[Erin DiBenedetto]: Thank you for supplying us a new copy. That was one of my questions. But on page 7 of 40, about a little bit less than halfway down, there is a payment of $1,000. It says pending classification. And I was just wondering what that item was for.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: That's correct.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: That's a miscellaneous gifts and refund account for the scholarship limb prize. Okay, and there was another one that also had another $1,000, so that was later in, so it's probably another scholarship, and that was on page 20 of 40, and the second one from the bottom. And what was the amount of that, please? Again, $1,000. It's the very bottom of the page, the second one up, it says pending classification. Yes, that is the same account, yes. Okay. So my next question was, sorry, on, oh, that was the duplicate payment to someplace, so you already rectified that by giving us a new thing. Another question I had was on page 25 of 40. and it's dated July 23rd, and it's for $625.30. It's the fifth one up from the bottom, and it says school committee superintendents choose Beverly Nelson, but Ms. Nelson retired prior to that date.
[Kirsteen Patterson]: Correct, this is for the transition period for the superintendent and assistant superintendent conference.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Are we paying for the dues for the year for Ms. Nelson as well as Mr. Nelson?
[Kirsteen Patterson]: No, this was for the one conference during July for the transition period for all new membership.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Okay, thank you for clearing that up. I believe that was my last question, and thank you.
[Paul Ruseau]: I have a question about classification that I see many times. There's tuition listed, and then there's special education out of district tuition. Can you explain the difference?
[Kirsteen Patterson]: It depends on the funding program. So tuition, if it's starting with a 113, that's typically the IDEA grant. There are other special ed out of district tuition that is 010, and that's out of our regular budget.
[Paul Ruseau]: Thank you. I noticed in many places there are school-specific miscellaneous charges. I won't list them all, but for instance, on page 14 at the bottom.
[Kirsteen Patterson]: Correct. If it begins with an 890, that is the school building student activity account. So that is a, it's coming through on the warrant as the follow-up for the actual checks that are written.
[Paul Ruseau]: And then, I had a question about, this is not just about this spending on vocational supplies for automotive on page 19. I actually have a question about the supplies that we purchased, but when somebody brings a car in to get worked on, they have to pay for the work. Correct. When, you know, if I bring my car in to get worked on and I write the check, Where does the money go since it doesn't show up here?
[Kirsteen Patterson]: That's correct. So this is an expenditure report. So this is a revolving fund for the automotive and or other vocational programs. So this goes back into the revolving fund. So they issue an invoice based on the materials ordered for that particular job. The material is purchased, paid for, and then the customer pays the bill in essence, and it's shown as a revenue, a receipt, within this revolving program. So it's its own true fund.
[Paul Ruseau]: Oh, is this the duplication where the trustees? OK. I won't ask about that then. Is the duplication? That was, oh, this one here. On page 38, New England School Services for $42,000. It's sort of about 2 3rds of the way down. Just because it's such a big number, I was like, well, what is that for?
[Kirsteen Patterson]: That is the cleaning contract within building and grounds.
[Paul Ruseau]: That's everything. Thank you.
[Michael Ruggiero]: Yes, thank you. On page 17 to 43 of the updated document, there's just a question about classification. I notice there's a national grid, but it's listed as unclassified. I was just curious about that.
[Kirsteen Patterson]: National grid is unclassified?
[Michael Ruggiero]: It's check number 0237291. I don't know if that helps. Yes. OK. Just curious why that wouldn't show up as utilities.
[Kirsteen Patterson]: Can you give me the dollar amount that you're referring to?
[Michael Ruggiero]: Yeah, sure. It's $2,141. It's about right dead center of the page, 17 of 43.
[Kirsteen Patterson]: Are you looking at the new? Yeah, I'm looking at the updated document.
[Michael Ruggiero]: I'm sorry.
[Kirsteen Patterson]: Okay.
[Michael Ruggiero]: Yeah, it's, I'm sorry.
[Kirsteen Patterson]: Okay, so that is actually a void check, and that was, yes, within a revolving account area.
[Michael Ruggiero]: I see. And another question. It's looking at electricity. And then there was one that came up. I think it's on page 7. It's on the updated document, 7 of 43. Yes. Standard Electric. And then it says Educational Supplies. Standard Electric, a vendor? Correct. Oh, they're a supplied vendor. Yes. OK, so when I was looking at electricity, I was curious about that.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: OK, thank you. OK.
[Kathy Kreatz]: This summer, I went in and I signed the bills at City Hall, the same schedule as usual on Wednesdays, and I communicated to all the colleagues with an email message. provided some highlights, you know, from the weekly reports that I got. And everything went smooth. And I want to thank my colleague, Paulette Van de Koot. She covered for me while I was on vacation for two weeks. And everything went smooth those two weeks as well. And it was great. It was a very, you know, everything went very smooth. And I just want to thank everybody, you know, who helped and participated. It was a great, thank you.
[Mea Quinn Mustone]: Can I make a motion for the suspension of the rules today? It's out of order for item 11, negotiations, item 1, the report of opening of schools, and item 6, the report on buildings and grounds.
[Unidentified]: To take paper, item 11, negotiations. The first item she had, item 1, before voting, is to vote on the crowns. The first item, item 11, is negotiations on online matters. We'd like to accommodate our attorney here, who has not stayed in the meeting. So I guess that's what we're going to do. We're going to have two executive sessions to ratify our local worldly agreement with the teachers association.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Is there a motion on the floor for executive session? Yes. Seconded by Ms.
[Unidentified]: We'll call the please. Ms. DeMeditero. Ms.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Heston.
[Unidentified]: Giugiaro. Yes. Ms. Giugiaro. Yes. Ms. Heston. Yes.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: and there was a motion on the floor in executive session to ratify, accept the ratification of the Medford Teachers Association contract. The teachers did vote on this last week, I believe, and Madam Superintendent, would you like to say a few words on this topic?
[Marice Edouard-Vincent]: Yes, I'm very pleased to announce that the school committee unanimously agreed to accept the memorandum of agreement that was ratified by the Teachers Union and The motion was passed by Erin DeBenedetto, and Ms. VanderKloot seconded.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Seconded the motion, and it was a seven to zero vote. Now we're out on the floor. Is there a motion on the floor, Ms. DeBenedetto, to approve the teacher's contract? Motion to approve. Motion on the floor to approve by Ms. DeBenedetto, is there? Motion to second. Second by Ms. VanderKloot, and a roll call vote is necessary to ratify this contract. Ms.
[Unidentified]: DeBenedetto? Yes.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: It's just a wonderful thing for us to be starting out this school year with the teacher's contract in place. And so that for all the people who worked on it and made sure that it happened so that we could cast our votes tonight, we're very, very happy and thankful.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Very good. Thank you. Also, while we're under suspension, the first item is the report on opening of schools, school year 18-19. Madam Superintendent, first off, we want to welcome this woman to the City of Medford. We're so lucky to have Dr. Vincent in the room, and she's been working very hard over the summer to try and get as much done as possible, and we know that there was a lot of work to get done. And we applaud you for all your hard work, and we're eager to start, obviously start of the new year, but we're eager to delve into it. So, Madam Superintendent.
[Marice Edouard-Vincent]: So I'm so excited to be here this evening. Thank you. I would like to say that I feel that opening of school has been absolutely tremendous. I want to recognize our new student member of the school committee again as well, Jas Versu, and I said we're beginning this journey together this year. I'm very excited to introduce him, and I also would like to recognize that we have several new principals and new administrators who have joined our team. We have I like to call him Captain Principal Michael Downs, who is our new administrator at the Andrews Middle School. I'd like to recognize Mr. Paul DeLeva, who is our new administrator, transitioned from the Andrews to Medford High School. Thank you so much for that, your support in working with us. I'd like to also recognize that we have some new assistant headmasters. We have Dr. Stacey Mulligan, who is at Medford High School, here with us today. I'd also like to recognize Stephen Burnett, who's with us also here, well, from the high school. I'd like to recognize Katie Champoli, who's new with us this year on the special education team, the coordinator of special ed. And for our supervisor of mathematics, we have Miss Faiza Khan, is working with us, so I wanted to just recognize all of the new members of the team who are working with us to really ensure that this is a very strong year. And in addition to just these opening comments about feeling that I've had a tremendous start, I'd like to just take a few moments to show you a visual image of that.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Excellent, thank you.
[SPEAKER_10]: And I'm so happy to have her here today at Harvard School. And I'm so happy to have her here today at Harvard School. And I'm so happy to have her here today at Harvard School. And I'm so happy to have her here today at Harvard School. And I'm
[Unidentified]: Going out to make visual. And we're going out to the hot end to see the fresh water condition.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Well, clearly, as you can see, she rolled out the red carpet for our teachers and administrators, and it was just an awesome feeling to be part of that. And it was just a wonderful start to show appreciation for the fundamental people that really make our school system as great as it is. So, thank you, Dr. Maurice, for that wonderful start of the school year.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Mr. Benedetto, I heard that Dr. Maurice might have ridden the school bus. She did. I heard that too.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: She did.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Word got around town very quickly that you were on the school bus.
[Marice Edouard-Vincent]: Yes, I did. I rode the school bus day one and I got on bus 10 and it took me to the Columbus School. And so I surprised all the children, the bus driver, and the parents that were waiting at the bus stop. So I just wanted to say happy first day. I think I was more excited than they were. But it was definitely an enjoyable experience. And they were very well behaved for me, by the way.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Oh, I'm sure they were. I just wanted to know if you started a sing-along while you were on the bus.
[Marice Edouard-Vincent]: No, no sing-alongs. We just had conversations. everyone was excited about it being the first day of school.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: It impressed our community to a point where I was getting phone calls that you were on the bus and that's a great way to start the school year. I have high hopes for all our remaining days to go as well. Thank you for that.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes, I also got calls letting me know that you were on the bus. And people just really felt the same way that I did, that Mr. Benedetto and my colleagues did. What a great way to start. Thank you.
[Marice Edouard-Vincent]: Thank you. I just want to recognize all the principals and administrators that are here as well this evening. I see Kathy Medaglio, and Bernadette Riccadeli, and Nick Tucci just came. And this is his first official full year as well. being the administrator, and Mr. Kirk Johnson, I see you in the back, and I just want to thank you for your support. I really feel fortunate to be leading Medford Public Schools with such a great team.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Very good, thank you so much. Is there a motion to accept this report and place it on file? By Mr. Benedetto, is there a second? Mr. Russo? All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes. And our next item under suspension, report on building and grounds. Who will be presenting? Good evening, Mr. McLaughlin.
[Mr. McLaughlin]: Good evening, everybody. It's good to see everybody. So, this summer we were very active. We had some great support from the mayor's office and the administration. We were certainly able to get a lot of our projects So at the Andrews Middle School, we were able to get over there and pressure wash. the signage, and we did that in all the schools, too. I know it was something that was near and dear to some people's hearts about, you know, and they needed to be cleaned up, and they look really good. And we did the rugs over at the Andrews School, as well as we did the rugs in all the school libraries. We had the contractor come in and take care of the rugs. Over at the Brooks, we did some extensive landscaping performed by groundmasters, pressure washed. We did some wall replacement in a couple of the bathrooms where the walls needed to be. They got a little wet, so we had to replace them. And we did some floor tile work that was needed to be done over there, too. And we purchased a slide that was broken, and we had that replaced. The parks department helped us out with that. And obviously the mayor's capital improvement that's going on right now down there at the new field. If you get a minute to drive by there, you should check that out. It's fantastic. It's going to be just an excellent place for the kids to play, well-deserved. That field had been a dirt pile for quite a while, and it's refreshing to see that the kids will have a nice surface to play on. So, and then we moved over to the Columbus where we did some more extensive landscaping and added some mulch into the back. We had to raise the wall a little bit to hold the mulch so that we could get it underneath the trees and it wouldn't just go off. And we did some painting. We painted the globe, we painted the four squares, the hopscotches, came out really nice. We did some floor tile work down there as well. And, We have a new slide, actually the Parks Department picked it up today. It hasn't been installed yet. They're in the process of installing it. Hopefully it'll be squared away by at least Monday, the brand new slide. They had a broken slide over there. So that worked out well. Then we had the Department of Corrections, we had them over at the Curtis Tufts doing some painting, moving on to the Curtis Tufts. We rented the equipment to strip and varnish another floor over there. So that came out very good. And we had to tear down the walls because they were making a new cafeteria. So we did some paint and work down there. We did some repairs over there as well. And then we move on to the McGlynn. We had the roofing company in. The report states that they haven't been in here, but they did make it down. And we had them go over the whole roof, repair any holes, repair anything that they saw. That was a well-needed fix over there, too. So hopefully that's gonna stop, if there's anything, stop some of the water, if there's any water, making it through in some of the classrooms. I know some teachers had some concerns at the end of last year. So that was very good. And then, like I said, we did the signage. And then over at Mefford High School, we did an air conditioner project in the main office. Unfortunately, The compressor that they put in was defective, so they're bringing a new one in. It should be in shortly, so they haven't had air conditioning in the main office during the heat, but they're going to replace that at no cost. That's a warranty item. We did an air conditioning project in A204 for the kids' corner. kids we added two air conditioners upstairs for their, I think they're their older kids that move upstairs. So that, that one we got, we just got that done basically under the gun on that one and that worked out well. So we're going to be working on most likely over in the vocational school, the MEEP program where there's young kids. We're going to be working on trying to put a couple of air conditioners in there shortly too. I met with Chad Fallon today about it and then The water bottle fill stations that the PTA purchased down there last year, we were able to get those all installed. I think there's six of them. So now we have water bottle fill stations in strategic locations at the vocational school and Medford High School as well. So that was really good. And when they pulled off the old fountains, they were able to fix some cross connection pipe issues that we had there. And when you have a cross connection, sometimes that means hot and cold and mixing, and it's problematic. And that was something that's been going on at the high school for quite a while. So they were able to fix that with the bottle project installation, which was really good. That was a really, really good fix. And the forestry department came over. We had some trees that we were worried about, you know, in some certain areas that needed to be taken down. I think there was probably four or five that they took down for us. There was one near door 17 that was very concerning. And so that was a good one. And there was a couple of other ones that they came over for us, which was really good. We were really happy about that. And then we did replace two hot water storage tanks. that feed the hot water to the front of the building, it was creating rusty water. So we had those replaced this summer as well at the high school. So that was really another real good project that we had done. And then we have the Roberts, where we did the rugs. And we did some painting in the school yard of this four square and the globe. And so that really looks good. And I know everybody knows that we're in the process with the play area. Oh, I got company. But so everybody knows we're in the process with the play area, but just to end it, I just wanted to make sure that we thank Brian Cairns from the DPW, Mike Nesta, Steve Tanaglia, the Forestry Department that were really good to us this summer, and they were We have an excellent relationship with the schools in the Department of Public Works, and we're really able to accomplish a lot. They've been extremely helpful at the Brooks School. We were able to use some old granite that they had in storage in order to make a retaining wall over there. We used some of our own storage granite. And then I also, we want to welcome back Mary Jo. She's back. And thank Joanne Mortel for helping out. Oh yeah, and Alicia Hunt, obviously. Alicia, she did the project and she's incredible too. She did an unbelievable lighting project at the Andrews School, as well as we finally got back to the cafeterias and replaced all the cafeterias, Brooks, Roberts, Columbus, with LED lighting, which is very, very good.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Very good, thank you. Mr. Benedetto.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: First of all, John, thank you for all the work and your whole department for keeping the schools as nice as they are. I know it's a big job with the short budget and you do great work.
