ok good evening everybody welcome to our school committee meeting of december twelfth rightly for there but it is december twelfth i will call the meeting to order at seven o four pm and as we always do we'll start with the pledge of allegiance ok we are going to adjust the agenda a bit to accommodate the group that we have here today we are holding essentially a joint meeting and as we have been in the past weeks with our board of selectmen thank you for attending and the belmont high school building committee members thank you very much for attending and this is because we're trying very hard to communicate as thoroughly and transparently broadly among our various constituent groups about the high school building project so we are grateful for every one for coming thank you very much for taking your time and we are going to switch the citizens concerns portion to after we've got our two presentations which are under our major business items and that's an opportunity that we always have on every agenda for community members to share thoughts and questions and we don't engage in dialogue about it as another form format but we will listen and make note of any concerns or questions people have and address them at a future time so then our first skipping ahead got to think and talk at the same time will be to start with our district a great configuration presentation which will be the first of many opportunities to discuss configuration so we've got two other bodies to call their groups to order the through has a decision point in january twenty third which we're working on having several community meetings to give people information and so i will give information on our reading figuration options and i next meeting in january ninth will have a community forum will actually have a part of our school committee meeting be open to the public to ask questions and have dialogue back and forth with the members of the table will also provide additional information then we have tonight and then we also welcome you back on happening through the government a school building committee regarding the design information that will begin this thursday of all my school tours at six and meeting starts at seven both of those decisions will be january twenty third i and discussion of the pros and cons of each option back to the town after we requested time to meet with them to allow us to explore these three options because you have rolled into issues that are just starting at the high school direction you getting your pre k and in kindergarten and those projections show we understand that this project directly impacts grade seven through twelve or possibly eight to twelve or possibly just not to twelve but indirectly impacts our pre k k through six harvey elation depending on what configuration the district school who chooses so we want to pause there for a minute because this in the end will not just be a discussion about whether or not a high school should be nine to twelve it's grow or seven to twelve and what does that mean it also means we have to have a hard sporting conversation that ultimately will not be building committees were probably the times working to decide how we reconfigure or how we work the grades of our schools in the remaining greens in the remaining buildings that we have we want to make sure that everybody is feels at the embassy a process has different stages of marginals we up the district and who in our construction professionals did was in purpose will our our construction professionals or our team in green we've already done our eligibility period work we formed the project team in august and the team is there on board working with us as artist in the feasibility feasibility stage of our work and that's where we are right now we will timelines as we work our way through this project you are make sure we recognize that when we talk about a moment that we talk about the options and there are corresponding impacts to the other part of the district that we have been using this cater for arson of our four elementary schools would not be impacted at all by this discussion at all where our middle school currently five through a view acted by this construction it means we wouldn't take any grades out of those two levels of  tistry if we really go through an eight through twelve project which could be an eight nine in a ten to twelve section of that larger building or and eight academy by itself in a nine to twelve section of the building we w really part of our middle school issue because we take our eighth grade out of this middle school which would relieve the pressure but it would not have impact on arcade for elementary or all the dishes in spaces years if we were to be able to go with our seven through from washington whichever configuration inside out that we thought was educationally appropriate seven and eight together and nine to twelve or seven through nine together in ten through twelve in one large believe that would resolve some of the space in a role and issues at the elementary level it would also resolve those at the high school and this is a space conversation that we're having it's more about how we can big our undrawn with our schools it's not necessarily talking about the educational pieces of what that would be in the students and teachers if we are of have actually had the option to move our students around and have one configuration or another we will get to that part of the conversation later  our january ninth meeting that we will have at the high school which will be an open forum at that point in time we'll have some work commission about what exactly would look like if we had to upgrade our elementary schools middle schools to accommodate ser but the default mechanism is if we had seven through twelve it could mean for small gain of three zero one four six and the largest school which would be the building project school of seven eight and the nine to twelve or seven nine to ten through twelve options this with vision our groups that we've had since last december sixteenth january two thousand and seventeen april may of two thousand and seven and september of two thousand and seventeen and