Minute – November 16, 2017

BERKSHIRE HILLS REGIONAL SCHOOL DISTRICT

Great Barrington                   Stockbridge                 West Stockbridge

SCHOOL COMMITTEE MEETING

Regular Meeting

Monument Mountain Regional High School – Library

November 16, 2017 – 7:00 p.m.

Present:

School Committee:                S. Bannon, S. Stephen, J. St. Peter, D. Singer, A. Hutchinson, R. Dohoney, K. Piesecki

Administration:                      Peter Dillon, Sharon Harrison

Staff/Public:                            B. Doren, M. Berle, K. Burdsall, K. Farina, S. Soule

Absent:                                   A. Potter, D. Weston, B. Fields, A. Rex

List of Documents Distributed:

Updated BHRSD Policies November 2017
BHRSD Policies to be Removed November 2017
Subcommittee Chart 2017-2018 as elected November 2, 2017
List of School Committee Members dated November 2, 2017
Requests Monument Valley Field Trips
Personnel Report, November 16, 2017
Memorandum from Peter Dillon to School Committee re: Monument Next Steps
Historical Choice October 2017 Projections
Assessment – All Years History dated October 31, 2017
21st Century Grant Program Coordinator Description

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:    — hr. 50 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:

None

TREASURER’S REPORT:

SUPERINTENDENT’S REPORT:

• Good News Item(s): See below
• Revision: Job Description – 21st Century Grant Program Coordinator – P. Dillon – in the past the person in that roll reported to the principal and to the superintendent.  That person should now report directly to the Director of Learning and Teaching.  Obviously I will continue to have input as will the principals.  Bannon – no one should have to report to four people so that is a good change.  E. Mooney – I have a question.  Under evaluation, should that say be changed from principal to Director of Teaching and Learning?  S. Bannon/P. Dillon – yes.  Thank you.

MOTION to approve the updated job description for the 21st Century Grant Program Coordinator:  R. Dohoney               Seconded:  J. St. Peter                       Accepted:  Unanimous

• Requests: Overnight Field Trips – Middle School – P. Dillon – what we will do tonight is talk abou the first two and not the third.  Ben can come up and give some context on the Nature’s Classroom trip at Chimney Corners for 5th graders, the Washington DC trip for 8th graders and we will come back at a future meeting and talk additionally about the Spain trip.  Doren – Meeting the district’s job for curriculum to be accessible to all, Nature’s Classroom is part of our curriculum and definitely forms a lot of the work we do around science, social studies, literacy.  When I started we were only have about 60-70% of our students participate.  Partially it was because the way the program was run in terms of only being overnight as well as the cost.  We didn’t have the scholarships and we worked hard to build those up.  Last year, again, we had virtually 100% participation.  That is really important.  The way we nail that is partially scholarship but also we started a day program.  About 70-80% of the students go and do the 5 day, 4 night overnight.  We also have some students who aren’t ready to do the overnight, so instead of doing a stay behind program which was never as exciting or good, the students come to school, hop on a bus, they go out there all day and come back late and get on the Project Connection late bus so they are basically at Chimney Corners from 8:30 to 4pm everyday.  We always have two or three kids who are just not ready to even leave school and have that experience so that is a different thing.  I don’t consider that a kid’s not wanting to go, they are just not ready to participate in that kind of experience.  It is a very exciting program.  It is focused on environmental science but they also do a huge amount of community building, the make a lot of connection to literature, a lot of connections to history and the kids have a blast studying rocks, ancient people, going on hikes, they do the hemlock bristles that are a good breath freshener.  They get to dissect stuff like squid and owl poop and things like that.  It is very hands on.  Every kids gets to have these amazing experiences.  They do night hikes and simulations.  It is great.

MOTION to approve the Nature’s Classroom trip:  J. St. Peter                    Seconded:  A. Hutchinson             Accepted:  Unanimous

1. Doren – DC is also very exciting. This will be the 4th year we have gone.  It is three days and two nights.  This year we are shifting it a little bit based on the interests of the faculty to mix it up a little bit but I am also personally passionate about it.  We are stopping in Gettysburg first because at the end of our curriculum in 8th grade is the Civil War.  There is an amazing museum and they kids are brought around the battlefield and they really make the entire battlefield come alive with history and talking.  From Gettysburg we will go to DC and have two full days there.  It is important that we have every kid that wants to participate has gone; we have about 80% of the kids go on the trip.  The kids who stay behind we have a full program that parallels it.  It is very connected to curriculum both science, social studies and ELA and we even make math connections.  Kids do a huge project and presentation whether they stayed behind or not.  Again, through some generous donations we have been able to support some scholarships.

