon, J. St. Peter, B. Fields, M. Thomas, R. Dohoney, A. Potter, S. Stephen

Administration:                      P. Dillon, S. Harrison

Staff/Public:                            T. Lee, K. Farina, B. Doren, Kate Burdsall

Absent:                                    D. Weston, A. Hutchinson, D. Singer

List of Documents Distributed:

School Committee Minutes of Meeting dated June 6, 2019

School Committee Minutes of Meeting dated June 20, 2019

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:  hour, 29 minutes.

CALL TO ORDER

Chairman Steve Bannon called the meeting to order immediately at 6pm.

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:
MOTION TO ACCEPT SCHOOL COMMITTEE MINUTES OF MEETING DATED JUNE 6, 2019 AND JUNE 20, 2019 – A. POTTER                SECONDED:  J. ST. PETER                      ACCEPTED:  UNANIMOUS

TREASURER’S REPORT:

SUPERINTENDENT’S REPORT:   P. Dillon – We are right in the middle of hiring season and the principals have done a great job around that.  There are a couple of new English teachers at the high school, middle school special education, an IT teacher and music teacher.  Today I spoke with the high school music teacher and we are very excited about him coming aboard.  He comes to us with a lot of experience.  We have a few other positions we are close to finishing.  All sorts of summer work going on.  The principals went up to a conference in Maine and did a lot of work on the district improvement plan.  We had an admin retreat Tuesday and Wednesday.  We will bring the improvement plan to our next meeting for your feedback.  At the school level they are working on the school improvement plans.  Lots of neat professional development and stuff going on.  Lots of summer academic programs; Project Connection, the high school transition, special ed program, a whole host of things are going on here.  It is a good summer; lots going on.  I don’t always mention Steve and his crew but they are doing an incredible amount of work and should be commended for it.