[Mr. McLaughlin]: Well, it's great when we get support and we're all working together and we're saying, hey, let's go do this. I mean, I know we can't do everything, but when we're together, we can get a lot done, which is nice.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: So with regards to that, I'm still hoping that all schools can get their windows washed at some point. That's a goal. And maybe we can maybe get some bids this year so we can arrange for that to happen in the spring, because I think it will make a big difference in every building. I know it's probably going to be a big cost, or we're going to have to do it in-house with the right equipment. I know it's not an easy job.
[Mr. McLaughlin]: Well, maybe we can get together and do a school by school, year by year, and just chip away at it. Incidentally, too, I did have a contractor in today to give us a price for air conditioning in the theater, so we'll be getting that shortly, too. That was a request that we got earlier this summer as well.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: We have an estimate for the Columbus as well.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Yeah, yeah. My next question was about the high school pool. I know there were some issues with that, and maybe you could update us as to where we are with that right now. Is that open?
[Mr. McLaughlin]: Yeah, the pool's back open. Rachel Perry did an excellent job. They saw that there was a little bit of an issue when they were doing their regular maintenance, and John Bovuso from the building department came right up. He gave us a contractor that was able to come in there and fix it, and we were back in action in less than a week, I think. That's great. They filled it up, and I went up there to I went up there the other day looking, thinking I was gonna be inspecting it, and they were swimming.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: So I was like, oh, this is great. So could, not directed to you, but could we get an update on the costs involved, and what was done, and how long it does, and any maintenance issues that we're gonna make sure that we're okay for that for future. I know the pool was just done six years ago. I just wanna make sure we maintain that, because we did put a couple million dollars into that project, and we wanna make sure we're maintaining the things that we're investing in.
[Mr. McLaughlin]: And we're very thorough with them. Every year they do the maintenance. And I know we have.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: For six years to have no issues is a really good thing. And it gets used.
[Mr. McLaughlin]: And because they were doing the maintenance, they were able to head off what may have, you know, could have been a good-sized problem. So they were just, by doing the maintenance alone, which was.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Thank you for addressing some of our early childhood students' air conditioning needs, because that was requested like two or three years ago, you and I had, well, you had done some good work over there, and I'm glad to see that continue. As well as the Curtis Tufts School. I can't wait till every floor is that beautiful golden oak and not that darker color. I know you haven't forgotten about that building, and I appreciate that.
[Mr. McLaughlin]: I have a couple of other items that I do have to take care of for Brian before the winter sets in. Things were going so fast.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: I just wanted to acknowledge those things and just make sure that the beautification that happened outside the schools with the mulch and the flowers, that really makes people happy walking into the building, not just the people who work there. The people who work there, the children that attend there, their families, and it's the first and last thing people see when they're walking through our doors. So I'd like to continue with that being a priority with our staff. I do have another question about how the money for the turf field came about, because it just wasn't clear to me as a member how that happened. So I don't know if that's a question for the mayor or the superintendent.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Yes, that came through the linkage account.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: I'm not familiar with the linkage account and what that does.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: It's a city account that's put in from development. And can people hear me? So it gets deposited into four different linkage accounts, four different linkage accounts. So we have a water and sewer, roads, we have public safety, and we have a parks linkage account. And that particular school is not adjacent to or within walking distance of a park. And it was a dirt pit, basically. So kids every day were going home. So we thought it was urgent. We saw the reports last spring, and we addressed it. So it was under $50,000 from the city to get that done. And I know Christine has a report as well that she wants to continue along in regards to buildings and grounds. Thank you. Certainly. Ms. Van der Kloot.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: John, I just wanted to ask, obviously, we've had a very hot start to the school year. How was bringing all of our air conditioning on and did it work?
[Mr. McLaughlin]: Well, it's certainly no secret that we do have some compressor issues in some of our buildings and it's certainly something that we have to look into at some point. I know that a few years ago when we were gathering our information for the capital plan, It was certainly something that we have on our list, high priority. It's over $15,000 a compressor. So if you have, you know, a unit on the roof that has four and two of them are running, it's, you know, it's going to take the curse off, but it's not really going to be what you want it to be. The good part about it is not all of them are broken. So we were able to move, move kids around where they could get relief. And obviously the superintendent allocated us to go out and purchase water. So we purchased one day, I think we purchased 80 cases of water. And then the next day we ordered another 80 cases of water to make sure that there was plenty of water there for the kids getting on the bus, riding home. It's an unfortunate circumstance of it being so hot this late in the year, I guess.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: All right, so can you, if I could ask for a follow-up report of each of the schools and where we are in terms of the compressors, how many we need, so that we're aware of it, because obviously with the start of school like this, we need it to come online and work.
[Mr. McLaughlin]: Absolutely, we can update the report, sure. No problem.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Very good. Ms. Patterson. Oh, Ms. Kreatz, I'm sorry.
[Kathy Kreatz]: Good question, I just wanted to say I ended up taking a ride over to each school this summer. And, you know, I just want to say they all look great. Like the paint, the playground paint, the mulch, everything was trimmed. It's all cleaned up. It just looks so nice. It looked really pretty, you know, and I just want to thank everybody who helped because it was every school and I, you know, I was, you know, communicating with John a lot over the summer and, you know, he worked really hard. Everybody worked really hard and it was a hot summer. and everything looks great, and that's it.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Thanks. Thank you.
[Kirsteen Patterson]: Ms. Patterson. Thank you. So within your packet, there's a supplemental document provided, and this is a timeline for the Roberts Elementary Playground renovation project. And I'd first like to applaud Cheryl Rodriguez and the parents and community of the Roberts for all of their support in this project. And it has been a time-consuming process, however, I am very excited and hopeful for the end result, which will be occurring. So as we go through the milestones and look at the actual dates of what has transpired for this process, the very start back in January of 2018, Mrs. Rodriguez engaged community support through the grant process, through the CPA application. She obtained signatures, got soft quotes, and started the application process. March 1st, Mrs. Rodriguez worked with the school department for the submission of the CPA application, which was co-signed by Mayor Burke. And that was the consolidation as the partnership between the Roberts PTO and the school department to engage in this CPA first round of funding for Medford. May 29th, The CPA awarded $109,540 for the Roberts PTO application on the playground in conjunction with the school department. So this was identified that it must follow the bidding rules and procurement statutes within this application. June 29th, there were efforts to utilize the NJPA process to expedite some procurement. However, attempts to use this particular venue did not meet the quote guidelines. It exceeded the $50,000 requirement and required a formal IFB bidding process. July 12th was the posting and the release of the first IFB, and it was required by Mass General Law for the minimum of two weeks with the required four different areas for posting. This is a public process, so it's posted in local newspapers, the local offices, websites, Combis, and the Goods and Services Bulletin. And this was a public process that many folks had access to the document. We reached out to vendors, encouraging those to participate and bid on the project. We did have a pre-bid walkthrough for the first round, which was on July 31st. This walkthrough was at the Roberts location and was intended for the vendors to ask questions, measure the spaces, and have any follow-up items identified. On August 6th, the bid was opened. We had only one vendor that provided an actual bid, which was $330,000, which exceeded the grant award by over $200,000. Needless to say, we were very disappointed in that process. We could not We go forward with that sizable increase and we reissued a second bid, a revised bid that we removed a portion of the initial scope of work that was outside that we could potentially do ourselves with the city side landscaper to hopefully reduce the cost. So again, we had to go through the posting process. the minimum of two weeks, and we had a pre-bid walkthrough on August 21st. We did have responding vendors that had questions that were then responded to, and addendum number one was issued to resolve any of those questions regarding the scope of the project. On August 29th, we did have the bid opening. We had three bidders that provided documentation. One vendor was rejected for compliance, The low bid was $223,110, and the next bidder was $224,000. So this round, we did have additional bidders, which was more successful. And given that the next two lowest bidders were right in the same range, this was identified as more reasonable in terms of the cost. However, there is still a significant gap in terms of the original award for the grant. So on September 4th, we engaged with our city side to identify potentials and possibilities for additional funding, an off-cycle process with the CPA, which we have felt that this will be the most efficient and time-sensitive process in order to get that level of funding in place and get the scope of this project completed. The 18th is the amendment deadline to provide the additional application amendment for the additional funding that would complete this project at the $223,110 level. There will be a CPC board meeting scheduled for September 25th, which will be the presentation for the board for recommending funding for this additional component in order to complete this project. October 9th is when the CPC will be reviewing and obtaining votes to approve project funding and bring these particular programs to City Council and the Mayor for review. And our hope is to get support from City Council in order to expedite this particular request. October 23rd, the CPC is going to vote for the approval, review the language for the round two funding, and that will be formally submitted to the mayor for consideration. We do have firm contract pricing in line with the lowest second bidder, which will hold firm through October 31st. At such point, we are hopeful that we will have indications for the final funding portion, and we can execute the contract with space, landscape, and construction. Now again, I think it's noteworthy to indicate that the scope of this project is such that this new playground facility will have a structure in place that is much more superior and easier to maintain going forward. These are interlocking, safety rated, fall rated interlocking tiles that in the event that they need to be replaced will be much easier to do so, much more cost efficient in the long run and will last longer where we have the current issue of any type of port situation. It's going to deteriorate quicker and you have gaps and areas that are not easily repaired. So the scope of this project will be removal of the old existing playground area graded down to the particular specifications that will be needed to backfill the sublayer material for the new structure that will be put in place, interlocked and secured through glue and worked around the existing playground area. Again, within the scope of the original application, It's noteworthy that some of the measures for success within this project are not just the actual playground environment itself, but it's also inclusive of the rainbow painting on the ground, plantings, and the potential for a rock garden that the students are going to participate in. So it is exceptional that some of this has already taken place, that we are making every effort to get this project done, done right, so that it is lasting for the future and sustainable and maintainable. And that some of these areas for success measures have already taken place with the efforts of Building and Grounds over the summer. And we are working very diligently, very hard with the city hall members and CPC members in order to get this project expedited and funded with the hope that we can get this done before the inclement weather arrives for this fall.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: And if I could add just one thing from the floor, the timeline that was provided was from Danielle, who is the administrative assistant to the CPC. However, once, I believe in the last round, when all of the projects were presented to the city council, they had a committee of the whole, so they looked at all of them. That was the CPC's plan again. This could be expedited by a couple of weeks if the council took this one separately and maybe deliberated on the other items that are being submitted in a committee of the whole where this project is, they are familiar with this project. I think we all realize that the bid came in over three times higher originally and now over two times higher. So we are working diligently to try to get this project done in the fashion that it was intended. and not a quick fix with rubber mulch, or going back to the old-fashioned full pour, which we know is really hard to fix when you have issues with it. So this product is a beautiful product, so I applaud Ms. Rodriguez for bringing this product to our attention, because just look at it. I mean, it is a beautiful product, and hopefully this will be the first school that has this product used. And more of them will be transferred into this in the near future. But this certainly will be a milestone, I think, for the new schools. So thank you very much, Christine, for laying out that timeline. And thank you, Laughlin, as well, for all of your hard work over the summer. We appreciate it. Thank you. Ms. Vandekloot.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: You gave us two samples. One was black topped and the other one was a sandy color. Which one will be used?
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Oh, the box. We have other options.
[Kirsteen Patterson]: We do have color samples. I believe that we were looking for a green, a more neutral color that would be blending in.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I was just concerned about the black top.