MOTION  to approve the Washington DC trip:  A. Hutchinson                Seconded:  D. Singer              Seconded:  Unanimous

• October 1, 2017 Report – P. Dillon – this is the day we take a snapshot of what our enrollment is. Implications of it are important from a numbers perspective educationally and also from an assessment perspective.  One of the things that people always ask about it what does this mean for our assessment.  A slight increase in Great Barrington, a slight decrease in Stockbridge and a very slight decrease in West Stockbridge.  Dohoney – somebody should relay that to the three finance committees of the towns.  P. Dillon – we are meeting with the town manager in Great Barrington on Monday so we will do that then.  We are also going to meet with the Selectboard in Stockbridge and will reach out to West Stockbridge as well.  R. Dohoney – so we are down 21 district students from last year?  Is there any trend there or just from the graduating class?  P. Dillon – I think the graduating class was a large one and that happens.  This current 8th grade is a large one so sometimes that happens.  R. Dohoney – you just mentioned that 8th grade class which the district students is 86 people which is really big.  That is more district students than we have in 10th grade right now, by a lot.  P. Dillon – this is now my 9th year here.  That was in my first year here, the interim principal didn’t add the EK kids to the group so we ended up with a bigger group.  R. Dohoney – we just have a lot of in-district kids.  How will that affect the high school next year in terms of … will be still be an open door for freshman choice or not?  P. Dillon – Likely.  It’s hard to know.  Otis and Sandisfield kids have gone down a little bit.  The Richmond kids have gotten down a little bit too.  I think it will all come out in the wash.  R. Dohoney – that big class moving from the middle school to the high school, which is also our largest tuitioned in too.  That won’t have any budgetary implications you don’t think?  P. Dillon – I think it all comes out in the wash.
• Updates:
  • Southern Berkshire Shared Services Project – P. Dillon – I will bring this to our next meeting but we had a nice meeting with some of the technology folks and a few of the superintendents.  The Southern Berkshire Shared Services Project are the six south county districts that we are a part of and we brought in somebody to do a technology audit which I will post on our website and bring it to the next meeting.  He looked at what we are doing and articulated a plan for going forward and we can talk about it in more detail at the next meeting.  The big thrust of it is to move over time from individual siloed shops in technology and make connections to put it up on the cloud and to make it so people can hopefully work across multiple districts in solving problems.  Right now, each district has a technology person or some part of a person and some have a couple and those people do every possible job under the sun connected to technology and there may be some ways to share that better.

Good News:

 Muddy Brook Regional Elementary School – Mary Berle,  Principal:   We have a few wonderful things .  Last week, we welcomed over 60 veterans for our annual Veteran’s Day breakfast and had a wonderful time with students at every grade level singing patriotic songs and sharing poems.  We had a nice mix of veterans that come year after year along with some new families.  One of our new family veterans who was a marine with a 4th grader said to me that he has been thanked by senators, met with congress people for his service and he has never been more touched than he was by our Veterans Day Assembly.  The kids did a wonderful job as did staff bringing everyone together.  It was a great event.  This week, Jacob’s Pillow started working with our 2nd graders and they have had a full week of dancing; two classes this week, an hour a day and developing dances connected to folk tales around the world.  I have been able to sit in on a couple of sessions and the kids are having a wonderful time; really getting a sense of movement and dance can be a way to tell stories.  It is very exciting for our teachers and our kids.  That will be followed up this summer with a family day at Jacob’s Pillow and a deeper relationship with them overtime with that 2nd grade team.  Tomorrow, the Norman Rockwell Museum hosts two of our 3rd grade classes and then the other two classes will go on Monday.  They will be visiting the archives and the collection, having a tour or Main Street where they can look at current Main Street compared to the painting.  They will also have some exposure to the Tony Diterlizzi exhibit who is a very famous contemporary illustrator who illustrated The Spiderwick Chronicles; he has done a lot with Dungeons and Dragons; he definitely expands the fan base for the Rockwell Museum and in this exhibit there are some examples of his painting that were informed by Rockwell paintings including Rockwell’s self-portrait.  I think that is going to be really interesting for kids to see how art informs other art and also to see themselves as artists.  They will have an art experience as well.   April 28th will be the family day at the Rockwell Museum this year where all Muddy Brook families are invited for free to be part of the Rockwell experience.  The last big thing for today is that we are starting a faculty-wide conversation about writing at Muddy Brook.  This is a background conversation to our MCAS scores.  At our next faculty meeting, we will be looking at writing from every grade level and making connections between where we are and what the expectations are and norming our work together around that.