also salute the mission that we got from a survey our staff that was just conducted last week so for us school committee you actually have an exercise and you have a little homework because you want to make sure that you are thinking engaging it was talking so you  more in common with ten graders the fourth graders are visitors have more in common with each other but we started to ask those questions by each and by learning and growth of each of these youngsters social emotionally  food people started to put lines of between the grades to try to figure out what they thought were the best combinations of grades regardless of building regardless of how many schools we are hungry children we are just talking about the growth development of children at certain ages and certain grades what would be the best grouping so at the beginning of this exercise before we gave any information we asked the visioning participants to actually put lines as we're going to as a school committee before we go any further to take the temperature on that in take a minute and think about it if you have three or four levels of the district or the district and you're starting right now we would you would you put down if it was not related to how many buildings we had  dozen seventeen we have a full day of education vision with thirty one of our educators and are going public schools on a four and five we had to community members something in education educator visioning sessions with over forty four students so we'd like to think that that was the representative view of this work in we put our survey out there did as well with our leadership council and with our staff so before meeting on this work one of them are nine of the educators who are represent your leadership group we had twenty six votes for seven to twelve four for eight to twelve so it's interesting that we see when people get used to the idea of joining curriculum directors central office and especially and all of the district leaders came together and we walked through an exercise during we laid out the five different options and asked them to do right pros and cons to a carousel for a hall where you went around and starting with one paper and then you move through so it can be had five groups looking at five different options and pros and cons so we synthesize that information and then we put it in a survey that we sent out to all staff on december first and that there are a benefit of having that as the starting point it gives them something for people to respond to see where it is coming in cold thinking well what could the pros or the cons be of this move people around but the major con of that one is of course it doesn't address any of the elementary big moment issues that we're experiencing as you other levels of the elementary and middle school and one of the things that was interesting we had in our leadership council meeting we had noted that we felt that there's some there are some challenges for students as they transition from evening tonight great i'm some of the folks in the survey actually said well i'm not aware of that challenging or had questions about that so i think there definitely is a range of does not address the roman issues at the elementary school it does require transitions more for students and also have the teachers change buildings and then one of the concerns expressed at the high school among what with that having eight nine in one section of the building and ten twelve in another section building what would that do as far as you know could you still schedule teachers that way or would it require you know moving from one sections of the other so something  the middle school of the teen model where the students who go to ideally a hundred students are with their subject teachers who all teach them throughout the day so now that science social studies english all teach all should the same group of students and know them very very well and support their learning that way they we we talked about maybe it's as as each phrase of the screen in their school there is opportunity for them to shine and take how we provide instruction in learning foreign and green students where at his school now classes are offered a college grad level or an honors level and then in the more advanced courses also advanced placement and thinking of maybe thinking about how we do that with their ninth grade students and would it be better to not do that and of course as a ninth grade i get something we're going to do without a building change but changes like this and thinking about things like this gives you the opportunity to step back and say well we've always done it this way but classroom sometimes outside the classroom to help get them up to grade level and those are supports that's a structure that is a very strong and solid in our elementary schools and if we were to move our fourth grade to the cons and had their own pros and cons of the respondents were invited to say well if you were choosing what which would you choose and that brings us to the responses so option one the levels as they are was eleven point nine percent that's the blue option two is the red and that was where only grade eight would go up and it would stay as a section only three percent of their spawn and select an option to option of just one more slide about that survey so i went through and i looked to see so other people who responded at the end we asked them to identify with what level they work at primarily whether it's elementary middle high school or a constant district they wanted to see why was there one correct so i must have left a number out somewhere because it is a total sixty one i'll have to look into that question around what does that mean for the other five buildings if you've got there is a different configuration of high school and we the topic of our january ninth meeting we have engaged the architectural firm as a mate who have the layout of all five  the next conversation we're having and you are going why are we having them separately that works not done yet that's chapter two of this work we're trying to scaffold this conversation over the course of three meetings and we