[Kirsteen Patterson]: No, this is just more material sample as opposed to color sample. There are many color samples available.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Ms. DiBenedetto.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Thank you. I'd actually like to give the floor to Cheryl before I speak. I attended a lot of the CPA, CPC meetings with her to support her through this whole thing, but since she's the originator, I yield to her and to what she wants to present and why the amount was $109,000 to begin with and how we've you know, just open the conversation up.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Certainly, if you two could just stay to the left.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Before I do that, I'd just like to acknowledge that we have a city councillor in the room, Brianna Mwango-Cohen, and she's also here, and she's also been a strong supporter of this program and many other school programs, so I just wanna acknowledge that she is in the audience, and maybe she can, at some point, if we do need to expedite things, help us in that manner if she sees fit.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Name and address, please, for our record.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: Cheryl Rodriguez, 281 Park Street. I actually have a handout to go with the materials that I'll be discussing. So I am a parent volunteer at the Roberts Elementary School. I'm not employed by the city of Medford. I submitted this grant application on behalf of the Roberts PTO. for benefit of the nearly 600 children that attend the Roberts Elementary School. We're home to the Autism Inclusion Program as well as the ELL Welcome Center. We are the largest elementary school in the city of Medford. So, Kirsten did begin a little bit on our timeline and I definitely went through a lot of processes to get to this estimate and attended a lot of meetings and spoke to several playground vendors. When I heard on the last two days that the bids had come in—this is very loud—double, triple, quadruple, I was very concerned about the predatory nature of this bidding process. And I called the Attorney General for assistance to find out why this was happening, what our alternatives were. Because my conversations with the several vendors that specialize in this playground equipment led me to wonder why we weren't using the Massachusetts Operational Service Division statewide contracts. I was continuously told by the city that the reason we were not using them was because we couldn't spend more than $50,000 to do so. But I was continuously told by the people who do this work that that was not the case. So today I deep dove into it and spoke to someone at the Attorney's General's Office whose information I'm willing to provide to the city so that you can verify. And they told me that in 2016, the Chapter 30B procurement laws were altered. And the alteration meant that it's not a $50,000 cap on materials. The material purchase is unlimited. Let me say that again. The material purchase is unlimited for this. The labor costs prior to 2016 were capped at $10,000. The labor costs for this project now are capped at $50,000. So I found that very interesting. I reached out to a vendor that the Medford Public Schools has used before, the same vendor that I used to create my application. If you turn to the last page of my handout, I have the itemized budget that was presented to the CPC. If you'll note the bottom line before the total, it says installation and rubber interlocking tiles, $87,540. This estimate was for the 5,876 square foot playground at the Roberts Elementary School with rubber interlocking tile with a six foot fall height. So I reached to that vendor and said, we have an urgent issue. Our city is being told that they have to spend triple or quadruple the price that you gave me in February. What happened? and he rushed me out an estimate. In his estimate, he included extra square footage. The square footage that he included was 6,096 square feet. He included the installation and the materials cost at $89,681. The copy machine broke. I don't have copies for everyone. I'm happy to email, and I do have one extra copy that can be passed around. As I told the CPC when I presented my original bid, the labor cost for this project will be no more than 25% of that total price. No more than 25% of that total price is approximately $22,000. $22,000 is $28,000 below the $50,000 labor threshold that would allow us to bypass the open bid process that has not attracted the proper people. So I have the information. We can use the FAC 104. This information is confirmed by the Attorney General's Office, the Operational Service Division, as well as DCAM, which stands for Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance. I spent more than an hour and a half on the phone today with Brian O'Donnell at the Attorney General's Office. This process ensures that the labor requirements are met, the fair wage is paid, everything that's required under Chapter 30B is protected here. I beg you, before you go and ask for more money from the CPC to verify this information, I'm told that we can accept this bid and move forward. We can get the full estimate and move forward. We don't have to ask for additional funds, we don't have to wait an additional month, and if there are more CPC funds for an additional hundred or so thousand dollars, I encourage you to do another playground. I encourage you to do something else for the school department. I discourage you from paying more than double the cost of this project to expedite it. Those children deserve this project and I want them to have this project, but I do not want it to come at the cost of one single child in this city. I tried to meet with people in this city to discuss this before this meeting because I do not enjoy coming down to City Hall and And having to say this, I would have preferred to have come here tonight and said, thank you for getting this project underway. Thank you for having this happen as quickly as possible. I just, someone please schedule a meeting with me and I will share more of this information. But please don't spend more money than we need to on this project.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Thank you. Ms. Patterson?
[Kirsteen Patterson]: So again, working with City Hall, the City Procurement, and the OIG's office, we have gone through separate procurement options as well. This was an open bid process. I guess I would be remiss in wondering why this particular bidder did not engage in that process, given there were two different rounds. If the scope of their project is so low in cost, they would have certainly been the low bidder in this particular open public of the bidding process. My concern is that prevailing wage rates are not incorporated in this particular case. Those are separately requested and provided within that scope and area, as well as the actual material subsidy and making sure that it's of the rating that is identified for fall ratings at different heights within the playground structures. So we're certainly Working with city procurement, happy to reach out again. I am just concerned for continuing to exhaust different outlets and further delaying the process given that we have gone through the procurement as required by Mass General Law. So we have gone through every exercise required of Mass General Law in accordance with that. Certainly, we can reach out to DCAM, but this is really a different scope. So with the quotes coming in under $100,000, that would have been a different scenario. So I would be concerned in terms of how it was quoted, how the information was brought forward by one particular vendor, rather than being part of the open bid process and submitting their formal bid in that same capacity if all of the components were of the same nature, prevailing wage, and so on and so forth. So I would just indicate that, yes, we're certainly open to reviewing this with city procurement and going forward in that regard.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: I did want to just mention one thing. Chief Procurement Officer Shabkan, she actually consulted with, I think, five of the vendors that are on the state list, and she's waiting to get some quotes back to see what the actual product cost is. Of course, that doesn't include everything that goes under that because it's far more than just those blocks. There's a lot of work that goes under it from a drainage perspective, other materials such as crushed peat and whatnot. A lot of different things go under that. So we're getting a cost on just the blocks, and then we have to determine all the rest of the pieces that go into it. And certainly if it was something our guys could do, we could buy the blocks and put them in, but we'd have no warranty on the work product. We need a professional to really do it and do it right. But we have started that process to try and actually get dollar amounts for what the product is.
[Kirsteen Patterson]: Mayor Burke, if I may follow up, the additional piece was a concern for the perception of bid splitting because there are so many components to this project and not being fair in the terms of procurement and issuing a fair open bid in context. Most of these large scope projects have all of the components together where one vendor is providing all of the service, which includes providing the material, installing it as well. So there's the perception or could have been a bid protest if we determined to do separate bids for certain things and we did not do the actual installation. Correct. We have no warranty in that context.
[Michael Ruggiero]: Yeah, this is a question for Cheryl. I'm just curious, so this bid was submitted to you on the 6th, is that correct? I received it today. I'm just curious, like, why didn't they... Well, I do have an answer for that question of why they did not submit the bid.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: When we initially discussed the bids and when I discussed with this vendor and before we applied with the CPC, he said that typically they prefer a landscaper or another company to do the removal because it's they don't want to send certified professional playground installation people to come out with a shovel and remove and they'll charge us much more for that. They said that they that depending on the specialist you get, they can charge you $30,000, $50,000 for the removal because they really don't want to do it. And one of the things that the CPC requested that I do was bring the bid down. So when I submitted the original price, it had with the specialist removing the product, the original product, and it was higher. So by going with a landscaper, it will be less expensive. And he said when he saw the first bid that the bid was unattractive to his company because it included the removal. He did not see the second one.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: If I could just interject, Christine, the second round of the bids, you did take out some of the work. What work did you remove from the second bid?
[Kirsteen Patterson]: removing the existing material and grading it down in order for preparation of the installer and special subgrading of the material.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: So we did take that piece out in an attempt to get to a better price that was more affordable.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: And again, he said he didn't see that bid. I did also speak to Fiona in the procurement office before the bid opened, the second bid. And I also spoke to Kirsten at the school because I went to the first contractor walkthrough. where zero contractors came to measure, and I said, what do we do now? It appears that we're not attracting any bids. And she said, we have bids. And I said, oh, we have bids? Great. And then the next week they opened one bid, and it was in excess of $300,000. I said, if now, what do we do? Well, this time we reach out to vendors and try to encourage them to apply. But we have to reach out to playground vendors. Because this is what happens if you reach out to a general contractor. The general contractor says, I'm not certified to do this. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to contract a playground specialist to do this. And I'm going to contract him to do the entire thing. And he's going to charge me $150,000. But I want to make money, too. So he's going to charge more. And I don't think that chasing this down, this, my suggestion, and chase, which is not my suggestion, it's the suggestion of the Attorney General's office, and saving the city $100,000 while you can concurrently wait to go to the CPC and tell them you need more money, and if you find out that this is indeed factual, because, I'm sorry, but I don't make things up. I don't need to come here and embarrass myself.
[Michael Ruggiero]: Did you talk to the lawyer on duty today, or did you talk to the
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: No, I talked to someone in the Attorney General's office that works with the fare wager and the construction. So he said that this Massachusetts contracts follow the prevailing wage laws.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: You're allowed to purchase the product off the state bid list.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: You're also allowed to do the bid at labor for less than a month.
[Michael Ruggiero]: This vendor is certified to make a bid on the project.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: They didn't make a bid on either round.
[Michael Ruggiero]: But they didn't make a bid on either round.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: But we do have two playground companies that did bid on the second round.
[Michael Ruggiero]: I see. Is it possible we could reopen the bidding process?
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: We don't need to do that. You re-advertise. You go through that whole process again to re-advertise. We have to re-advertise it. Which, I mean, it's a process. But if we could save $100,000, of course we would do it. Right.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: Or we could just go through the MAS contracts, the contract user guide for the FAC 104, which I'm more than willing to share with you. learn how to do it.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: We've done it before. They do know how to do it.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: So you can do the mass contracts. You do not have to open the bid. The labor cost is less than $50,000. You do not have to open a bid. You can go through the mass contracts.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Mr. Benedetto, point of information.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Thank you. At the beginning, the CPA was very careful about what they were awarding and exactly how much money. And the quotes, the amount of money presented to the CPA was based on a quote that Cheryl had from the same company to do it, because they wanted us to keep the price down. They didn't want to spend $200,000 for this project or allocate that money.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Point of information.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: So my point is that I don't know going back to them, asking them for more money on this project is going to work from what I've seen and what I, I stood there with Cheryl and answered their questions and they were very cautious about how much money they were giving us towards this ground coverage. And this was told to us that it was a one time thing. They weren't going to do all the schools. And they wanted the square products. They were specific about what products we had to use. They were specific about how much they were going to allocate to us. So even my concern is going through this whole process through October might not get us the extra money from them. And then where are we? Initially, I believe, John gave some of the names of contractors to get quotes to Cheryl, and that's the companies that she's presenting those figures to you now. So it wasn't like she went out and got them aimlessly. The school— No, no, I'm just filling in that blank. It's not like she went off to a company that we have no known knowledge.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Mr. Ruggiero.
[Michael Ruggiero]: I think everyone here is on the same side. Obviously, we all want to save $100,000 and have a beautiful playground. My question is this. So I guess I'm trying to understand why they didn't bid the second round.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: They said they did not see it come up the second time. I was out of town. I didn't have time to email everyone and tell them about the process. I did actually ask Fiona to send me the information, and I did not receive an email with the information. So this was not on their radar. But in the handout that I gave you, there's also information on the statewide contract. This contract that I'm handing you falls into the category of statewide contracts. Who may use statewide contracts? Cities, towns, district, counties, and other political subdivisions. I believe Medford is a city. Buyer information. Why would you use it? Because it saves time developing solicitations and issuing bids. evaluating responses and executing contracts. The OSD has negotiated the pricing or required competitive costs, selected the appropriate vendors, and outlined the services the vendors perform relative to the contract. They are subject to the Mass General Law, Chapter 30B. They're also subject to the wage requirements.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Well, that wouldn't include wages. the list would just be the product. And it's just that product, not all the underlayment that goes with it. So there's more than that.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: The included in there is $3,000 for a rubber membrane underneath. The application that we submitted to the CPC also has $10,000 if we have to repair and touch up the substone. It also includes $12,000 for removal and disposal of rubber surfacing. As I said, that estimate includes labor. The labor is approximately 25% of that overall cost. This is not the only vendor that I've spoken to, and we got an approximate pricing for this playground.
[Michael Ruggiero]: How many vendors gave you this ballpark figure?
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: I attended the PTO Expo. I spoke to two vendors there. I gave them the square footage because I had it for the application. It was all around the same. They said, of course, we'd have to come out and measure and exact.
[Michael Ruggiero]: Do you know, is there like a warranty process on this company versus the ones we have?
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: I would imagine it's similar, but I couldn't tell you the exact shipping and the specs.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: They're registered to FAC 104 company, so they're vetted by the state. They're required to complete the prevailing wage.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Are you all set, Mr. Azure?
[Michael Ruggiero]: Yeah, I mean, I guess my feeling is I like the idea that we could save $100,000. Obviously, my concern is I just want to know, is this being done properly? How much time would it take for us to reopen the bidding process? If we had to put, like, let's assume, assume that we do have to open the re-bidding process. I appreciate that.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: We've done two bidding processes since middle July, I believe. So it's taken almost two months.
[Michael Ruggiero]: So it's like a two-month, and we can't install in December.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: You have to advertise, post the bid, leave it open for a couple weeks, and then do the bid opening. So it's at least a month, I think, if you would speak to our chief procurement officer.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: To do another round. Ms. Van der Kloot's up next.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: But what I'm understanding is that Mrs. Rodriguez is saying we don't need to do that. We could use the statewide contracts. And I haven't quite figured out the discrepancy between what she's saying and why we would reopen the bid process.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: I think there's labor charges, which have to be prevailing wage. There's all the under pieces that go with the system that aren't on the state list. The list is for the product, nothing else.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. So would we do the product through the statewide contract? Is there any difference in what we've received? And then?
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Ms. Kahn is getting quotes for the product so that we can at least evaluate the piece that is, the largest component is those blocks.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: So we're going to have pricing for those blocks. Right. So, you know, this would be no markup. That would be the cost.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And then we would, then we would have to bid the labor?