• Good News Item (s) – Ben Doren, Principal, Du Bois Regional Middle School – I would like to add a few things about Project Connection. It is really exciting as Peter said.  The maintenance and custodial crews are doing a wonderful job.  In the midst of all that, we are really busy here at the middle school with rising 1st graders through 8th graders.  We have 130+ kids in the program doing amazing stuff.  Today we had a few field trips.  Kids went off to Flying Deer to do outdoor adventure and up to Berkshire Museum to some academic work and fun work around the DiVinci exhibit.  Kids are doing lots of different programming.  It is really amazing.  Work around water works and physics; they are doing art, gardening, a lot of high interest activities.  They are also going to Berkshire South doing swim lessons.  In addition to that, we also have an extended school year program that happens before and after Project Connection for our students who need reading and writing and math and other types of interventions over the summer.  We also have a life skills program here that is a collaborative program across many districts.  It is a great  continuity for kids with super high needs.  What that means is pretty much from late June through mid-August, we have programming her.  The crews are working around all that to get this place in tiptop shape which is amazing but we are also servicing a huge part of our community.  We have lots of teachers, paraprofessionals, community organizations, student volunteers and the like working here.  it is pretty amazing.  I am very impressed how it is working out.   Kristi Farina, Interim Principal, Monument Mountain Regional High School – There are two particular things I want to tie in.  We have about 19 teachers involved this summer at the high school in professional learning.  The professional learning is connected directly to the Mass Ideas Grant.  They are looking at how to shift instructional practices for the longer blocks which we built into the new schedule we are implementing in the fall; how to improve student engagement, so strategies to do that in the classroom and instructional strategies that can improve equity in the classroom.  We have teams of teachers working on studying in these areas and shifting instructional practices to align with that.  That is exciting to see the teachers doing that.  The other piece that I want to highlight just a little more specifically was one that Peter mentioned around the work that the maintenance and custodial crews are doing at the high school.  They are doing a pretty remarkable  job focusing on classrooms to align with our innovative pathways that we talked about multiple times over the course of last year.  We have our Project Lead the Way, Intro to Engineering Design which we had 78 students enroll for so we will be running five sections of that.  We are reconfiguring Room H03 to house that program.  Over in A11, the room that was known as the automotive classroom that wasn’t used very effectively, the crews and electricians have been in there.  We are putting computers in that room and white boards, projector and we are looking to build our work in the career tech ed components.  We did have two little closet places in the Guidance wing.  One of them was actually housing Angelo and we have relocated him to a different office space and we took the wall down and it is actually a pretty great sized office that we are hoping can be used as a second conference area.  At the high school, the one conference room space makes things a little difficult in scheduling meetings.  We are pretty excited about that space.
• Request: Part Time Secretary – Director of Student Services Office (grant funded position) – P. Dillon – Kate has a request to request a part-time grant-funded position for a part-time secretary.  This is due to a shift in stuff that is happening at the Federal and State level.  We get Medicaid reimbursement for services that kids get.  The paperwork around that is extraordinarily complicated.  We run a very lead office with very few people.  We get reimbursed for that work but there is no free lunch literally.  The way to get reimbursed is to fill out millions of forms and millions of electronic forms and send them back.  The cost of it would be covered by grants that she has.  To have one assistant she has to that on top of all her other work is untenable.  We are thinking it will be about 15-20 hours a week.  I strongly recommend you support that.  Harrison – it will be under 20 so we are not paying benefits on it.  MOTION TO APPROVE A PART-TIME SECRETARY FOR THE DIRECTORY OF STUDENT SERVICES OFFICE (GRANT-FUNDED POSITION)  R. DOHONEY                SECONDED:  J. ST. PETER              ACCEPTED:  UNANIMOUS
• Discussion and Next Steps: Proposed Motion to Consolidate with Southern Berkshire Regional School District (SBRSD) P. Dillon – I will hand it over to Steve. Just from a contextual standpoint, we sent letters to our three member towns and the five towns in Southern Berkshire as well as the Southern Berkshire School Committee.  We got responses from the Southern Berkshire School Committee and I believe the four towns in Southern Berkshire except for Sheffield.  Of our own three member towns, we got responses from; well we didn’t get a response from Stockbridge but they discussed and we read about it in the newspaper, so we are anticipating a letter.  We have not heard back from West Stockbridge or Great Barrington.  The letter referenced the 31st so we have not hit that deadline yet.  That is context.  Everyone has a packet of all the responses and we have extra copies if people didn’t get them.  We also sent it around electronically.  Today is the 25th so there is another six days of potential responses to get.  I leave it to Steve and Rich to talk about what we might want to do.  Bannon – Great Barrington will put it on their August 12th agenda.  We are a little late, but we will get there.  