want to make sure that those folks have the time to go into those buildings look at the spaces meet with the principals and think of those different types of options if you could have with the other five buildings and put a cost estimate on that because we have to remember that when we choose building configuration for the high school project the building high school the head of the belmont high school building committee will take whatever their configuration option is it will start to work on that as a group and the district will remain with the dilemma of how are they position the district in its best possible way to serve the remaining students that if it's not seven through twelve that will have a constant contact to it as well so we want to make sure that we all kind of have a balanced view of what the k district cost could be whether we go some to kids in twelve or nine to twelve because there's a corresponding impact to our kindergarten through six or seven or eight school system so the purpose of this going generally above configurations intrinsics with us students you saw some of the pros and cons that then are offered about how students would move to get through the district and some of that change get different grade levels might be in different things is a nationally recognized subscription to all the schools and we just started from this to know if i could have been here for really focus on the screen for the folks at home the folks in the audience here have been in there also touched that the longer you are building the war successfully you are but not necessarily with the whole grade so this this suddenly speaks to kate eight buildings being buildings that people feel are very successful in kid eight buildings would have less first graders in every building because if you spread across several buildings all the first graders what we're looking at in eight through twelve or seven to twelve is making a longer period of time in one building much stuff will cost what that could look like how we could reconfigure parts of the district kid's picture to seven because we make this decision as part of the research showed that when you look at this in this  the circumstances we really have to look at the educational pieces the funny actual pieces the restrictions and the constraints around the buildings that we have and how we want to move the process forward so it's one lens of looking out through the vision it's have more information to talk about it will have a forum for the general public to ask questions of that time the meeting after that will be on january twenty third back in this room to make a decision for the school committee on the configurations for the high school project and then if they were just asked if they would just have to bribe questionnaires right right right right right and they were they they were asked the question to look at it through the educational lens and through their experience their experience in the schools what would they select it was clear from some of the comments that that many of the folks who responded had some idea of the challenges beyond the educational piece but they weren't specifically asked to comment on that just simply if they were choosing and i believe there was one comment that said i'm glad it's not me who's choosing to just to clarify that so the questions that were asked of the teachers administrators as well as the previous survey is that we're doing it in the working sessions where they're all designed to assess the totality of circumstances as you say constraints of physical constraints on the buildings of your population size if you had all of the money and all of the space in the world how would you set up a school system where would you make a group and then from there certainly there were  conversations around some of the challenges and issues because people were are certainly aware of of the challenges that the district is facing particularly in terms of the role but what i would say about the str that we took you know at the beginning of our time together it is a pretty intense time of two days doing lots of hands on activities lots of conversation lots of sharing out at the beginning i'm thinking about the may fourth and fifth vision sessions where there was some concern among all participants but i would say particular among the parents and community members in some teachers about having seventh graders and twelfth graders in the same building but after doing the work and really you know thinking about it from lots of different educational angles and then asking the question again as we near the end of the two days together  the results were as you saw that it was sort of overwhelmingly in favor of the seven  when i went out and started our meetings with the public the question started to turn to what does that mean for k to six and we really tried to make a an effort to make sure that we represent the that's the side of this conversation that we have to give equal attention to maybe not as it relates to what the work will be of the building committee as they move forward but as the work of the school department in the school committee of how do we want to frame it how do we want or how do we envision our kids six population or possibly cater seven population what would that configuration look like how many tradition would that mean for younger children do we want to change the look of our schools and have four or five buildings that look different as they do now or do we to do smaller buildings of kheta three in four to six and what does it mean to have a kid a six building one with the teaching and learning look like in that building will six greatest still have a rotating middle school type environment or will they kind of move back down to an elementary teaching model all those questions are the other questions that we're having internal dialogue about and those are the questions that we received and i can see some of the members that read those meetings those are some of the questions that are equally as important for the district to have but not necessarily something that the building committee is charged with at this point in time so