School Cancellation Pilot Evaluation and Recommendation (15 minutes) vote required

Transcript (~10 min @ 1:32:20)

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▶ 1:32:21 Speaker 5: and recommendation there will be a vote required at this time I would entertain a motion okay superintendent please so when you look at my memo I tell you that

▶ 1:32:37 Speaker 4: I wrote this memo a week ago and again it's dated today because that's the date

▶ 1:32:46 Speaker 4: the meeting and packet documents are finished approximately six days before we actually meet and at that time I included the line that Jesse representatives were planning to share the information suggestions with the Commissioner and senior staff that was part of the working group I was on then and I shared that we I knew the Commissioner had concerns through other work that I do in the state I had heard he had concerns and I was recommending you hold off on the vote. Lo and behold yesterday comes the memo in which the

▶ 1:33:24 Speaker 4: department states clearly the department will discontinue the alternative structured learning day programs pilot after school year 2019-2020. Previously locally approved programs may be implemented as needed through school year 2019 2020 districts and schools should take care to implement these in a manner that's consistent which we've been doing so if you vote this next year will be the last year that DESE will allow this so that just came to me

▶ 1:34:02 Speaker 5: yesterday it's dated June 24th with that and I would like to pull the room briefly do we wish to take this up for a vote then do we wish to implement this

▶ 1:34:14 Jennifer McAndrew: next year uh miss mcandrew so just a question i guess i would say um well what would we be voting on because the recommendation in the packet is to not talk about it tonight would we be would we be voting on continuing what we've done or because each year we've done something slightly different we we can uh as this expires

▶ 1:34:33 Speaker 5: as of the end of this year we can choose not to vote at all and let it be expired or we can choose to have a vote to approve it for one more additional year based on the memo the superintendent we just read out so that those are our two

▶ 1:34:56 Speaker 5: options mr. Ozzie Thomas can I ask question absolutely why is desi saying

▶ 1:35:11 Speaker 4: that this should not continue I think Jesse has a couple of problems let me pull up the memo again I don't think they got that specific in the memo I know that they have had long-standing concerns about special ed children and whether their services are disrupted even though we've had some robust conversations not only with the working group that I was part of but with the commissioner himself that most of us are very responsible and we make sure that we provide students compensatory services as needed I think the other problem that is really an issue is that this is not a program ten school districts participated in the committee is that it is difficult to implement across the state with consistency you'd have you talk about the word variability we're able to do it we're in an area where we had one snow day not not not a lot of concern if you're on the western part of the state you can easily be looking at seven eight snow days and what is the impact on the quality of education of education the kids may be getting there you know one One of the counters from the people on the working group is every decision is a local decision. And it should be allowed for the local, the LEA, the local education agency to make that decision what is best for their community. But the commissioner is not looking at it that way. And so again, he does not really lay out his reasons. Regarding such programs meet the standards for structured learning time is what he puts. But he does talk about other stakeholders have raised concerns as whether students can have equitable access to this program, as I just said.

▶ 1:37:19 Speaker 3: Thank you, yeah, are we going to have a discussion or are we going to vote?

▶ 1:37:23 Speaker 5: You may continue discussion as you will.

▶ 1:37:26 Speaker 3: Well, so I have a couple of ideas. that I think that if we're really a policy you know one of the our main purposes as a school committee is policy and in order for policy to be kind of really impactful and consistent is to know what's going to happen ahead of

▶ 1:37:52 Speaker 3: time so I guess I've never been for the pilot I've been on the record for that with two years of voting but if we're going to end it anyway i think it you know it's only for one year either way you could vote you could you could argue for that or you could argue against it i think it's really important to note that this is something i think that's more helpful for planning for high school and preparing kids for college than it is beneficial to elementary students and i i do worry about special ed students this past winter it was a non-issue because we didn't have snow days i know the superintendent does not call snow days easily or quickly so we know that about you we wouldn't know that about future superintendents so i think just for consistency sake we should consider just saying no to it now if it's going to be no next year because we it's very rare that we actually know something a year ahead right we're usually like you know when are we going to decide this you know anyway that's just what i want to say as a comment thank you

▶ 1:38:54 Speaker 5: prior to miss McAndrew do either gentleman wish to weigh in for the first time thank you madam

▶ 1:39:00 Speaker 1: chair so I understand superintendent what your recommendation was before commissioner O'Reilly spoke yesterday is there a recommendation now is it your recommendation that we don't do this for next year I'm sorry to put you on the spot but it's a hard question to answer Mr. O'Connell

▶ 1:39:20 Speaker 4: we got lucky this year we had one snow day if you ask me next year and i'm looking at canceling april vacation it's a different conversation um so i i don't have a crystal ball okay so so my sense

▶ 1:39:34 Speaker 1: was that you know at the end of the day we had some success with this uh we there were some shortcomings but if the state is saying this is going away it strikes me that we're expending resources on this every year we do this um and given our limited resources um you know if i had my druthers we we would walk away from this at this point and essentially cut our losses and move on um but i'm happy to hear what other folks have to say about this mr obronski get a way in um

▶ 1:40:14 Speaker 1: has this has this obviously the staff is unaware of this they're not aware of it yet i mean like

▶ 1:40:18 Speaker 4: i said i got this last night and and again the cover letter basically said the commissioner would make an announcement today you know everything is really coincidental that it was on the agenda i got one letter from one parent today who happened to read the packet and waited on on her opinion and i replied it's going to be moot um but i need to once you vote because we could have had a year and not have a year once you vote i need to tell the staff

▶ 1:40:49 Jennifer McAndrew: miss mcandrew um so i i agree with what the sentiments expressed so far i think part of why i supported the pilot was because i think if we're going to implement something permanently we should do a pilot and see how it goes across several years particularly we had two very different experiences with the weather since we know there's no chance it's going to be permanent i don't really see the point of extending the pilot so so it appears the consensus in the

▶ 1:41:15 Speaker 5: room is that we do not have a vote on this and we do not pick it up for the next year i also concur with that so with that that concludes the school cancellation pilot the last thing then on the agenda for epnp is the mcas resolution uh by way of introduction since i introduced this last meeting i have updated both letter and resolution document i did not print it for this evening knowing that there were two members absent that said it is on the docket for a vote and i would entertain for purposes of discussion a motion at this time motion to approve second