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: We'd have to bid the labor and everything else that goes under it.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: No, no, no, no.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: You're assuming it's $25,000. The bids are coming in at $230,000. So if the product alone is like $80,000, there's other costs that are in that $230,000.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: That $89,000 includes the labor. They do not sell the tiles without the labor because you are required to have a licensed person install the tiles. That's the industry standard. If the labor costs are below $50,000, according to the Mass General Law, Chapter 30B, which was changed in 2016, if the labor cost is under $50,000, you do not have to bid the labor. The labor cost will be under $25,000. I don't know if that's the case. I encourage someone to please meet with me. I will provide the name, number, of the person at the Attorney General's office that I spoke to, who was chasing this down, who said that the Chapter 30B requirements require the prevailing wage, which is included in the MAS contract by law. By law.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So, Mayor Burke, is it possible, since we all want to resolve this in the best possible way, is there possible that we could ask someone from the procurement office to sit down with Christine, with Mrs. Rodriguez, maybe with yourself, and talk, maybe talk to the, I just don't want to do anything illegal if we're not, you know, because we've already had a bid, so we need to be careful about that. But could we, clearly we can't settle it tonight. Clearly we want this, we want that playground done. I'm extraordinarily disappointed that it wasn't accomplished this summer. So could I make a motion that, the procurement office, Mrs. Rodriguez, Christine Patterson, sit down with this, perhaps have a discussion with the contractor who Mrs. Rodriguez talked with to see if there is a way to move forward on this for a less expensive.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Motion on the floor. Name and address, please. I'm yielding to the speaker.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Christina Gasson. I'm at 101 Forest Street. I'm a Roberts BTO member. And I'm also an attorney for the state. I'm not a procurement attorney, so I will give that for full disclosure. My husband, however, does work for the Operational Services Division and Combis. So I just wanted to verify some of the information that Cheryl Rodriguez has given you today. We did look over Chapter 30B today. We spent a good portion of our day taking a look at it. It seems that there is kind of a discrepancy in what different legal minds are thinking about this, and perhaps it is because the procurement laws changed two years ago. So I would just recommend to the city, to the school committee, just to open the lines of communication between the councils that are advising the city council, the school committee, the city solicitors, and of course, the procurement attorneys here, just to make sure that everybody gets on the same page with this respect to what the procurement laws are in the city. And I've heard a lot about the city procurement officers, city procurement officers, and that's great. Obviously, you have to go through your own city procurement officers, but there are several state resources that are available to the city. Just at OSD, there is one member, and I can give you this contact information if you'd who deals specifically just with municipalities and is there to advise municipalities on compliance with Chapter 30B, and is there to help them with any kind of questions about whether they can go through the statewide contracts or whether they have to use Chapter 30B. And from that perspective, You know, obviously the state would prefer that they do the statewide contracts. It makes the state some money. It defers our taxes at the state level. And it just helps us get in touch with different contractors. Everybody's vetted for certain specialties. And as Cheryl mentioned, they are specifically one just for playground equipment, resurfacing. And so when you have that out there and when you use the statewide contracts, You know for sure that these people are certified, specialized to install the type of equipment and that are there and they have already been vetted. The prevailing wage, they need to meet the prevailing wage. The Attorney General's Fair Wage Division, they demand that. So this is something that, you know, is you can cut out a lot of the work that you have to do and just go through that. I also wanted to make a quick comment about the bidding process. Even if it was determined at one point that, you needed to open up and do the RFP process according to Chapter 30B? That's a question. Again, we do have an opinion from the Attorney's General Office that it only has to be $50,000 more of materials, not for labor. So I would definitely have your counsel take a look at that. But we have an electronic system called Combis, and it's there to handle the bidding process. And it's, you know, welcome to the 21st century. We don't have to have people come.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: I don't want to speak for our procurement officer, but she uses it all the time. I understand that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there's a difference between listing a project in Combis and making sure that all vendors that are in the system and that are certified to do this type of work are notified about what type of project it is. It's like a click of a button. and you have to press it in order to make sure that the people that are certified to do this type of work are given the notification. Because it can be in combines, but a contractor who does this specialty might be on vacation that week. They might not be able to come into Medford and turn in the envelope. They might be a small staff. They might be out in Worcester. They might be out in Springfield. I'm all for having the lowest bidder do this project, and I'm all for having it be fair to all bidders in the Commonwealth and beyond. But what we have to do is, you know, welcome to the 21st century. You can have Combis do the bidding system for you. You can, instead of having the procurement officers and witnesses opening a bid with an envelope, you can have them open the emails and the system and say, okay, here's the lowest bid. Congratulations, you win on a certain date. So I would just, in closing, recommend that, you know, all the counsel that are involved with this project, all the procurement officers that are involved with this project, Just open up the lines of communications with both the PTO, the Roberts staff, and everybody. We want to get this done as soon as possible. We don't want to have to cost the taxpayers. We don't want to have to go into the CPA for more money if we don't have to do it. But we're looking at children that have returned to school. And there's playground resurfacing that are the size of potholes that you could sit in. This is something that's serious. It's a safety issue. We want it expedited, but we want to make sure that it's fair to all the students in Medford. And we want to make sure that it's fair to the Medford taxpayers as well. So thank you.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Rodriguez, as well. Christine, any closing?
[Kirsteen Patterson]: Yes, just in closing, we were required to list in Combis, which we did, as well as goods and services. Contract was valued at more than $100,000 initially, so we did go through all of those particular outlets. Again, not opposed to revisiting this. Again, we are working with our city procurement officer as well.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Well, I've made a motion that we have people sit down and talk to each other, including Mrs. Rodriguez, so that people are at the same table because questions have been raised. It's very difficult for us right here to be able to figure it out. And so since there are discussions and everybody wants the same thing, we all want the same thing on this. So I would ask my colleagues to second and vote on my motion.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: There's a motion to convene a meeting. Mr. Ruggiero, a question before the roll.
[Michael Ruggiero]: I had a friendly amendment that we have someone, whether it's either Howard or Mark Romley, some legal representation, because it seems like there are legal questions in play here. Definitely.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Certainly. I said anybody who's germane to the process.
[Michael Ruggiero]: I just want to make sure that we have a legal representative at this meeting to make sure everything is clear.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Ms. Smith-Stone.
[Mea Quinn Mustone]: Yeah. unclear of the two different processes that are happening. Cheryl, do you mind coming up again? I'm sorry. I think there was just so much information that was just given. I feel like I just learned how to be a procurement officer. you had said you had a solution. So can you walk it through? The landscaping is one thing with removal and disposal and the purchase of the playground blocks, interlocking blocks is a different. Yes, that was always the plan. So what would you, I'm saying if you, if you say this is right, what would you have us like, how would it start?
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: If I was going to do it tomorrow, I would sit down with John McLaughlin and I would say, um, I remember that you said ground masters could do the removal. So we want to get them lined up to do the removal. We also want to reach back out to, to this company that you've worked with before. And we want to get the itemized bid. We want it to be all laid out with the cost of the tiles. the cost of the installation. We want to know exactly how many days it's going to take. We want to know how long it's going to take.
[Mea Quinn Mustone]: So the RFP, there still needs to be an RFP because it's over $50,000 in product. No.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: No. No. She's suggesting go through the state contract list, which is already a list established. And you don't need an RFP.
[Mea Quinn Mustone]: We don't need an RFP. And that person is a state contract? Yes. OK. And then what happens?
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: So then we would execute contracts. We would begin work. get invoiced for the work, and the money is ready to be paid out, we would pay it out, and the children would play on a new playground, and my daughter, who's a fifth grader, would actually get to touch the new playground that we've been trying to get since she started kindergarten.
[Mea Quinn Mustone]: So is the groundmaster still an option?
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: They were going to do the removal.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: That's who was going to do it anyway.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: They were going to do the removal of the current product.
[Mr. McLaughlin]: Yes, we were planning on using ground masses to come in, take out the surface that's existing there, and grade the surface underneath. Then we were thinking that the company that comes in to lay the tile was going to have to put whatever surface underlayment goes on the tile. And then they would do that.
[Mea Quinn Mustone]: So what the two estimates that came in at 223 and 224? That was not including what Groundmasters was already doing? No, that was the whole thing.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: No, it was excluding Groundmaster, the removal part.
[Mea Quinn Mustone]: Okay, so that was never part of it. So Groundmasters was always on board, that was always the plan?
[Mr. McLaughlin]: One of the first things we did when we did it the first round is when we found out how much it was gonna cost for the removal of the surface, we decided that we were gonna go out on our own and see how much it would cost us to do it on our own.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: So if the removal of the first RFP was $100,000, that got removed. And now we're at $225,000, but the actual product only costs $90,000. They were charging $130,000 for installation on these two most recent estimates.
[Mea Quinn Mustone]: Okay, so that seems absurd, right?
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: $130,000 to put down into locking blocks. That's absurd. For over $200,000, we could tear out the playground equipment, we could put new playground equipment in tile.
[Mea Quinn Mustone]: So if the $90,000 for this company, Rubble, what was it called? That does not include some underlying, but ground masters can't do that either?
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: No, that does include.
[Mea Quinn Mustone]: So I know ground masters is removal and disposal and we have the product, but then there's some intermediate sod you need or something.
[Unidentified]: Who does that?
[Mea Quinn Mustone]: So can either ground masters do that?
[Mr. McLaughlin]: This includes... Installing the tiles into that part? Yes. Because that's the hottest part. That's the leveling of the surface and everything. So what we wanted to do is just remove it, grade the underlayment that's existing right there, and then turn it over to the contractor.
[Diane Caldwell]: $3,000 for the rubber membrane.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: So this bid includes... Okay. This price includes $3,000 for the rubber membrane that would go underneath the tiles.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: That's just a sheet.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: Yeah, so that's included in the $89,000. So if Groundmasters charges $15,000 and we needed $10,000 to replace substone underneath before we put the membrane in the tiles, we would be within $5,000 of the grant amount.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Mr. Russo.
[Paul Ruseau]: I mean, the questions that member Ms. Stone is asking is exactly why we need everybody to respond to the same bid. You know, I'm trying to get somebody to paint my house, one guy comes out, he's gonna do one coat, the other guy's gonna do two coats, and shockingly, they aren't the same price. And, you know, what's the warranty? Are the warranties the same? Are they gonna have one guy who takes six months to install this, or is there gonna be a crew there for two days? Like, the requirements, I'm assuming in the RFP, were not like, do the playground. They were pretty detailed. And this is great, and if we can get this done for half the price or less, I absolutely can find a lot of ways to spend that money, like on air conditioning units. Or another playground. But three lines with a number next to them. is probably like 1,000 times less information than we need to compare.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: Of course. This is a 24-hour turnaround. Of course. No, no, I know that.
[Paul Ruseau]: He was just trying to get me something to bring in today. Yeah, but I mean, I just think that's why, you know, to be fair, I mean, it has to be an equivalently built-out bid. Even if we were to say, if they were to say, we can do it for half the price in this meeting that's going to happen, and everybody agrees that it's perfectly legal, I would hope before we were accepting it, we were gonna have them say, here is the exact details based on the same bid, even if we're not going through the bidding process with the state. I wanna know that they have really decided to do all this and not like at the end of the day discover, we threw down a plastic membrane instead of the proper stuff that's supposed to go under those, that equipment, so.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Thank you. Mr. Benedetto. Thank you. So initially when this was presented to the CPA and we were allocated these funds, this was what we had because that's what we needed to have and that was the scope of work we were looking to get done. So I don't know how it, if it changed and it got more elaborate, when it went to the bidding process, but this was our pilot program. This was to see if this stuff worked in our schools before we did the big McGlynn-Andrews because it's huge, in other schools in the district. This was piloting it. We were getting this money not from the school department, but from every taxpayer in this community. We want to make sure that this is the right product to move forward. We want to make sure that these children have a chance to run and play in a safe area. I believe the intent of this project is awesome and great and we should move forward with what we initially applied for and received. And if we can do it with the CPA funds and move quickly, I think we should. And I make a motion to move forward with this project as it was initially brought forward not only to this committee, to the school department, but to the CPA and just move forward for the best interest of the children.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: playing in those things, because I would hate for children to get... But we have to rely on our solicitor and chief procurement officer on what we need to do. So I appreciate all the information that's been given. We need to rely on their opinions, and that's what will answer this.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: So we can do it pending their approval?
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: This is already moving forward either way, so this isn't really a school committee matter at this point. It's whether or not it can be done that way, or if we have to go back to the CPC. is the other question. So that can all be resolved in the next couple of days. Ms. Vander Gloop.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes, I have a motion though saying let's get... For a meeting, an immediate meeting. Yes, for people around the table to get together because there still is a discrepancy and I still believe it's important for both, for every person. And I'm not casting aspersions any way of saying that someone did the wrong thing or whatever. RFP has to be very detailed. I understand that process. Obviously, Cheryl has invested a great deal of time into this, and we're very grateful to her. So, let's get people around the table. We can't solve it tonight. So, I ask to call my motion, please, and I believe you seconded it.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Would you like to speak on the matter?
[Kathy Kreatz]: Yes, no, I have a question about the motion. So Paula, is this going to be like a committee of the whole, because we would all want to attend?
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: No, I think we wanted a meeting of the solicitor, procurement officer, Ms. Rodriguez, the school department. So it's not like, it's not?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And Kirsten, who thinks to be there as well?
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: The professional school, sorry.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I don't have any problem with that. So, I mean, if we wanted to include a school committee member.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Will you yield to the city councillor to speak, please? Sure.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Briefly, thank you. I'm Breanna Lungo-Koehn. I'm also a parent of two children that go to the Roberts and obviously have a lot of people that are here and a lot of people that have called me in the last week. I think projects have been done in other schools, which is great. And then you have this project that was, we expected to be completed in August. And obviously a lot of parents were upset. And as Christina and Cheryl said, it is a safety issue at this point. We're worried about our kids when they play on that structure. And I thank you for the motions you'll be putting forward. I just also ask that hopefully a meeting be set up like your motion will be next week. But also in the meantime, research and talk to these vendors. As Cheryl said, there's three companies that wanted to do it or said it could be done for under $100,000 if we could at the same time research and talk to these companies, what would an attractive bid be so that we can try to get one of those quotes. This project could take, I think, the work one week. So ideally, it would be extremely beneficial for the kids if we could get this done before the winter months. So if we can pursue not only this meeting with Cheryl, which I'm glad she's going to be in the loop, because I feel like, in a way, she's been left out the last week. And I think that's one of the things I was a little upset about. She needs to be involved. Erin, thank you for all your work on this as well. But just if we could explore all options, Chapter 30B as well as reaching out, that's something that I think maybe should have been done if it wasn't done months ago, talking to contractors that do this work, not general contractors, but contractors that do this work, figuring out how they would want to bid written and what would be attractive to them so that we could have attracted somebody like the company that Cheryl has a quote from for 89,000. So I thank you for your time, and I thank you, and I know that if we work together, we set up a meeting next week, we can get this done before the winter, and I think that's what all the parents are here for, and that's something that we should strive for.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Is there a citizen that would like to speak on this?
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Mm-hmm, we'll do.
[SPEAKER_14]: Yep.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Yep, we'll do. Thank you. On the motion, roll call vote, please.
[SPEAKER_25]: Mrs. DiBenedetto.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_25]: Mrs. Kreatz. Yes. Mrs. Stone. Yes. Mr. Ruggiero. Yes. Mr. Russo. Yes. Mrs. Vander Kloof. Yes. Mayor Burke.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Yes. Seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Motion passes, and we will get the parties to be together early next week to discuss this, and also John to do some research, further research. Thank you. Name and address, please. Yes.