I wanted to put this on the agenda so we could check in and make sure we are all on the same page.  Obviously we are not going to take any action necessarily tonight on this because we are not at the 31st.  Hopefully we will hear from West Stockbridge and officially from Stockbridge and Sheffield before the 31st.  R. Dohoney – I agree, it is not right because time is not up and we haven’t heard from everybody yet.  The Southern Berkshire School District voting No, it kind of kills the whole deal.  S. Bannon – the didn’t necessarily vote No.  R. Dohoney – they voted No.  They said it was premature.  They voted No.  The problem is, I’m reading from the statute: “any town” – there are only two ways you can form this committee -”either by a majority vote of its Board of Selectmen and a majority vote of the school committee”.  Under the first way, even if all the Southern Berkshire towns voted for it, essentially their school committee has vetoed it.  The second things is by vote of town meeting.  Their town meetings could override that.  I don’t know where we go with them voting No.  S. Bannon – I think what we do is wait until everyone is in, all the letters are in, and send a letter to Southern Berkshire that says that all of your member towns have said yes; could you please reconsider.  Then if they say no, we ask the towns to bring it up at their next town meeting.  We aren’t asking them to have a special town meeting.  I think it is the best way to handle it.  P. Dillon – one other thing I would offer, if it is the will of the committee, at the point when everything is in, if you want me to reach out to MARS or MAFC or one of those groups and see if they are interested in working with us or the potential cost of parameters of working with us so you can make a decision based on that, I am happy to do that.  R. Dohoney – in reading some of the letters, there seems to be some concerned about the constraints, the original motion said 9-12.  Everyone voted in favor of it.  When I made the motion, I thought it was a good start.  I wasn’t looking to put constraints on anything.  B. Fields – that’s what I explained to somebody who asked me about it.  I said it is a starting point.  I agree with Rich.  I think we are getting the snub from Southern Berkshire.  They hold out hope in regards to this – they say it would wise to begin a conversation.  An initial meeting would bring together representatives from both.  A goal of this structured and informal meeting would be able to gain a better understanding of the possible paths forward.  I think after the 31st, we could look at one of those possible paths forward with what Peter has just said in regards to setting up some sort of facilitator.  Maybe that would encourage them a little.  From looking at their discussion, I was not very optimistic.  It started off, and I followed the whole discussion, they seemed to be, at least some of them, to be concerned that in 1991 they went down this path and a couple of them said it didn’t yield anything.  I said to myself that was 28 years ago.  We need to change the thinking process. It came around again and someone did mention, a new member, mentioned the educational opportunities that such a move could potentially yield.  There is hope.  I would hope that after the 31st, if they reconsider, we may accept them on an informal meeting and we talk about education and not about the past or these slights; I don’t know where they came up with these ideas that they have been disrespected.  I have been here for a long time and I haven’t heard that.  My suggestion is we wait until the 31st; we go from there and maybe approach them on a halfway basis.  It doesn’t have to be a “legal” discussion but maybe something about an informal but formal in a way if you get what I’m saying.  A. Potter – aren’t we already doing that?  S. Bannon – before we make a decision, we will wait until the 31st.  My concern is if they think that in the 90’s we did this, I think, I have done this three or four times, but it is no one’s fault.  They were informal.  I think Rich’s proposal of making it more formal was more realistic.  One or two meetings with the chairs, the superintendent, school committee members, all well and good and that is where it always ends.  I’m not against it.  Maybe something is better than nothing.  That has been the history.  All the meetings I have been to, there are never hard feelings; they just never continued.  To your point, I’m not sure where the hard feelings were from.  I never saw that.  We met and then we stopped meeting.  In a formal process, you would end up agreeing not to meet anymore if you came to the end of it so there was a structured ending or hopefully not.  As opposed to meeting until you don’t.  B. Fields – I think that is where Rich was coming from with the motion.  It is a formal process and there needs to be an answer, yes or no.  A. Potter – the process exists and since it exists, there is a reason it exists.  I think that is were Rich was coming from.  S. Stephen – It should be a formal process and not just a bunch of people sitting around the table chatting.  It is set out as to what is expected, what everybody is supposed to do.  S. Bannon – it doesn’t give a prescribed ending either.  The ending might be, no, it’s not going to work, or maybe it is.  It is just more formal.  A. Potter – it also includes the people who pay the bills.  R. Dohoney – 14A the second section of the statute says “it shall be the duty of the regional school district/planning board to study the fiscal and educational advisability of establishing a regional district…..etc., and it’s charge is to submit its findings to the selectmen of the member towns.”  So it is an advisory/non-binding thing to study these two things, fiscal and educational and make a report.  The report may say it is a bad idea and that is fine.  S. Bannon – we are not going to force anyone to do something that in the end is not a good idea for the students.  We are all on the same page and hope that this moves along.