where what kind of walking our way through both of those scenarios and when we hope to have more information about what those options are generally ni meeting after we go through some of the floor models so i just want to make sure that we have that parallel conversation about what both sides of that equation mean as we go through this not just from a cost perspective but from a teaching learning perspective are there school districts in the state that have the sim to twelve configuration of confusion similar to option for a person for there are there are some and we visited some there are folks in the in the model in the same building they also separate at the at the market and keep nine through twelve are the same they actually have a a four five building that's attached to an art of tori and so they have a truly distinct  configurations are but to really talk about as educators what does it look like to be in a school with seven the greatest to twelve how do you organize the building how does a schedule work what is a teaching learning look for each group of children grades the children so we do know this different districts doing this kind of shifting for different reasons and we also know that there's traditional k to five k to six districts with seven eight some to twelve weeks or so there are in the districts out there looking at this one of the questions so one of the things that i've always found intriguing by this seventh larger model is the opportunity to leverage specialized facilities that's robotics lab to make spaces something on those lines give greater exposure to those and the teachers to those facilities it didn't come up in any of the pros was that lives just it was discussed it wasn't captured or was there a lack of enthusiasm for that the practicality of that yeah i don't know i mean i remember that we were in this remember talking about it i mean you know a lot of what we talked about in furry clockers work was how it really would be great to have teachers can get getting together across  longer spans of grades to not only have good options for students that can connect i think in especially that you might have an eighth grader go up and take a class that's a high level class and we do have it critics right now the middle school that actually travel to our high school to take courses so that would make that a lot easier so from a student option perspective for programming i think it's there i think it's there for space usage of different types of rooms that we would have in the building that was brand new and i think that what we don't talk enough about is the teacher synergy work that we did early on and i definitely see it as an option as mike is in the audience but mike dan and a lot of the leadership team we had to go through the space charted the s b a gave us into talk about the different rooms and how much square feet we could have for each type a room and we know that we're trying to place in our new facility different types of learning spaces for children not just for specialized classes but also how we organize our middle school te the if we do a seven to twelve hour seven that is great is still going to be middle school kids and treated as middle school teaching model students in that building in the high school students could be scheduled and have their work or their day look very similar to a department model it doesn't mean that if you have a seven through twelve or an eight to twelve that they're all in the same school next in one big bucket re actually know that students learn differently so we'll have schools within schools and that a larger setting whether it's seven to twelve or eight to with their rituals are bigger than them and they did a class of by the end of that period they were leaving and these big high school kids were coming down with their violins that single smaller and they they transitioned and they moved in the the little guys went this way up to their area of the big guys came down and occupy the same space in a different time and it was just a really good use of the space that all the students you know have to district is in one brand new facility so it was really great to see them access and use different types of we started to talk about it it almost became like it became like a conversation around how we're going to brand this because it's not this disc wouldn't be the middle school anymore the other buildings would be primary grades and this would be the upper elementary school because it would be four five six it would not be a place with all those weaving parts and it has now which is a middle school schedule that rotates through seven periods and has over fifteen hundred students in it that move every forty seven minutes and go quickly this would be a slower building that would look like an upper elementary where you would have fourth fifth and sixth grade students in the instructional model in the scheduling of those students would change because it's age appropriate for it to change so the building would be as big in would be w out into use all the space but the the pacing of the day and the instructional model although not finalized would definitely be more of an upper elementary and so we were cognizant of of the community in paris thinking i don't want my cherry middle school in essence they're really not they're going to the upper elementary school that we're really rebranding in create a different culture of how students will be educated in the four five six setting which is completely different from a five six seven eight or six seven eight traditional middle school setting four five six would not be middle school be up there on the tree so as we started to talk about that we felt a lot more comfortable with having three grades of students at that unique age being in one spot where we could get them ready to then make that next transition to a seven to twelve high school so there is definitely a re thinking of what would happen in that building it would be a middle school model in the four five six  when we were scaffolding these meetings together we didn't want to have public speak tonight we wanted to have a full form because you want to focus