[Krause]: My name is Ken Krause. I live at 50 Mystic Street. Welcome again, Dr. Vincent. I'm just here as an interested citizen. I'm not involved with any of the schools, but obviously I feel the schools are very important to the community, both in terms of the curriculum and their physical appearance. So on the buildings and grounds report, I just had a question. I was happy to see that the turf field is moving forward at the Brooks School. Those of you who've been on the council or the committee for a while, we've been discussing the condition of the field for years, and I'm glad to see it being corrected. For informational purposes, when I inquired and saw the project going forward, excuse me, I was told that the PTO contributed some money to it as well. Is that correct? It wasn't just all the linkage? So I think it's important that the community knows that the PTO contributed to that. Thank you. Secondly, I wondered if there is a maintenance budget for the field going forward, because it's a turf field. like a vacuum or anything that needed to be obtained. Also if the maintenance and like the infill replenishing is part of the installation contract or the city has to do that and if that's in the budget so the field will be maintained properly.
[Mr. McLaughlin]: It's actually going to be put on the same maintenance program that the Field of Dreams uses right now. So when they do the Field of Dreams, they're going to leave there, go down to the Brooks, do the Brooks, the sweeping. Yeah, it's definitely, it's on the same plan.
[Krause]: But I would just add, I think it's appropriate that the linkage money was used because this field is used daily, and it'll be used 365 days a year, and it really was a safety hazard. It was rutted, it was alternatingly a mud bath or a dust bowl, and it is used by the community year-round.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: And it's beyond the school community. It's a neighborhood. I happen to have my first home next to the former Davenport School, and that schoolyard, which obviously our old schools didn't have cushion and rubber or anything like that. That was our playground. That's where my kids grew up playing. So we understand how important that is, as are these other schools being used as playgrounds in the after hours. So thank you for that comment.
[Krause]: And then a final question related to buildings and grounds. I didn't know if there was an update on the capital work being done by Lesley University. I saw a photo of the new parquet floor being put in the basketball. Is there an update on what's happening there?
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Yeah. Do you want to speak to that?
[Mr. McLaughlin]: I think Bobby Maloney would probably be better versed to answer the question, but I will say that the parquet floor, they were doing the final sanding today and they're going to be doing the varnish and
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: And a scoreboard, we're gonna have a scoreboard that will be used for both entities. There's also a great partnership that's been established. I know Dr. Maurice is really thrilled with some of the continuing ed programs as well as teacher development that's gonna be part of our Lesley partnership. So we're really excited about that. And to have learning labs for their students that also help our kids and our teachers out, win-win.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Could we ask that there be an update about the Leslie project and collaboration, either at our next school committee meeting or the one following that, depending on what's most appropriate?
[Krause]: So I don't have to come back up under community participation. Could you just tell us what the duration was of the contract that was approved?
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: It's a three-year contract that has two one-year extension clauses in it. So it's a three-year contract.
[Mr. McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: You're welcome. Name and address, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Hi, Melanie McLaughlin, 152 Alston Street in Medford. Welcome, Dr. Vincent. Thank you for being here. I wanted to say thank you all for your concern around air conditioning in the high school. We appreciate the response and the water and the advice to wear light clothing and drink water. But I do also want to share that I'm sure many of you know that, or I'm sure all of you know that I'm the co-chair of the Special Education Parent Advisory Council in Medford as well. And we have children with special needs who spend time at the high school, especially over the summer months in the summer fun camp and in the ESY camps and what have you. And my daughter was among them this summer. This is something that will include in our PowerPoint presentation soon for Special Education Parent Advisory Council. But our daughter had to come home several times, especially the last week of the summer fun camp, last two weeks of summer fun camp, because it was just too hot and just unbearable. we sort of put the information out there because we want to always offer solution. And so we had asked individuals if maybe there was an air conditioning campaign we could create or there was a fundraising drive we could do or figuring out how we might be able to help with the community. And we've been getting a mix of information from whether or not window units can be used, whether the windows can accommodate them. The CPAC donated two years ago a floor unit to the camp that, last we knew anyway, it had been misplaced for some of the kids that needed it there. So we've had folks reach out to us from staff, students, teachers, all reach out explaining and sharing their circumstances and their stories that have been very concerning. Some of whom have talked about migraine headaches, nausea, having to leave the school. There's been some community conversation around, you know, sort of, well, that's how it's been done all these years, and suck it up and get used to it, and that's our grandfather's school, and what have you. And, you know, it's getting hotter over time. And, you know, the heat index, I think, yesterday was 103. And, you know, I don't know about you guys, but I couldn't bear that, and certainly couldn't ask to be tested. while I was going through that or asked to be actually learning. It's basic, you know, Maslow's Heurich of Needs. If you're not having your basic needs met, you can't do that higher level stuff.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: So I would just... If I could just interject for one second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Mr. Maloney has also looked at some of the summer programs and he's evaluating whether or not they should go out to some of our outlying schools. Like, it started at the Columbus, some of the programming. Yeah. Perhaps get everyone under one roof that has full air conditioning.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think that's a great approach and that's a good start, but also I know that this is a bigger issue in a multi-million dollar project and what have you for the high school, but I think it's just something that we need to keep circling back to and asking about in terms of safety. So thank you for what's been done so far, but please let's not leave that off the table.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you.
[Paul Ruseau]: Mr. Russo. I have a question. Have we heard anything back on our MSBA application?
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: I believe November. December.
[Paul Ruseau]: Arlington, do they release those sort of in dribs and drabs? Because Arlington's was just approved.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: I think Arlington has been, for the high school?
[Paul Ruseau]: Yeah.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: I thought they'd been in the queue for a while. Yeah, for Arlington High.
[Paul Ruseau]: So it's not like once a year, here you go.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Last year we applied and we were 13th out of the top 10, I believe. Correct. So they suggested we reapply with some tweaking, which is what we did for this application.
[Kirsteen Patterson]: They were only able to fund 15 projects last year, and we were in the top 40. So the hope is that they will have additional funding available this year in order to accommodate more projects. and December 15th was when their final schedule for their board to issue invitations to the feasibility study.
[Paul Ruseau]: Okay, thank you.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Okay, Mr. Benedetto.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Thank you. To speak of the air conditioning issue, I had spoken to Dr. Edouard-Vincent earlier in the week about the possibility of moving the school, the out of school time camp, the summer fun camp back to The Columbus School and the children used to walk to the pool. So I was giving her some history of that. So there is still a pool accessible, and it did work there for a few years. And based on the heat, and if we can't fix the issue by next summer, I think that, you know, that is a strong possibility for that location again. But since Melanie came forward and spoke a little bit about the special education path, I wanted to request information from the committee on who is on the subcommittee for the special education subcommittee. I know I'm the chairperson, and I know we announced it at the end of last year, and I didn't catch the names of the other members, because I would like to call for a meeting within the next two weeks.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: We'll revise the full list.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Oh, okay. That would be terrific. I did have an opportunity just to follow up to meet with Melanie a few weeks ago and just prioritize a few issues to be discussed at that committee. So we would like to move forward with that quickly, Mayor Burke. So your help with that would be very important. Thank you. Secondly, I'd like to know where those air conditioners maybe went. And so that way, if we do need them in the next week or two, because we are still I know the heat wave's supposed to break tomorrow, but it could come back. So, I mean, there's probably areas that really could use them if we could look around. Or do we wanna consider that AC fundraiser? I know it's a draw on electrical and it caused other issues, but we need to look outside the box sometimes. And people coming forward with ideas and outside the box is beneficial to this community. So I don't wanna just like, okay, we couldn't find them and move on. Let's figure it out. Also, not only is the summer fun program an issue, I would like to see unification of our out of school time programming. So it would be the morning before school programming, the after school programming, the week long camp programming, and the summer programming. I'd like to look at that as one big program and make sure that we have great staff and great curriculum and great things for children to do. But I also want to make sure that it's deliberate and it's inclusional to students that are EL students as well as special education students or any other students with needs, financial or whatever. So I would like to, I don't know which committee that should go under, but I really would like to work on that through this year and really build an excellent programming because our job as community members, and as teachers, and as administrators, and as mayor, is to serve our community. And there's a great need for our community, because most parents are working parents, for this out-of-school time, educational piece, care piece. And I think it's building every year. And we're not meeting the needs of our community currently, because the staffing, because our program hasn't grown as big as our need has. And I really would like to, work with different people in the community, not just school people, but people in the community who want to volunteer and invest in making this a great thing for our school system and our community as a whole. So I don't know which subcommittee should take that on. I really would like to work on that personally, Mayor Burke, so maybe you could put some thought into that while you're looking at that. Yeah, thank you for your time. And one last thing, since we're on suspension of rules. We're still on this paper. Okay, when we're done, thank you. Mr. Russo.
[Paul Ruseau]: Along those same lines, would it be possible at the next meeting or the meeting after to get a report from the new director of?
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Before and after school.
[Paul Ruseau]: Thank you, before and after school. And do you have something coming on? She's already on, you've already asked. Thank you.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: And on the original paper, which was the building and grounds paper, we're asking for a full report, as well as a follow-up report on the air conditioning systems throughout the system. On that motion, authored by Mr. Russo, seconded by Ms. Van Der Poot, I believe you asked the question. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion is granted. Okay, while we're in the suspension, Mr. Benedetto, what would you like to discuss?
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Thank you very much. The dedication of the band room. I know I discussed it with former superintendent and Mayor Burke last year about dedicating the band, the possibility of dedicating the band room to Lina Gigentomaso, who was a 30 year school committee member who really advocated for the, those students in the fine arts department in that way. So I'd like to make a motion for the superintendent.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: If we could add, I was informed that in prior years when we did namings, that we'd have a committee of the whole. Maybe Ms. Vanden Heuvel could add to this, because we weren't part of any of this, or I wasn't.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And it was, it had to go, and again, I really have to look back. It had to go to committee of the whole. It couldn't just be done on the floor. We couldn't just say, oh, yes, we're going to name it for somebody. And, you know, more, a little more information needed to be coming. I mean, I'm sure we're all in favor of Lena being honored, but there is a process, and I think that there's a reason to keep to the process. So I think we need to send it to a committee of the whole. And I do forget there's some recommendation involved if we could look into it and check back to what it was just so that we're following our policy.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Yeah. We can have that policy given out to us. And then you can send it to committee of the whole so we can evaluate it.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: I agree in following that, and I want to do it correctly. Timing would be good to move forward quicker than not. Right. And it was requested, again, last year through the superintendent and the mayor.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: I don't recall it being the band room.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: It wasn't on the floor. It wasn't on the floor. Let's do something. I asked them to look into it months ago.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, the band room is now a designation. I'll get some information to the superintendent so that she can send it out and we can set up a meeting.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: And have it on the next agenda.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. Okay. Yeah, again, we can't vote it. There was definitely a process. We can't just vote it at a school committee meeting. And we can look at it.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Maybe we could have it before the meeting and then bring it to the floor that night?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I believe that there was, we could have it in a separate meeting before. The reasoning behind it, there was a very exact reason behind it, which hasn't always been followed. It's true, but the reasoning behind it is that we just didn't want someone coming up and all of a sudden saying, oh yeah, we should name this four, without reflective thought, and does that make sense, and what is the larger picture, so that's why.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: So I'd like to respectfully request that if we do need to have a committee of the whole, that we could do that prior to the next meeting, like right an hour before, and then go into the meeting, and if so warranted by our committee, move forward with it at that meeting and vote it on, so that way it can take place on the following meeting, which would be?
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: We'll comply with the policy, and if it allows for that, that will be our next meeting. We can schedule it 15 or a half hour before the meeting.
[SPEAKER_14]: Right.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: If the policy calls for it being on the floor first, we'll follow that. OK.
[SPEAKER_14]: Thank you.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: We have to refresh ourselves on that policy. Thank you. OK.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Very good.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Thank you, Paulette. Is there a motion to revert to the regular order of business by Mr. Russo, seconded by Ms. Kreatz? All those in favor? May avert. All those opposed? Can I ask one quick poll question? We're back on regulation here. Okay. Item two, report on administrative meetings.
[Diane Caldwell]: Ms.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Caldwell.
[Diane Caldwell]: Good evening, everybody, and welcome back. It's nice to see you all. So the first report I'm going to give you is on our administrative week. As you know, we met between August 20th and August 24th for administrators and for teachers. And our new administrators are, you've been introduced, but the most famous of all, of course, is Dr. Maryse Edouard-Vincent. So we welcome her, as well as our new principal, Michael Downs, Dr. Stacey Mulligan, our assistant principal, Stephen Burnett. I think it's Burnett. Katie Champoli, and Faiza Khan, who is a new addition in mathematics. In addition to our new administrators, we are proud to have Paul DeLeva as our new headmaster of Medford High School, as well as Nick Tucci on board as the McGlynn Middle School principal. We welcome them both. And I just want to personally thank Bernadette Riccidelli, Dr. Riccidelli, for providing her experience and her expertise and assistance to the foreign language department for this school year. Superintendent Edouard-Vincent welcomed our administrators back in our new bistro. So she's doing everything new at the helm. It was so much fun. We had an icebreaker activity and we learned about Dr. Vincent with her identity tree. But she also was clear about her expectations for the school year. Her passion for education and excitement to get into our classrooms is palpable. And as you saw in the video, she was there. She was in classrooms. Even today, we were on the third floor, the second floor of the high school, checking out the heat situation as well. We also had a very busy summer. We were hiring new staff, buying new materials, scheduling students. At our administrative meetings, we discussed topics and matters of concern for the upcoming school year. Assistant Superintendent and Director of Finance Christine Patterson, updated the ASOP frontline system, payroll automation, and employee portal, as well as bus routes, which is always interesting. Dr. Riccadeli discussed our new teacher induction week and the educator evaluation, and you will hear from Dr. Riccadeli in a little bit about the new teacher induction. We also discussed rebooting the social-emotional learning. I know that Stacey Shulman will be working on that as well. Director of Pupil Services, Kathleen Madaglio, provided our team with an update on the coordinated program review. And I'll just take a moment to congratulate Kathy Madaglio for all her hard work. We excelled and we are very proud of the work that she does for us. In addition, we provided our administrative staff with updates from DESE, including licensure and the new Janus ruling. It is an exciting new beginning for all of us with Superintendent Vinson at the helm. The first day of school, as you saw, with the teachers, she rolled out the red carpet. In fact, I remember getting a text from her the day before and there was something about hula skirts. And I said, oh my gosh, where is she now? And she was at party time, buying the red carpet and stars and wondering if we could get a DJ, I believe. Our official first week of school began on Tuesday, August 28th, and what a hot one it was. The elementary and middle schools had full days and the high schools were dismissed at noontime due to the excessive heat. Water was delivered to all of our schools to ensure our students were well hydrated. We would like to thank all of our administrative staff who worked tirelessly over the summer to ensure a smooth transition. And I've included, I've attached an agenda of the different topics that we discussed during admin week. I'd be happy to take any questions.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Thank you very much, Ms. Caldwell. Mr. Russo?