Sub-Committee Reports:

• Policy Sub Committee – N/A
• Buildings and Grounds Sub Committee – J. St. Peter – we met last week and had a very productive and lengthy meeting. First on the list was Steve Soule gave us his operating budget for next year.  One of the main things was at the elementary school, the chiller which is what does the AC, there are two units, two halves to it, one half usually runs on most days and the other rests and it alternates.  On really hot days, they both need to run.  One of those units has died completely so we are just running on a half unit right now.  The school is approaching 15 years old so sometimes these things happen.  No doubt that having Project Connection there for many years has exacerbated this problem significantly and one of the hidden costs to running these programs because in the summertime there is more use for it.  To repair it, it is going to be over $50,000 and to get a new one it is going to be $130,000-$150,000 so either way it is going to have to go out to bid.  We need to do it.  The elementary playground, there was a piece kids kept getting broken bones on.  That was removed and there is a big space there.  We are hoping to fill it with something that doesn’t create more business for local surgeons.  The middle school, there is one set of swings, but there is a significant use for it, so we are hpping to put another set of swings in and also to make some of those swings handicapped accessible so our whole student body can use it.  Running the capital asset plan this year, one of the skag motors as well as the waste water treatment filter replacements normal wear and tear, to be upgraded.  I won’t go over all the high school stuff as Kristi touched on that as far as shifting rooms, making bigger space.  There is going to be a need for a bigger handicapped bathroom with an adjacent changing area to accommodate some of the students in the district.  We are going to be making H03 where the maker space used to be, turning that into that type of facility and that small maker space area will be going into the H04 which is a bigger space and better for that type of environment.  We talked about and I guess there is a debate in the finance committee, $125,000 into the high school specifically for infrastructure upgrades.  We just started the process of what we can use that money to do the greatest good for the time being.  Whatever happens with the school, whether we have a new school or a renovation, it will be anywhere from three to eight years and we will still have a whole cohort of students moving through so we felt pretty unanimously as a subcommittee that it is really important to continue to put money into the high school for the students there now.  Some of the fume hoods in the labs and outdoor classroom, especially for some of those kids in the inner classrooms that don’t have any light so hopefully on nice days, they will be able to use that.  Also to update some of the humanities classrooms in the english and social studies wings.  The middle classrooms have all been done but some of the exterior classrooms need new drop ceilings, LED lights, painting, new desks, projectors and with in mind a lot of those new desks, projectors, etc would be able to be moved to a new building or renovated building so we recoup some of the cost.  Summer updates and I would like to highlight that Steve and his crew have done a great job getting the buildings up again.  It is difficult, especially in this building with Project Connection as most schools are meant to have a ten week shut down period where you can really go in so it makes it difficult to have these programs but Steve has done a great job working around that so next year when the kids come back the schools will be in top notch shape.  The elementary school, and if you talk to any parents that have kids at the elementary school, the playground had a lot of problems with flooding.  Now that the kids were out of school, they were able to dig down and found that one of the drainage pipes was cracked and broken.  He was able to replace that and put in a bunch of mulch and hopefully the flooding problems will as good as can be considering it is a wet zone.
• Superintendent’s Evaluation Sub Committee – P. Dillon – Dewey is still working to collect feedback from some additional school committee members, mostly himself.  When that is done, we will schedule another meeting to check in.
• Technology Sub Committee – N/A
• Finance Sub Committee – Dohoney – we met formally today to kick off the budget process.  We did our first review which was of the buildings and grounds department.  A lot of what Jay just went through was also discussed at the finance committee.  This idea that maybe in the next budget, we should reserve some, unspecified, for upgrades to the high school.  It is clear that while the finance committee tends to round down, the maintenance committee rounds up.  That was the only real big issue and we are doing special ed next time around.
• District Consolidation & Sharing Sub Committee – P. Dillon – there was a meeting on Tuesday in Lenox. We worked with four special ed directors around a range of possibilities and what we determined was that only one of them was viable in terms of trying to do something together.  That was around potentially sharing assistive technology position.  In every district there are a number of kids that need special technology so they can learn and be engaged.  There is a whole level of certification to help kids around that.  It can be connected to hearing or visual impairments or communication, etc.  It is highly specialized and none of up probably do it as well as we can and we all spend a lot of money on outside consultants to come in and do that.  Do we create a position that we share?  The superintendents are going to take another shot at it and potentially come back to all the school committees in late summer, early fall around reallocating existing resources, likely resources that go to consultants across the four districts potentially to cover a shared position for all four districts.  The conversation was interesting.  The student services/special education directors did a lot of good work.
• Next Steps Advisory

Personnel Report:

• Certified Appointment(s)
• Resignation(s)
• Summer Program Appointment(s)
• Extra-Curricular Appointment(s)

Business Operation:

Education News:

Old Business:

New Business:

• Public Comment
• Written Comment

MOTION TO ADJOURN – A. POTTER              SECONDED: B. FIELDS                       ACCEPTED:  UNANIMOUS

The next school committee meeting will be held on August 22, 2019 – Regular Meeting, Monument Valley Middle School, 7pm

Meeting Adjourned at 6:29pm

Submitted by:

Christine M. Kelly, Recorder

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Christine M. Kelly, Recorder

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School Committee Secretary