the both segments of the conversation without those presentations in front of them so that you could have that full dialogue and  that we're investigating pros and cons thoroughly and thoughtfully because it's we can't operate in a vacuum where we see only the positives and ignore the negative so i think we'll need to think about transitions might be challenging but thoughtful transitions could be seamless so i i think knowing the work that the curriculum directors do across the district in the central office said i'm not as concerned about a number of transitions because i personally feel confident that there would be plenty of thought into each  transitions i think it could actually open up opportunities for more dialogue across the k to twelve hour pre k to twelve curriculum i don't think you need sixteen transitions th time to so i would see it as a limited transition because you knew the building in he knew how to get in and out you knew he knew your way around the majority of the spaces that you're already utilizing but you could be literally on one other side of the building and you wouldn't know what the high school classroom side looks like so the hope would be academically that would teachers all being in the same space that be a better line of expectations from seven through twelve or if it was eight through twelve because the teachers are all talking and working and meeting together you know right now we talked to principal richard at the high school and you know this is a relative ninth grade term one kind of drop off for kids as they navigate their way to  affiliate open campus type high school that is belmont high versus a very you know traditional middle school model here so that there might be some better transitional opportunities within that build it might make it seem a little less of a transition  especially academically but to some degree they'll have that could be a different mistreated model for seven through nine to seven to eight and then have to get used to that new going to sort of model how that works so that there would be somewhat of a of a step but i wouldn't think it would be as into the process of visioning in thinking about well how did lean make i still feel strong how do we make sure that each student feels connected with that caring adult how do we create those opportunities for students to develop sorry and there's a number of parents that are concerned about the prospect of a seventh grader a twelfth grader being in the same building and what does that mean because they're very developmentally different i imagine there was some discussion at the leadership council over our ways to kind of mitigate those concerns and to mcadams within the same facility you talked about some of those options sure so at the at the community meetings that we were having to the fall we unpacked that a lot  in the discussions that we had at the frank locker sessions and even at the perkins and will sessions really revolved around there are definitely careful separations that we would need to have if we had a seven through twelve building that was a seventy eight program in a nine to twelve program or even a seven through nine program in a ten through twelve program so just keeping seventh grade is through twelve in the same building the careful separations in what you have seen through the some of the models that were presented by perkins well to the building committee are two separate entrances you know nurses offices that have separate entrances spaces that are completely different in how they're designed for middle school learning versus what high school learning looks like so we are literally taking that middle school model if it was to be seven through twelve and moving that seventh and eighth grade group up and not having that part of the building literally look like a middle school that's attached to it connected to a high school so in essence the good things and also paying attention to the careful separations you know how we get students in and out how we organize to day to day for a middle school folks that are in that site versus the high school folks and having different expectations for those grades because they'll be separate pieces of the building so i think that those the original questions that folks asked right off the bat and fortunately we were having some of those dialogue some of those questions through dialogue going to committee meetings as well could be you can be staggered start time high school during that period it was delightful i had a kindergartner and a second grader at that time and for a while and they progressed over the year and a half or so but i think people have a fear about behavior and what this could mean and who's going to corrupt tumor and again maybe it's just the cup half full but i'd like to think of the opportunities and people rise to the occasion when the expectation is that you've got different ages and developmental happenings i don't know i just feel a lot of opportunities and thoughtfulness again with the separations and but as some of the dialogue just to share it to be to be transparent was i believe in kids and i believe students will rise to the occasion when it comes to work with their rich students but you know there are before school times and after school times and there was concerns about if you have a twelfth grader who is walking down the street after school before school runs into a seventh grader you know we are  a survey that will do next fall along with the entire middle six league superintendents and schools around talking about asking at risk behaviors for children in middle school high school and having a twelfth grade next to a seventh grader after school before school of those concerns and actually parents would have absolutely those understandings that and school administrators and teachers have we do do we want to set up systems to make sure that we are monitoring those behaviors and informing educating kids and making sure children are making good choices at all levels all the time absolutely but the other side of that conversation is that people would have concern with that and i value that viewpoint and i respect that