Du Bois Regional Middle School – Ben Doren, Principal:   The Halloween window painting went amazingly well.  We always have a great experience with the kids at both the middle school and the high school.  It is a nice diverse group of kids that get to go spend a day to paint.  A nice experience in the 6th grade; they read a book called A Long Walk to Water which is an experience of a child growing up in Africa and the adversity of having to take a long walk just to get fresh water.  It’s about life and their connection to our culture in our country.  The kids go down to a little creek that is about a 25 minute walk from the school and they have the experience of grabbing the water and bringing it back.  It is a very visceral experience.  They get to reflect then in the spring we do science work on streams and water quality so it is a nice connection getting the kids outside to our local spot on Alcott Road.  We had our vertical teams meet for PD at the end of October.  Teachers asked for more department time so we are giving it.  We focused on performance assessment and how to make connections across the path from science to math to social studies.  We are also starting to jump back into our data analysis and our date portraits.  We are starting to understand the different things that we see to tell us if kids are growing and succeeding, so part is our performance assessments and other our curriculum based measures that we do with writing and reading, MCAS as well as grades.  We are having a big discussion about what goes into a grade and what do grades mean.  The teams are really working thoughtfully and hard this year because we have giving then the time.  We are also doing coordinated release days, one in the fall and one in the spring.  Kristie is amazing and starting to align with the elementary and high school for our spring days so we will have K-12 discussions around alignment.  The math team just met yesterday and Kristie joined me.  They completed what they have been working on for the past couple of years; a rubric on perseverance.  So what does it mean to persevere in math.  It is one of the most important that a student can use in math is to actually persevere through problems, classwork, projects and just in effort.  It is really exciting.  They put together what it looks like across the board and then also what it looks like from students’ point of view.  Election Day PD was great.  Teachers went all across the county to take different courses.  We had two groups stay behind with a proposal, one was a 6th grade team to do an integrated unit on immigration that they are going to do at the end of the school year and the autism and behavior center spent the day getting deep into data collection and really tuning up their practices.  They did an amazing job.  Kate has been great in getting the resources and professional framing we need.  It is a very high quality program that is now getting known across the county.  Another big piece, a lot of people attended WEB Du Bois session by a professor at MCLA and actually one of our own Emily Olds who was the social studies teacher at the high school and is the ESL teacher at Muddy Brook, they both have done a lot of work around Du Bois and our curriculum.  It has really sparked connection and I have Henry Weinstein from the Du Bois Center here in Great Barrington to work on curriculum with us which is exciting.  They are also working with our design teacher on maybe doing a model of his boyhood home and actually bringing in people to sing with our chorus.  This week is the Hip Hop Residency.  A week of open-thought productions.  A rapper and poet along with a musician and DJ and a break dancer and dancer.  We have 25 kids from the across the spectrum involved.  They are with us, Mt. Everett and St. Mary’s.  They spend an hour at each place, each morning; Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.  There is a whole integrated piece around music, the spoken word, rap and dance.  They get together tomorrow at the Mahaiwe with all three schools.  They put all the things together in a performance which they will perform Friday night at the Mahaiwe.  It is awesome.  You should come.   On Monday, we are doing our second mentor training.  We have already done our training with our 8th graders and now we are bringing in our 7th graders.  We will put our 8th graders into a leadership position who will help train the 7th graders to be good mentors.  We will do our mentor/mentee matches with our 5th graders.  We already have our 6th graders matched from last year.   We will get that going in the next couple of weeks.  We have a very thorough training in collaboration with myself, our school adjustment counselor Dom Sacco, our clinician Lynn Cassella, but also we have parent volunteers who also happen to be psychologists and social workers which is great as well as deep connection with Railroad Street Youth Project.  There are a lot of professionals working with the kids which is great and will have about 80 people at this training on Monday.