[Paul Ruseau]: Yes, thank you for this report. And it was, I showed up for the very beginning of the administrators.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: You missed the red carpet, though.
[Paul Ruseau]: I missed the red carpet, and I was very, very sad, actually. Pretty cool, pretty cool. I somehow missed that there was that going on. I showed up a little afterwards. But you mentioned something that just made me realize that I wanted to ask, when can we get a copy of the CPR? The state's website apparently puts it up like two years later. I'm like, well, that's nice, but. You have to wait until the district responds to you. It will probably be up in the next couple of weeks. OK. Can you send that to us? Because the state, like right now, I think 2016 is the latest one I saw on the website when I went and looked. And I was like, that's. There are currently, maybe on the polls. But there are current reports different. So that just has to be.
[Unidentified]: OK. It's already been generated by the Congress.
[Paul Ruseau]: Mm-hmm.
[Unidentified]: But as of now, we will make sure that they don't come.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Yeah. It will be.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Thank you. Definitely. Thank you. Mr. Benedetto.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: That was one of my questions, is when that will be presented to the school committee, as well as, is the bistro open?
[Diane Caldwell]: So that's a very good question. I'm not sure I can answer that. Are we open for business, Dr. Benson?
[Marice Edouard-Vincent]: The bistro's not officially open, but the students are baking cookies. I did get fresh blueberry muffins today. So they are practicing, they're setting up tables, and I think it's gonna be at least another week or two before they start actually serving.
[Diane Caldwell]: And we're actually using the Bistro, and it was so hot. We had some classrooms at the vocational school. I know we were doing hair at the cosmetology or something in there one day. And we had our Lesley University meeting on professional development in our little room over there. So it's being utilized. And I'd like to just say, I don't want to be remiss if I didn't mention the color guard. as well as the cheerleaders when they were coming down besides the band. It was awesome. It was really fun.
[Mea Quinn Mustone]: Tomorrow night is the football opening game against Lynn Classical. The marching band will be performing halftime. The greatest showman, the movie, the greatest showman is the music. So if everyone wants to come out and support Medford football. It's at seven o'clock, right?
[Diane Caldwell]: Tomorrow, six.
[Mea Quinn Mustone]: They switched, this year the football games start at six. Six. They used to be seven, now they're six.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: At Hormel. At Hormel, home over there. And also, just to mention, the band participated with our Dave McGilvery Day, honoring the 40th anniversary of Dave's famous run from Medford, Oregon to Medford, Mass. And they were spectacular, and I think they really appreciated being able to practice in front of, or play in front of, It was a great day. And it was an awesome day. So a lot of good things happened this summer. The zip trip came to Medford. It was just, it was a really fun, lighthearted, a lot of great things, great, I think accolades for the city. So I think everyone's really proud of that.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Ms. Van der Kloot. Yes, Diane, I just wanted to also thank you for your work. I know that you've had, as you've, we've been in this transition, you've had a large role and I wanted to thank you. Thank you, Ms.
[Diane Caldwell]: Van der Kloot, appreciate that.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Very good. On the motion that this report be accepted and placed on file by Ms. Van der Kloot, seconded by Mr. Russo. All those in favor?
[Unidentified]: Aye.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: All those opposed? Motion passes, thank you. Okay, next up, report on enrollment numbers.
[Diane Caldwell]: So I provided you with the enrollment numbers and it was given to you last week, so what you had was just one day's worth of enrollment numbers. But I provided you tonight with additional enrollment numbers. The kindergarten classes weren't in at the time. So you should have in front of you some enrollment numbers that are current as of today. I think you'll notice that the Columbus School first grade is low, but our kindergartens last year were low. But I'm excited to say that the kindergarten at the Columbus School has grown. So those numbers are up. Our numbers at the McGlynn Kindergarten this year are a little bit lower. But I also wanted to let you know, it's still early, and at the Parent Information Center, they are so busy, they're continuing to register students. As of August 30th, we registered 56 pre-kindergarten students, 301 kindergarten students, and that was from March until August, and 197 grades one through 12 students, with 82 new ELL students. And I think Maria Ibrahim told us today that there were about 50 more students since this report, we gave you this report. So we're continuing to bring kids here into Medford, and we're very happy to do that.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Very good. Is there a motion on the floor, or any questions? Trustee Benedetto.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Thank you for the report. It's really good for us to see where we're at. There are a few areas of concern to me, as far as numbers. In Medford, we like to keep them down and low, and we've been successful in doing that for a lot of years. So the area that looks a little high to me, the Roberts Kindergarten classes with 22, that's a lot. I'm just hoping, do they have full-time aides in those classrooms on all four of those?
[Diane Caldwell]: The Roberts School has full-time kindergarten aides in those classes. And I think sometimes they include some of the connection kids in their numbers, so those students aren't in that classroom the full day.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Okay, and what about EL students that aren't in there? Are they counted in there?
[Diane Caldwell]: All of the EL students in kindergarten are in those classrooms, yes.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Okay, so my other concern in that same school is the third grade. They only have three third grade classes, and they're all 22 and 23. If more students were to matriculate to that school, those numbers wouldn't,
[Diane Caldwell]: So I'll tell you what I do. When the numbers get really high in the various grade levels, I ask Maria to just put a hold on that. And if there's a way I can move those students to the McGlynn School, of course we look at where they live, then I try to move them to a school that has less children in it, if it's at all possible, and if there are no other siblings in that school, because we have to think of families. But we are cognizant of the numbers. We do watch them.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: I appreciate that. I just like to highlight that. My other question is, when parents fill out emergency cards and parent information, a couple of parents have told me that they've filled out these cards a few times now. And isn't it done electronically? Don't we have school brains? Does the parent portal for the school brains work? And don't parents go online? I know at our school, all parents register online, and if they don't have access to that, we have special nights for parents to come in and we help them do that. So that way, if a new student's added or, you know, if you need a class list, you can print it out on, you know, as a teacher, it's helpful, and has emergency contact information on one sheet. And parents aren't required to fill out those little cards over and over again. Yeah, I'm not sure what the little cards are.
[Mea Quinn Mustone]: For the Andrews, Teagan and Colin brought home piece of paper this size already filled out with my information and Tim's information. And it's just that if there are changes, change it and sign it. Nevin, Rowan, and Declan, you're right, I had to fill out the same paper three times. I don't know how the Andrews, if the Andrews School is just more familiar with the School Brains software that they just printed out and sent it home. I don't know if Mr. DeLeva remembers.
[Diane Caldwell]: I think it's a technology thing.
[Mea Quinn Mustone]: I don't know. Well, do the high school kids get a piece of paper already with the information on it?
[Paul D'Alleva]: Basically, within the system. You can print out student information sheets. We'd like to do that to make sure that everything's up to date. We could go to the parent portal route, but like you said, not everybody's on the parent portal route. So it's easier for us to have that checklist regarding numbers, especially I live in Burlington. I just got the same sheet for my own children as well, just to verify numbers.
[Mea Quinn Mustone]: So the high school, do you print it out and send it home?
[Paul D'Alleva]: In all honesty, I haven't been privy to what that process is right now, but under my assumption, that's something that I would expect to be doing as well.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: So I guess the follow-up question is, are the elementaries doing it the same way? It sounds like they're not.
[Mea Quinn Mustone]: Not at the Roberts. I don't know about the Columbus, or the McGlynn, or the Brooks. Did you have to fill out paper? At the Columbus, yeah.
[Diane Caldwell]: Yeah, I think most of them, because it changes oftentimes with, parents and numbers and cell phone numbers, so it changes, so they do. I know that at the Columbus that Dr. K does send forms home and the secretary collects them.
[Mea Quinn Mustone]: But if it is a school brain's capability, it was nice to have Tegan and Cullen just say, mom, just check this, and me say it's all the same and pass it back in, then filling out.
[Diane Caldwell]: We can look into that for sure. Right.
[Mea Quinn Mustone]: To see how Mr. Downs did it, or Mr. DeLeva did it before he left.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Well, my point is that we invested all this money into this programming that has so many options. And I think it's good for us to move forward in that way. And it's more convenient for most parents now. And of course, there are going to be some parents that need assistance with that. But you could have assistance night or registration night and help them with the process. And then you're also educating them. because as children get older, they use that for homework assignments, they use that for other things. So starting that in the beginning and moving forward in that direction is really where I want to see us moving. Plus, you know, we have parents, you know, filling out so many things repeatedly, the same things. If you have three kids and you're given that form three times, that's nine times you're filling out the same information and it gets, I got a call about it. Also, Parent Information Center, I talked to the superintendent quite a bit this summer about the process. I had a family member go through the process, so I got like a bird's eye view. I would like to streamline that. I would like to have some way, and our superintendent's on it, and I just wanna commend her for her responsiveness to not only my questions, but people's needs there, as well as maybe the EL department in talking to them about really having some way to welcome families and help them through that process as well.
[Diane Caldwell]: So just so you know, the EL, Paul Texera, does an incredible job. His staff is right. They are working with those families when they come in. I know Jesse tests them. We are looking to streamline things a little bit differently at the Parent Information Center. At the beginning of the school year, it is so, so busy. I asked one or two people to help Maria Ibrahim in that office for a few weeks, because she needed additional people.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Yeah, and even through the summer, I think it's really difficult. And maybe opening different times for working parents, because our community is changing.
[Diane Caldwell]: So the opening different times for parents is definitely a need. We're looking to have maybe someone work from 7 to 3, and then maybe from 1 to 5 or 6, so that working parents can get into the Parent Information Center, definitely. But I got to tell you, the summer is not as busy as you think. July is not busy at all there, but come August, they're all coming in. They're moving in.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: And I also want to support the people that are working there. I don't want to, you know, fry them because they spend good time talking to each parent to make sure that they're onboarded well. and I just, that's our parents' first step into our community, so we really need to do that well, we need to present that well. And again, I just want to commend people for the work they've done and just keep moving forward to getting that better as we serve our community. Thank you.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: I just wanted to jump into, there's a lot of fresh eyes, I think, looking at processes throughout the district, so I think we're gonna have a very healthy dialogue about some changes just because of the freshness of the eyes. That's true. Mr. DeLeva.
[Paul D'Alleva]: I just wanted to actually direct it to Jasper regarding the school brains and how he utilizes it a little bit, because if that's what we're talking about, he has a student perspective on how it's used.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Jasper, step up to the mic. Let's hear. Come over here, Jasper. You can use Michael's.
[Jasper Hsu]: Thank you, Mr. DeLeva. School brains I use personally to check my grades, but past that, not very often. I see a lot of teachers use Google Classroom more often to hand assignments in, but they're all graded on school brains, so it's kind of a thing where it's like assigned on Google Classroom, we can get our assignments there, and then to check the grades thereafter, like a couple days later, we'll check on school brains. I would like it to be used all in one, it would be really great. And also, like you talked about beforehand, getting parents information on there, that would be really useful too. I think a lot of people are moving towards using technology and a lot of people are more affluent on it. And if it was all in one center, it'd be really great. So, yeah.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Very good. Thank you, Jasper. Mr. Russo.
[Paul Ruseau]: The grade six enrollment numbers between the two schools in the report we were given in our packets, shows exactly the same number.
[Diane Caldwell]: So I need you to know, I noticed that too. I was waiting for somebody to notice that. I emailed and called both middle school principals because I didn't believe they could be exactly the same. I didn't think they would be the same. But in fact, they were. It was 140 and 140. Although, I must admit, I checked with Mr. Texera, who said that two more students came in for the McGlynn Middle School. So I think the McGlynn is ahead by a few now.
[Paul Ruseau]: So them being very much the same number was very interesting. But I guess the hard question I really want to ask is, did people leave the district because they did not get the Andrews?
[Diane Caldwell]: I don't have an answer to that.
[Paul Ruseau]: At the beginning of the summer. after we had done the randomization, which I wish I could remember the numbers off the top of my head, I think the Andrews was still a dozen or more than the McGlenn. I'm looking in our packets on... Ms.
[Diane Caldwell]: Stone, is this sheet here? The new report or the old?
[Paul Ruseau]: The old report. The old report has the one that was included in our packets, not the new ones. Last page.
[Diane Caldwell]: Ms. Mastone, it looks like this.
[Paul Ruseau]: But them being very much the same, that was just fine.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: It was in the original report with the cover letter, but the report we got tonight, the numbers are different.
[Diane Caldwell]: Right. It's on the original report. Do you have this report?
[Paul Ruseau]: But the numbers for tonight, this is just attendance, not enrollment, correct?
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: I'm showing 141 and 134.
[Diane Caldwell]: So on 9-4, the grade six numbers were 140 and 140. I think that's what Mr. Rousseau is referring to.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: But now tonight's report is different. Yes.
[Diane Caldwell]: Yes.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: So six kids have disappeared, I guess. Okay, if we could get a report on that. You requesting a report, Mr. Russo? No. On whether or not we lost any students to the lottery?
[Paul Ruseau]: I'm just, I'm confused by the second page. This is enrollment, because literally from one day to the next, the enrollment changed between the schools. So, I don't, the second page is not enrollment at all, it's just attendance.
[Diane Caldwell]: Are you talking about which page, this one here?
[Paul Ruseau]: So in the new sheets we got, we got one for September 5th and one for September 6th.
[Diane Caldwell]: Right.