and and we should view it as part of the challenge that is the seven to twelve work that we do do we know at this point that seven through twelve does fit in any of to building concentrations i would i would love to have build a hollow to chair the school would build the belmont high school building committee it's that question of if you'd like to that we we are there any other or are there any questions or comments from the high school building committee members of our board of selectmen members just and that one was sure and i just wanted to add lest people think you know these conversations happened once and then again we are having so many meetings week after week in staggered configurations and these conversations are flowing and interwoven and so again this is one opportunity of many opportunities where architects are interfac water grades configurations in their building but they would only have been say if we had four kids age should only have one fourth of the first graders one fourth of the second grade is so less per grade right soon because i'm wondering but we don't have any additional comments or questions from our fellow committee members you know i just want to make sure that the folks who are watching the folks who are here know that you will have the second meeting on gre configurations on january ninth we'll have information from our architect s and then a who's exploring the other five buildings that will help us have a better dialogue around the k to six k to seven options that we have in our meeting building so that this thursday at seven pm at the high school cafeteria will be about one high school building committee meeting to further discuss the site layout in the design of the new building will be tours of the present high school at know that more people will get involved as the topics get more relevant to what you're seeing and what you'd like to see happen and so we're glad for you to be here tonight we hope that you come out on thursday night and we hope that you actively get involved we sent out a list serve on bill tonight to get you attention to come out on thursday and last week we gave you all the meetings from tonight's first meeting all the way through the end of january that give you the dates  you can see for that as well tation was taking an overnight trip with all its opportunity and risk in making it more sustainable and so the decision we made for that one was that we were going to reduce from five days down to three days from today as on the bus down to a couple hours on the plane still offering the same programs so often the same opportunities the meeting it's sort of more manageable and that was twofold it was more marriageable in the actual trip itself with the center group but also monitoring the impact on the rest of the school when you remove all those teachers and students and vice principals from the school so today i'm here for a different future but really a similar topic which is to say questioning the sustainability of the field i mean grade five to the ecology school so i hope you got a letter i apologize it's not let's worry that 's not what i'm going for but it's awful and i hope that's what i'm going for in one part of the program letter i said i write to inform me of our decision and another one i write that i request your permission so i'm not really sure what i'm here to do other than to know whether you have to take a motion on this or not but i want to give you a little bit of background about the way the way we're trying to make our decisions here and then a little bit about how that's going to happen for a fifth graders so for from what i can tell forty some odd cape cod national seashore and then there were some concerns about that site move to the ecology school and there was concern concerns about that site and we moved to camp jewel up and down in connecticut last year so for i got here the year before i got here in sort of epic fashion students went to the camp and then were sent home later that afternoon i mean it was it was kind of a lot of people i was actually here interviewing for and this is their principal the night that happened everything and i'm like i think this is going to be an issue for me next year so so what i did last year is really we looked at alternatives and we looked at my thirteen alternative sites we started with eight and a community input gave us another five and we established a pretty rigorous seven point criteria because i think i had seen you know originally this one safe now this other site now another site now we're looking at our ford say so something was going on and i was worried that i was really worried about anyone's ability that any scamps ability to handle three hundred forty three hundred sixty people so we after look at all that we identified this that this next year student should go and that was like the first day before the play ok that's that's huge you know with any overnight trip there's going to be some kids i think it's really hard but forty five percent of kids this big teacher is actually quite positive to sit to their credit although they did sort of express a lot of reservations so we actually was in this room we did that a luncheon so i give them food so they were well fired up and i said you know what with well done with didn't go so well and there were about six things i think great and it was actually better than the previous site and then in the most positive language possible but still twenty seven items like this is a huge concern that's a huge concern you've got to be aware of this and we can't do this next year so sort of a theme started to emerge about i think people like the concept of the i think people like the spirit of it but i think people are really worried about the logistics of it and the reality is that you know we're we're sort of at three forty you know it's close to four hundred future years if some of the some of the projections are hard to  i will say personally for me to read the things that impact me are really compelling for anyone else but i would say it is hard to run a building without oh do you think three hundred fifty students lucky brick building but with them