Monument Mount Regional High School – Amy Rex, Principal:   Peter filling in for Amy – With the Halloween painting, the Rotary Club gave their awards to students and it was great to have the students display their work and talk about their inspiration and why they made the choices they made.  It was really interesting to hear some of the judges react to that.  The judges saw things in the student’s’ work that in some cases the students didn’t intend to see or that wasn’t their goal; it was a good and fun conversation.  The girls soccer team had a really remarkable season because they came together as a team.  Their last game was really wild for people who were there and to those of us who were watching from a distance.  It was tied 1-1 and went into one overtime then a second overtime then into penalty kicks.  They ended up not winning the game but I think what they showed on the field was quite remarkable.  Kudos to them and the parents and coaches.  Across the board a good fall season for all our high school sports.  We only have one left running at the state cross-county meet this weekend.  Monday is the big mandatory sports meeting for winter athletes and getting ready for basketball, swimming and skiing.

Sub-Committee Reports:

• Policy Sub Committee:
  • Second Reading: Policy GBEC – Drug & Alcohol-Free Workplace – E. Mooney – may I ask a question? Why does it say….there are two references to Drug and Alcohol policy but the word alcohol was crossed off.  I was wondering if that should be crossed off all the way through or not?  Dillon – we do our policy work around the lead of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees.  There could be a separate conversation around their internal logic.  S. Bannon – I have been through three meeting Eileen and I just noticed it myself and said why is it still in the title.  R. Dohoney – so does somebody want to explain the practical effect of this policy change?  S. Bannon – I believe there will be no practical effect.  It is a legal recommendation from MASC to take out the alcohol because alcohol is considered a drug.  P. Dillon – correct.  R. Dohoney – so alcohol is considered a drug so the reason we are striking it in those two areas is because it is considered redundant?  P. Dillon – yes.  S. Bannon – that is as I remember it.  R. Dohoney – that is not how it reads.  I have to be honest with you.  E. Mooney – that is because….(inaudible).  R. Dohoney – Eileen, you are not on the committee.  S. Bannon – my question Peter is and I don’t have the sheet in front of me, we have from the MASC an explanation of changes.  R. Dohoney – what was discussed at the policy committee?  S. Bannon – that is what I am trying to remember, it has been so long.  P. Dillon – do you want to just table it?  S. Bannon – yes.
• Bannon – we have a bunch of policies, and again this is at the recommendation of the MASC; some of the recommendations we took and some we didn’t and some we changed. These are all first readings which means that if you have questions or comments, make them now or send an email to Peter or myself and we will make the changes or discuss at the next meeting.  P. Dillon – these are the ones that start with the Safety Program EB.  The last one is a whole set that the MASC is recommending we remove because they are redundant and referenced in other policies.  That is sort of unique because policy books never get smaller they just get bigger so the possibility to remove some is refreshing from my perspective.  S. Bannon – the removal does not have to go through a first and second reading.  A motion to remove can be made.  A. Hutchinson – do you want the new policies in place first before you remove them.  S. Bannon – the new policies are already in place.  R. Dohoney – not the first reading ones.  S. Bannon – these are all removals of duplicate policies.  We already have a policy in place; we might have to change it or we may amend it but it will not have an effect on our policy book.  R. Dohoney – are there any provisions in our collective bargaining agreements regarding political activity or leaves or absence regarding political activity?  S. Bannon – The second one there definitely is not.  I thought there was one in the first but I am not positive on that.  R. Dohoney – I think we should have one.
  • Remove following policies:
    • H – Negotiations; HB-Negotiations Legal Status; HF-School Committee Negotiating Agents; IJJ-Textbook Selection and Adoption; IJJ/IJK-Instructional Materials Selection; IJM-Special Interest Materials Selection & Adoption; JBA-Student-to-Student Harassment; JICG-Tobacco Use by Students; JRA-R-Student Records; KEC-Public Complaints about the Curriculum or Instructional Materials; KEC-E-Request for Reconsideration of Curriculum or Instructional Materials
  • Revised Policies – First Readings:
    • EB-Safety Program; EBB-First Aid; EC-Building & Grounds Management; EC-Buildings & Grounds Management; ECA-Buildings & Grounds Security; EDC-Authorized Use of School Owned Materials; EEAEA-Bus Driver Examination & Training; EFC-Free & Reduced Price Food Services; FA-Facilities Development Goals; FF-Naming New Facilities; FFA-Memorials; GBA-Equal Employment Opportunity; GBEB-Employee Conduct; GBGB-Staff Personal Security & Safety; GBGE-Domestic Violence Leave