[Paul Ruseau]: The September 5th one, it says right there clearly, this is attendance, who showed up, not who's enrolled in our schools. Right. And on the second page, it's the same thing, this is attendance, this is not enrollment.
[Diane Caldwell]: Correct.
[Paul Ruseau]: So, you know, when having conversations about class size and how many people are at each school. We're not talking about attendance on any day. We're always talking about enrollment correct.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Enrollment not attendance.
[Paul Ruseau]: Right. So at the moment we don't have enrollment numbers for the schools. Well we do for the elementary schools. The last page has the elementary schools that Brooks has 504 etc. But we don't know how many kids are enrolled at the middle school. or the high school right now?
[Diane Caldwell]: In total? Yes. We do where? Here. So if you look at the very first page where it says district attendance, and you look at 6, 7, and 8, it's 141, and 134, and 6. 161, 136, then 154, 157. Right. Yes, that is the attendance. That's who showed up that day, yes.
[Paul Ruseau]: But for the, the district knows the names of every single child that's enrolled in our school, whether they show up or not.
[Diane Caldwell]: What you're looking at are the children who show up every, these are the children who do show up.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: That are enrolled.
[Diane Caldwell]: That are enrolled, yes. Enrolled.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Please. But, so on one day we've got 141 sixth graders at the Andrews, and another day we have 140. But what we want to know is, without children being absent, how many, what is the number?
[Diane Caldwell]: So right now it varies still, because it fluctuates.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: But we have the, what is the maximum number that are showing up now?
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Enrollment, not attendance, enrollment.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: What is the maximum number that are enrolled at that school?
[Diane Caldwell]: I don't have that answer to you, the maximum number of enrollment. These are the children who have shown up. Right.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So what we need and what Paul is saying is in order to determine what we're looking at, we really these numbers are the snapshot of the day as opposed to the potential large picture. And what I understand is you're saying I can't, I don't quite have that yet. What we're wondering is, you know, all of a sudden we see that the sixth grade is the same and then on the next day it's not. So we don't know, we can't tell by this, did we lose some people who then maybe enrolled their child at a different school because of the issues around the sixth grade. So we need a follow-up report on that when we get maximum numbers.
[Diane Caldwell]: That's right. I think that takes a while to do. I think you need to flush it out. I think sometimes kids show up one day and then not the next day, and that's what you see. But I understand what you're saying. Yeah.
[Paul Ruseau]: Thank you. Sorry. Thank you.
[Kathy Kreatz]: Thank you. Is there a motion to accept this resolution on time? There is. I had a question. I just wanted to know if, and it might come in the future, on one of the future reports. So under the vocational school, I wanted to know if we could get the breakdown of the number of students that are attending, the total number of students attending Minuteman, and the total number of students attending Essex Aggie, or any other vocational school. I was just really curious. We can get that for you, Ms. Kreatz. Oh, okay, it's coming, okay, great.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Oh, okay. How was that?
[Kathy Kreatz]: Three Minuteman, two Essex. And do we have any students currently enrolled from Everett Public Schools at the vocational school? I know we had some enrollment in the past couple of years, and I was just curious if we have that.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Nine, nine from Everett, Everett Vocational School. Oh, okay, okay, great. All right, there's a motion on the floor to accept this report, place it on file. There's a second by Mr. Russo. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? The motion carries. Report on summer programs.
[Diane Caldwell]: So our summers are very busy at Medford Public Schools. Our students participated in a variety of different programs, the venues that were used. report on summer programs.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Summarize, please. Summarize, please.
[Diane Caldwell]: Summarize this program. So we had programs with media and technology with Molly Layden. They went to the National Foundation, which was funded by the middle schools. As you all know, Anthony Petrellis runs our summer fund program. We had about 140 students, and that runs from 730 to 430. And there was a cost to that program. Our coordinator of special education had ESY programs that took place at the Roberts Elementary School and that's funded by the special education department. Our regular summer program, our summer school program was run by assistant principal David Blough and assistant director Jill Sawyer. And those classes ran their usual 8 to 12 and then from 8 to 10 and then 10 to 12. Our EL director, Paul Texera, offered a STARBASE STEM lab program. This was kind of an amazing program, I thought, from on July 16th to July 20th, from 8 to 2.30. And he took the students to Hanscom Air Force Base, and the EL students attended a week-long STEM enrichment program, so that was really fun for those students. Our thanks to all of the people who participated and the teachers who facilitated. Additionally, Paul Texera ran an EL middle school summer enrichment program from July 9th to August 7th for grades 6 through 8. And then Assistant Principal David Blouk supervised the high school 101 from August 20th to August 22nd. And once again, as you know, there was heat issues. There were heat issues in our schools and Dr. Vincent and I, during the summer, walked the high school to make sure the kids were well hydrated and made sure that if they needed to be moved to rooms that had air conditioning, We had a science lecture hall. The fitness center was air-conditioned. So we tried to make sure that the kids were staying cool, as well as swimming every single day. Great. Thank you. Ms. Erin, are we?
[Unidentified]: First of all, I think this is the first summer that we have had the open tuition program.
[Diane Caldwell]: Yes, it is the first summer, yeah. It was a great program. The kids went to Hanscom Yacht Force Base and then they built, is politics era still here? Yeah, they built a, wanna come up? App Inventor or something?
[Unidentified]: I knew it was an initiative.
[Paul Teixeira]: Yeah, so students got to, so Starbase is a series of STEM labs at Air Force bases throughout the country. I think there are four of them and we have one here at Hanscom. So the students get to go out for a week and they engage in the whole engineering design process. They get to build pieces of the space station with a 3D laser printer. And each student gets a different part. They actually do reconstruct it. They have CO2 car races that they did. There's chemistry. There's all sorts of hands-on activities, focusing all on you know, science and STEM activities.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Thank you for offering that to our EL students. I know it was the first year for that program, and then I heard about it, and children and families were very pleased that they had that opportunity. Thank you. My other question is, did our vocational programming offer any summer programming? Sometimes they do that for eighth graders to get them interested in different things coming up to the vocational school. So I'm not sure if that happened. I didn't see it on this list. But I believe in years past that those programs were offered. So maybe we could get an update on that and find out if that was offered this year.
[Diane Caldwell]: I think Ms. Sawyer did offer something during the summer. It was at the very beginning of the summer. I'll see if I can get an update.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: I'm just curious how many students are taking place.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: You said it was offered, but we can get a detailed report.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you. Motion to approve. Thank you, Diane.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: You're welcome. Ms. Van der Kloot, you're set. Thank you. Motion to accept this report and place it on file by Mr. Benedetto, seconded by Ms. Van der Kloot. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes. Report on new teacher induction.
[Ricciardelli]: Good evening, Superintendent Edouard-Vincent, Mayor Burke, and members of the Medford School Committee. So I am here tonight to talk about what I think is a really exciting program. I love working with new teachers, and this year I was able to coordinate the new teacher induction program. I will make this brief, I know you have the report in front of you. So this program was really designed to introduce our newest educators to the district's policies, procedures, to familiarize them with the district curricular programs and technological applications, and most importantly, I think, to acclimate them to Medford as a caring, educational partnership of school, family, and community. So it was a four-day program. On the first day, we did introductions. So we introduced the central administrators. many of the administrators for the departments, teachers engaged in technology workshops, the Medford Teachers Association met with the teachers, treated them to a really nice lunch, and at the end of that day, teachers went through a professional protocol and dress for success workshop. On the second day of the training for new teachers, teachers went to an ASOP, Frontline Attendance Management System workshop, an educator evaluation workshop. They had lunch, and then they met with their curriculum directors and principals in the afternoon. On the third day, they went to best practices workshop, specific to math and English, and they also went to workshop on best practices in how to teach students in the most effective way. They were treated to a lunch. sponsored by the district in the Bistro. They met with their mentor teachers and they had discussions with their mentor teachers. The afternoon, they were treated, I will say, to a yoga meditation instructional strategy workshop, a social emotional district initiative workshop, and then lastly, at the end of that third day, I talked to them about the program and got some valuable feedback from them. They additionally filled out a survey, which I've collected the responses. The fourth day, the last day of the of the induction week, this year we changed around a little bit. We gave them a lot of time in their classroom. They had asked for that last year and feedback that I've received from many of them indicates that they really appreciated that. You can imagine that you're coming on as a new educator, you wanna get ready, you've heard all these workshops and that's great, but really they wanted to get into their classroom. So again, I do think they appreciated it So again, it's one of my favorite things to do. I love introducing new teachers to the district, and we had a great team. I did not do it alone. I have to really give a shout out to Donna Lasky, who is the mentor coordinator, along with all of the other administrators in the district, because we really work together on this. I would be happy to take any questions if you have them.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Thank you very much, Ms. Riccadeli. You're welcome. And thank you for all your hard work this summer as well. You're welcome. On the motion to place this report on file by Mr. Giro, seconded by Ms. Kurtz, I believe. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion carries. Report on transportation. Good evening. I have the last four remaining items.
[Kirsteen Patterson]: Let's hope we can get through these fairly quickly. Transportation summary. We are in the first year of an extended contract here with our Eastern Yellow Bus Company. We did have to go back to the 18 routes as we experienced last year with our newcomers program. We are transporting all of our public schools as well as St. Joseph Catholic and St. Raphael Catholic schools. We do have reduced ridership for Minuteman Vocational, which we just expressed is down to three students. And we are looking at transitioning the newcomers. We continue to establish new routes for them as they come into the district. The high school bus run was supplemented this year with two additional buses to help offset the MBTA. It is still on summer break when we start before the Labor Day holiday. So surprisingly, I know it may not seem this way, but there were fewer issues and calls that we experienced last year. So I consider it a very successful start to the busing schedule and situation. The bus routes that were provided in your packet have already since been updated and will be changed next week as well. due to the kindergartners ridership and some overcrowding issues that we are addressing and we'll be changing some stops on mainly the elementary levels and getting the overflow ridership addressed on that. So we are aware of that and work continuously to adjust these stops as we are able to accommodate that.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: I particularly want to thank you for providing those buses for the pre-labor-day drive. That was such an issue.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: last year, and I'm glad you were proactive and not a phone call. Absolutely.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Thank you. Thank you. Ms. DiBenedetto.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Thank you. I did get one call. It was only one call. It's two students that are on one side of the street, and the bus goes around very far to pick them up rather than letting the students cross the street. It's up near Grove or Salt and Saw. I don't know that area very well.
[SPEAKER_14]: It's for safety.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: I'm sure it's a safety issue. I don't know if they've talked to you directly about it. Other than that, it's a great start because usually I get a lot of calls or emails. If they were to speak with you, maybe there was some way that we could look at that.
[Kirsteen Patterson]: We look at every request in terms of safety.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: And my other question is the late bus that the Columbus School, because they had the, I know we added it at the end of last year. I just want to make sure that those students have that opportunity again this year. Remember they were staying late? That was a special program?
[Kirsteen Patterson]: for an eight-week session that was not identified as going school year-round. We've adjusted for some additional math intervention programs that are outside of that particular scope, so we have not identified a late run for that particular program.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Okay. I thought it met a couple different needs over there, but if it does arise, we'll talk about it again. Absolutely. Thank you.
[Kathy Kreatz]: Oh, I just wanted to say, you know, thank you very much for putting the information in the paper as well, the bus schedule and the blog and, you know, sharing everything on the MPS Advantage. And it was just great. And, you know, I only got one inquiry, and it was a bus was late going to the Roberts, and I heard back from Christine right away. And that was it. I didn't get any calls about the high school bus. I was waiting all day, but I, you know, it was in the paper and I took the paper with me to work.
[Mea Quinn Mustone]: But thank you very much. Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Mea Quinn Mustone]: I just want to inform the Roberts parents. So the number one bus at the Roberts is overcrowded. Unfortunately with the kindergarten added on today, there was a very overloaded bus that three of my own children ward, but Christine is working with Tatiana from the bus company and Mr. O'Brien, the Roberts vice principals working as well. So that will be addressed. So for parents who are concerned, it is being worked on. Correct. And by next Monday, it should be evened out. Thank you.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Very good. Thank you very much, Ms. Patterson. Is there a motion to accept this report and place it on file? Is there a parent that would like to speak? Certainly.
[SPEAKER_05]: Step forward. Your name and address, please. Sure. Viviana Perdomo, Washington Street. I've been saying this for a while. You can step up to the mic. Sorry.
[SPEAKER_06]: I've been saying this for a while regarding Hadley Place and Salem Street. I don't know if anybody ever looked at that area, but it's definitely a safety issue. When the winter comes, the streets on the other side are never plowed right, and a lot of my kids have to come from Washington Street, walk all the way from Hadley Street to get there, and then when they come home, they have to cross that intersection, and I don't know if you guys passed by there, but there's Brookline Bank, in the fireplace plays and it's like huge. And a lot of the times you'll see cars try to pass by the bus because they think that they can do it or they will take a right turn on Hadley Place to Salem Street going towards the new Target now. So that's always an issue there. even though you do a great job, I think that's one of the areas that really does need to be looked at.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_06]: Which bus route is this for? McGlynn, the McGlynn. Middle school? No, elementary. It's number nine.
[Mea Quinn Mustone]: Can you just talk about safety? I noticed that recently a crossing was hit. and it was school dismissal time, and I do think that I... Not at Medford, sorry, not at Medford, another city. But even up with us on Highland Ave, and on our intersection of Highland Ave and Sturges, a number of times the bus will be stopped, he'll have the stop sign, and cars will pass while kids are getting out.
[SPEAKER_06]: I do have to say that the bus driver tries to do his best to actually angle the bus, but it doesn't matter, those people don't care. They don't. During the season when the snow is this high, it's really hard for kids who live on the side streets, not even just Washington, but the side streets that go into that Hadley-Salem Street area to get to because they have to climb mountains. Because the city plowers will make corners of pile that make it so hard for people to make a sidewalk.
[Mea Quinn Mustone]: But I know in the past that this has come up, not at your intersection, and that the DPW has gone and removed mounds of snow from a bus stop. So if you give us the heads up.
[SPEAKER_06]: Right, but it's not just the bus stop itself. It's the whole getting from the bus stop to getting home.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Could I ask Kirsten just one question? Are the buses equipped with cameras now? If someone, right, but if a car goes by and they at least drop signs, can they see that? They don't have to read it for the plates?