are taken teachers and aides and also teachers leaders from other groups who have to help cover it also assistant principal and so i think it does impact our schedule pretty significantly and and frankly just the amount of liability and oversight this requires just as as the waiting for another bus to get and it been you know there were enough adults there and i was never worried about the safety but it was certainly an indication and when twenty seven kids came back with some kind of illness it was just like yet another indication of why we really are taken a lot of chance and and i think that the fact that the word came that for me this idea that i think for kids who are ready it's a fantastic trip but there really are a lot of kids who are already it is a lot to ask a fifth grader who's never been away from home to spend three days with their friends to send three days of kids who don't know to spend three days with counselors they don't know or teachers say the only other act only interact with for a day so that the the number i tried to give was you know if we had one hundred students for a pretty a pretty difficult time so my opinion is that any one of those would have been a reason not to continue the trip but all of them cumulatively a reason not to continue and yet we talked about what we love about this trip can we replicate some of that  so in its place i'm from i was proposing three day trips and you know we're not going to be able to recreate that overnight experience but i also just think that we're not necessarily in the travel business either i had one parent that was two years ago  connection to science and we found a day trip to to our german farm that actually better connects our science curriculum to that one means we love was that team building experience were kids are sort of interacting and they're doing some leadership we found a program in acting called team work which really talks about sort of project adventure leadership just share decision making things like that so what we're trying to do is we're trying to replace this trip with some day trips that still help out hit us hit up those elements that we really love at the end of it all comes down to and i felt like for this trip i was increasingly nervous that we're going to be able to do it at the level of the community expect and i hear you saying before completing overnight in middle school because i think some of trip was happening they would do like one group to go monday to wednesday morning and then the bus would come in wednesday they would bring the next year wednesday and friday and so we were putting it right in the one of the questions we asked last year because in fact we talked about is that a better option you know is that when we need to this isn't that that that that split actually just sort of delayed the amount of the amount of disruption to the schedule on the night because now you have this this issue where africans are still in the building and guessing what their needs are and then half the kids are out of the building so i think that for like for the size of the church and for like maybe that experience it i think it does answer that question about kids or a hard time and maybe you're just dealing with half of those i would agree with that i think for the generation that does happen at that point in time just not at the age of five so i think that there's a i actually you know one of things we talked about one thing that i my assistant principal towards lewis said pretty quickly said you know they're good for kids like over good for kids and i don't want to be the school that doesn't do any of the question was simply his fifth grade the right time to do it and so i think that they actually did to me the egregious makes a lot of sense because it sort of it's sort of like think kids on all on all on that they're also not sleeping outside they're not sleeping in cabins and i came to the with so i think that changes a little bit one of the questions that we have for example john to your question was is there a place for this in six or seven or eight you know that if we're going to talk about development in such a big story should we maybe move this up to six greater maybe over that seventh grade and so i think for a specific fern ecology school the curriculum doesn't make sense but the question became you know is there a good i did sixth grade sent this out i sent out not only this letter but sort of a write up in my bulletin and i offer a paragraph in the next morning and then a p t and then the next week and then the third opportunity was this one and so far we've received three emails saying thank you from parents and not a know which means either this is the greatest letter ever written or you know i've read it was a part of this but you know i think people have i thought it was significant that people took the time to say and some of these two of them were parents who had older students who went on the trip to me that's the hard legacy got intent all right so my older brother went on i've been looking forward to it now suddenly i can't go and i had to go to three parents that wrote to me that said you know my older student went on it and actually i'm ok that my anger s out for these reasons one of them just said you know thanks for having the courage to make our decision so i haven't received the blow back that i thought it was going to do when i walked into that cell phone meeting i was sort of fuck i think you know i think what it means is i think that people left the tradition of it but i think people understood that there were some significant sort of structural problems of the trip and i think it's about safety and i think it's about sustainability so i think people understood that but you know it is a loss to be start to talk about you know sort of december january that's we start having last year was a little bit of an exception but we would start because it's a pretty significant cost usually we start explaining pretty early this parents can start saving in planning accordingly and things like that so you know usually it's in it's in the late fall so yeah so i mean you know it's not that i'm going to play on