MOTION to remove listed policies:  J. St. Peter              Seconded:  D. Singer                     Accepted:  Unanimous

• Building and Grounds Sub Committee: St. Peter – we met tonight.  Steve went over the phone and electric savings.  With the new phone system, eight lines were able to be removed which is a saving of over $10,000 a year.  We have contracted with a third party vendor instead of Verizon.  There are a few lines we are required to keep with Verizon but the majority of the lines are with this third party vendor which is going to be another savings of 20% annually and with much better customer service.  As far as electric savings, we still have some rough figures of saving 21% with the solar grid in Housatonic and also all three buildings are about 93% LED now.  The auditorium most recently has gone from florescent to LED bulbs which should result in savings in the future.  We touched on the role of the committee going forward on the modernization of Monument topic and what we need to do as far as contacting Steve and getting all the information up to this date, why the renovation or replacement needs to take place as well as all of the old information so we can remove any redundancy if possible moving forward.  We are trying to put a wrap up on the elementary school parking situation.  We are going through the options for more parking.  R. Dohoney – I really think that committee should be the lead organizer in the Monument Next Steps.  I was on the building committee on the tail end of it before and we need to be focused and work hard and everything should go through that committee.  When the new committee is formed, our four building committee members should be on it.
• Superintendent’s Evaluation Sub Committee: N/A
• Technology Sub Committee: Dillon – I will reach out to Andy and have a technology meeting.  We will look at the technology audit and collectively we will present that to the school committee.
• Finance Sub Committee: Dohoney – we met last night.  I am getting to the final stages.  Peter and Sharon were able to present to us very draft preliminary operating budget which we reviewed more for form and presentation and going forward rather than an actual numbers analysis.  Everybody wants to stick with the original plan that the analysis will start with this full committee at our meeting in December.  Sharon did a good job of putting together a preliminary presentation and letting us go through it to make sure it is clear.  I think we are on track.  We also honed down a schedule for how we are going to go through the budget process this year which mirrors pretty closely what Sharon presented and we all voted on a few months ago.  Take a look at it.  We still have one more meeting before December 7th if people want to do things differently.  I think it achieves the goal of getting a good early explanation of everything to the full committee and plenty of opportunity to comment and review both at the finance committee level and at the full committee level.   P. Dillon – I think there will be lots of time for conversations and dialog throughout the process.  In the past we have felt crunched to do things in one or two meeting, I think we got so far ahead this year with the finance committee that this will give us lots of time for conversation.
• District Consolidation & Sharing Sub-Committee: We met right before this meeting with the team from Shaker Mountain.  The big take-away with them is that our contract is up with them for the shared superintendent at the end of the year and the decision was made that we would start working on another contract going forward.  We wanted to have that discussion early.  No promises or deals were made as to what it will look like but it was very positive that we will move forward.  We went through the individual goals, etc.  The one downside that we knew going in is that there is only one Peter and you can only be so many places at one time.  I think the consensus was that it is working from an educational management standpoint and maybe there needs to be a better understand of people at the school level that you are not going to have a superintendent in the back of your classroom all the time.  That is not his role.  I think the experiment worked.  That was the consensus.

Personnel Report:

• Extra-Curricular Appointment(s)

Business Operation:

Education News:

Old Business:

New Business:

• Public Comment
• Written Communication

Dillon – on the bottom of my agenda, there are three upcoming meetings, the second meeting is Tuesday, November 21st Negotiations Sub-Committee Meeting. That meeting has been cancelled and in place of that is going to be a meeting with the Shared Services committee and Southern Berkshire which was posted today. It will be at 4:30 at Monument Valley.

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

The next school committee meeting will be held on December 7, 2017 – Regular Meeting – Muddy Brook Regional Elementary School, 7pm

Meeting Adjourned at 7:44pm

Submitted by:

______________________________

Christine M. Kelly, Recorder

______________________________

School Committee Secretary