continuing to inform people just so people don't get caught off guard if i see tell you i think what i wrote in my in my boiler was it's not an easy decision but i don't i'm confident in the decision i think it's made for the right reasons what makes me nervous as a people might be caught off guard or maybe they work for to me that's that's the part that's nervous i don't want defending it and i don't i don't feel sort of guilt about it or are feeling it wasn't made for the and we started have that conversation about why we love the social emotional have this fear about it we love the connection to the science content things like that and then the question became can we replicate that another way so to me you know i agree with you did i felt better whenever you're taking something she day is the last day to order a star award from the foundation for bowman education in order to have a delivered by the end of the school year we can always call it a holiday time before we break for winter break  can always order start words it's a delightful way to think staff for all the hard work to every day it's just the timing of it i want to note there's still a few hours left in the day but he wanted to place an order to have it available before we break in th a few concerts happening this week as well as a coffee house so the belmont high school winter concert will be tomorrow evening from seven to nine pm at the belmont high school auditorium and went to a concert number one the next day on house which is put on by a fine a performing arts department and that is from seven to nine pm in the film on high school cafeterias that were sliding into that holiday break period we still have a lot of opportunities to winter break period a lot of opportunities to enjoy the rich performances that our students and staff make available so i'm grateful for that and again just to thank the foundation for government education for their support of our schools and programming with these star words which is really a delightful way to say thank you and appreciate the work of our teachers and educators and that's all i have we have no students  members in parents and staff in guardians to participate in the conversation we want to have around how do we provide vocational opportunities for our students in belmont given our exit from  d so tony and his his group of one thousand he surely did not decline anyone's invitation he took every group member and has a protocol set up for the meetings that will be in the next few months and we look forward to their presentation to us probably sometime in april if you remember a town meeting not this past year but the previous year we had a timeline that we had set to gather feedback to look at different programs including minutemen and do so with a taskforce  worth of grants to our educators sixteen grants were awarded over fifteen thousand dollars form from everything to chrome books for our third and fourth graders across all four elementary schools two robotics kids at the high school to social justice in the foreign language classroom support at the high school in ally's inc in creating digital media at the element at the middle school  at every level the district you can see good things going on that teachers are excited about that they have a vehicle to have that excite and in that curriculum in richmond funded by the foundation that go right to the classroom and write to the students so sixteen groups of educators in a single educated usually the done and peers are small groups bringing great things to our classrooms right to the students that would not be possible if it wasn't for the foundation so we actually thank them again i can't thank them enough for all their work in august support in my last item is it's winter time we had snow this past weekend this is the time that is the failing us asleep that much because every time the weather comes on we get nervous but i want to remind everyone that we will at times when needed cancel school and we will at times we needed to have a one day deal one hour delay and there are times when we will have a two hour delay i have introduced one and two students and teachers and educators and staff to travel safely and also get some of our staff members who live a little father away from belmont who have to travel to work to get there safely and have one more time to do so and it still counts as a school day so those three options will be part of the menu that we will choose from this year we do this work in connection not only with our own police chief fire chief d p w director facilities director in town administrator around how we organize our own work and do we have enough support to get people in safely but we also do it in connection with our peer districts i speak to superintendents from lexington arlington cambridge some of all walthew and all the neighbor remind people that those are community those decisions are communicated through e mail and through robocall and also through the local news channels that we put those cancellations or delays on as well so just keep an eye out i know over the weekend we had some snow and we actually had the whole team assembled to talk about making sure that our schools were excess well for us saturday and sunday activities we went off so he's out we have different members of community inside our schools over the weekend and so we  really do the school days we actually do the salads and sundays and on school days alike i really want to say thank you to all of our facilities and d p w workers in advance they do a lot of work in less than ideal conditions when they're getting schools ready to open they do it at three in the morning they do it four in the morning they do it late at night and down and i can't thank the facilities department in the d p w folks and in the fire police folks who come out and support the work as well it truly is a town effort so  thank them all in advance and hopefully we never have to call it just a family just like the kids at school so if we don't have to we me everyone have to but we'll see whether weather permitting but i just want to put it on the radar screen for all of our viewers at home