[SPEAKER_06]: If they're going to the right, they're not gonna see it. So sometimes, when my kids were, you know, as a parent, you kind of stand in the middle and hopefully not get hit.
[Mea Quinn Mustone]: And even in the past, parents have had, parents who have had concern, the police has sent someone for a few days, because a lot of times it's a regular commuter that is passing the bus, and the police presence has slowed people down to respect the bus rules. So maybe that's another, maybe the police department could look at Hadley Place in Salem.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Yeah, it's one of those. Or if you could talk to Tatiana to see if any of the bus drivers are on different routes even, are having issues like that, to keep us informed. Very good. Thank you.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Move the bus stop up or down a street? We'll review all the options on that. Okay.
[Kirsteen Patterson]: Thank you.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Thank you. Is there a motion to accept this report and place it on file by Mr. Rosario, seconded by Ms. Mustone? All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion passes. Report on personnel updates.
[Kirsteen Patterson]: Thank you. So this is just a brief summary to inform you that we have hired a human resource coordinator, Kate Green. She started August 20th. We were without a person during a very heavy time of transition and influx of exiting employees and onboarding. So the central office, business office, has done quite a phenomenal job of maintaining and getting everybody on payroll as quickly as possible, getting all the query checks in, getting all the paperwork in place, maintaining all of the process that's needed to keep everybody going. So I wanted to certainly share that it is very valuable to now have a human resource coordinator back in this role. She has 14 years experience in human resources and is very decorated in her education background. The summary for our personnel transactions to date, which includes just the summer months. We've had over 148 different personnel transactions. That includes our new hires, rehires, transfers, meaning transfer from one building to another or one grade level to another that has to go through budget checks and verification for multiple steps. It's not just one step. We have to update every single system. So you've heard about school brains. We have to update the personnel. that's tied to that particular building. We have to update the ASAP, the absence reporting, so that they're listed within the correct building. So there's a myriad of items that have to be done for each transaction. We do have seven that are current on full year leaves of absences. We do have additional leaves of absences coming up, many maternity leaves this year, partial year, but they are significant and numerous this year. and we had processed 25 resignations and retirements to date, and that is for the school year 18-19. That is not including those that were covered in the June 30th count as well. So this is just to give you a general summary of what we have done over the course of the summer in this regard.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Thank you very much. A motion by Ms. Mustone to receive and place on file, seconded by Ms. Kreatz. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries.
[Kirsteen Patterson]: Thank you. The next item that we have is a request for approval of a scholarship in the name of Sarah Palumbo. This is for the Curtis Tufts School and to be established at a $500 annual scholarship for a promising graduating senior. The student shall be going to any community college, university, or track or trade school, and somebody that is notable for post-high school involvement. So we would respectfully request approval for this scholarship going forward.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: On the motion to receive in places, oh, I'm sorry, Ms.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: DiBenedetto. Thank you. I was gonna motion to accept it, but my colleagues already have, but could we also send a letter of thank you to the Palumbo family for this kind donation It looks like it's going to continue for years to come.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Definitely, thank the Plumville family. And there's a motion on the floor to accept this scholarship fund. Is there a second by Ms. Van der Kloot? Roll call vote, please.
[Unidentified]: Mrs. DeVette? Yes. Mrs. Van der Kloot?
[SPEAKER_14]: Yes.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Yes, seven in the affirmative, none in the negative. The motion passes and the scholarship is accepted. Thank you. And the next is to accept a donation from Impact Church.
[Kirsteen Patterson]: Thank you. Yes, just a brief summary that we did meet with many of our renters over the course of the summer. And when we did happen to meet with Pastor Zenzo Motoga, it was discussed that he and his church would like to make a donation to the schools. They had identified an amount in which we have confirmed for $10,000, which we would like to get approval for acceptance. Again, we had previously received large donations from Staples for paper and other supplies throughout the schools that is no longer available through that resource. So this type of generous donation would be very helpful in filling that void at this point in time.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Very good. Thank you. And again, thank you to the pastor and his church.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: And there's no conflict since they are a renter of that particular school, right? No. OK. I just wanted to check that. And is this just specifically for the McGlynn, or is it for the district as a whole? The district. Thank you, motion to approve and letter sent.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: It's a motion to approve by Mr. Benedetto, seconded by Ms. Vanderkle. Roll call vote, please, on the acceptance of this donation. Yes. Yes, seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative, the motion passes. Thank you very much, Ms. Patterson. Mr. Russo.
[Paul Ruseau]: Question about school supplies. Is it something anybody's considered to perhaps do a school system store? Just for one class for my son, it was $48 in supplies. And I went to Staples to buy it, and I was like, hey. I was so irritated. at the cost, and so I went up to the front desk and I talked to a manager and I'm like, you know, if we had a corporate staples account, what's the discount? And they're like, it could be up to 40%. And I'm like, there are like, how many parents are spending 48 bucks per class? And if the school system can buy in bulk, even if we're not gonna just give it away, just resell it at a huge discount. I mean, that's a lot of money. And I don't know if other schools do anything like that, but it just seemed kind of absurd to be spending that. I mean, I saw all these families with their carts filled to the brim with $15 three-inch binders, the mandatory ones the teachers ask for.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So for a while, PTOs, there was a period of time when different school PTOs did in fact take some of that on and were buying in bulk and coordinating the supplies. You know, it's one of those things. It takes a lot of effort and time. So you have a parent who's revved up about it and it lasts for a couple of years and then kind of falls by the wayside. It's certainly beneficial, but it is a, you know, it's just one more thing of organizing. But that isn't to say that it isn't worth trying to do.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Mr. Benedetto.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Our vocational program has a retail program, so why couldn't we look at that as being part of their programming? The DECA program, the DECA? Like the marketing and retail, don't we have?
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: They sell like sweatshirts, that kind of stuff?
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Yeah, and why can't they sell, why can't we order the school supplies in a similar way and open that up, you know, certain hours? at the beginning of the school year.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Lower level, knowing exactly what the lists are. So PTO seemed like that would be the right avenue.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: I thought that the vocational school, they sell things at a lower level, but there are also kids in that program all the way up through 12th grade that, you know, ordering those supplies and giving them those life skills to manage a situation in that might be worth looking at. I mean, that's what we're hoping to do. And this is a real-life practice gum, and it would be supervised by that shop. So I don't see why not at least discuss that as a possibility with Chad, the director there, and just look at it.
[Diane Caldwell]: We can look at that, but there's a sheer volume you're talking about for the kiddos to have to get together and make. they have to actually buy the supplies and put them together. So we can talk to Mr. Fallon about that, but it would be a huge undertaking.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Even if we start small and then grow it, at least we're offering, like, hey, get all your notebooks here instead of at Staples, or all your binders, and just start small and then grow it. I mean, it's a life lesson for students. Our student advocate is here, and we would like to speak.
[Jasper Hsu]: But if you sell things like a geneticist's bagel, like a steak, or some sneakers, or some Texas, or anything like that, where do you think that would happen?
[Erin DiBenedetto]: You could even set up shop at a different spot seasonally. They set up kiosks and malls. Space isn't, I don't think, prohibitive of at least looking at the idea of this in some way. even if it's a small way that we can help our community and serve the need of our community in their wallets and teach our students at the same time. I think it's a growth opportunity that at least should be looked at by the people in that, you know, by the principal of that area.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Ms. Mustone.
[Mea Quinn Mustone]: I just want to suggest that maybe we could even think about budgeting buying the supplies. So a friend of mine works in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the school department buys the supply. She did look it up while she was over at my house. It's 40,000. They have a much smaller school system. But if we were to average $50 a student, it'd be $200,000 more or less. So, I mean, that is another goal that we could have because it is, I mean, I spent over $200 for the kids going to Staples. So, I mean, if we want to go beyond just trying to get a break on it, Why don't we put it into our school budget?
[SPEAKER_05]: It takes away from somewhere else, though.
[Mea Quinn Mustone]: I know. Potentially. Somewhere else.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Ms. Van der Kloot?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I wanted to know whether we've replaced the teacher at the vocational school, the marketing teacher, whether we found someone to, I believe, that position retired or left for another?
[Kirsteen Patterson]: They are able to run the program with the single remaining based on the enrollment with that program.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, so one teacher did leave though, right? Correct. Okay, thanks.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Mr. Ojiro.
[Michael Ruggiero]: I think it might be an interesting project for our web coding to put together like a little web store to avoid the problem where we have an overfill issue. So parents could order what they need online, and then we could just ensure that they have a pickup spot location. So like, you know, Bobby's mom bought these supplies online, we'll have a little label printed out, Bobby's mom gets her supplies right at school.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Thanks. Ms. Kreatz.
[Kathy Kreatz]: Yes, I wanted to just bring up something that I found out from a parent in, I knew we were struggling to get an HVAC teacher and I got the most recent update I got is that unfortunately they haven't received any applicants. So they do not have an HVAC teacher right now at the vocational school. And a letter was sent home to all of the students that were enrolled in HVAC asking them to choose a different shop. program and you know I was I was you know I was kind of upset but I mean I guess the industry right now is I guess struggling with you know I heard back from Chad with a bunch of different vocational schools that are experiencing similar problems right now you know if the senior you know wants to pursue a co-op they can work with the co-op you know director to help find a job, because they'll still be able to go for the co-op opportunity. But anybody who wanted to choose HVAC, freshman, sophomore, junior, they're not going to have that choice this year. So I was concerned and thinking about, are we going to maybe be sending our kids off to Minuteman if those students really want to enroll in HVAC, because that might be what they want to pursue, which is what we kind of do for Essex Aggie or another program that we're not offering. So it's just something that we're going to have to start thinking about.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: We reached out to the unions as well to see if they could cultivate someone to become an instructor.
[Kathy Kreatz]: And it's such a popular field and it's not going to go away. We need to have these young students learn and move on. But I know how hard, you know, it's still posted, the position is still posted.
[Marice Edouard-Vincent]: So I just wanted to, thank you, thank you Mayor. I just wanted to comment in terms of some of the vocational teachers. The challenge is that a lot of them are able to be compensated at a significantly higher rate in their actual field. So HVAC and with all the construction happening all over the casino, Boston, all over the state, there's so much construction happening that it's very difficult to either maintain or find. So I know Chad has been reposting and using all of his connections, and it has been a real challenge. So we are taking it very seriously, but it has been a challenge for us.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: I would imagine other districts are suffering the same. Are you all set, Ms. Krutz? Mr. Benedetto.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: So may I work? A few things. First of all, my husband's a union carpenter in Boston and has been for 38 years. And he said that throughout the community, they're struggling to bring in younger people into the trades and talented people. We really need to communicate to people in the community the value of these jobs. And these men and women make six figures. I mean, they make a great living, and they provide well for their families. And Medford was built on the backs of hardworking people from the trades. We were shipbuilders in the beginning, and our commitment to our vocational school in the last few years has been exceptional. I would really hate to see programming close, so it's appeal to people in the community that might hear this, and maybe to our newspaper to get out the word that Method really wants to offer strong programming to our students, and we need people in the community to step up and help us in any way they can, even if it's, I don't know, if it's current companies or graduates that graduated from the HVAC program at vocational school coming back to teach students. And even if we have to offer some of those in the evening instead of the day, I mean, we might have to look outside the box to fill these needs. And I really don't want to start outsourcing back to Minuteman. We used to pay a million dollars a year in tuition to Minuteman, and then we were left with no money to invest of vocational programming, and we've come so far to offering great programming and great education to all of our students. So this, to me, is almost an emergency situation, and we have to work as a team, and I will contact some friends in the industry and see if they can help in any way, and I suggest that all of us do that, and anyone listening that could offer any help to please call us. This is a great way for a lot of students to move forward in their career. Children who, you know, college isn't the right choice for them or students that are gonna do both, trade in and college. I mean, there are so many opportunities here and our community needs this. So it's just a dire emergency. I'd also like to know a little ahead of time when we're having these type of issues, maybe earlier in the summer, a quick email or an alert so that we can help in any way we can as committee members. That's it. Thank you.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Mr. Russo, did you wish to speak on this? No. Thank you. New business. We have several condolences. We have resolved that the Medford School Committee expresses sincere condolences to the family of Richard McGlynn. Mr. McGlynn was the father of Special Education Secretary Susan Callahan and uncle of former Mayor Michael McGlynn. We had resolved that the Medford School Committee express its sincere condolences to the family of Claire Lynette Frida. Ms. Frida was the mother of Medford High School teacher, Lisa Dunphy. We had resolved that the Medford School Committee express its sincere condolences to the family of John Bailey, Sr. Mr. Bailey was the founder of the North Medford Youth Hockey Program. which became Medford Recreational Hockey. Mr. Bailey was a senior custodian at Medford High School for many years. Actually, his grandson works for the city of Medford and is running our recreation program as well. Be it resolved that the Medford School Committee express its sincere condolences to the family of John Lynch, Sr. Mr. Lynch was the father of Andrew's middle school guidance Councilor, Thomas Lynch. If we could all rise for a moment of silence on the passing of these residents. Also, if I could just make mention, this week we had a beautiful ceremony for two youngsters at the Andrews Middle School, Jacob Wright and Zach Bertucci. Am I pronouncing it correctly? Bertucci. They performed a heroic act at Hampton Beach this summer in late August, and they basically saved a woman's life there. So we had a wonderful presentation for these two young lads who were very humble. And they just did an amazing thing. And I think that they're just a very proud example of our students and how they stand tall and leadership skills that they are learning in the Medford school system. And it goes to the teachers, administrators, and their families as well that have really instilled such great ethic in them. So I just wanted everyone to be aware of that. And it's just a wonderful thing that these two young men did on August 20. So thank you. And with that being said, we are at the conclusion of our meeting. Motion to adjourn.
|
total time: 25.28 minutes total words: 4228  |
total time: 20.32 minutes total words: 3640  |
total time: 8.88 minutes total words: 1302  |
total time: 2.68 minutes total words: 506  |
|
total time: 4.55 minutes total words: 790  |
total time: 5.31 minutes total words: 949  |
total time: 7.79 minutes total words: 1356  |
total time: 4.46 minutes total words: 644  |
|
total time: 1.94 minutes total words: 420  |
total time: 2.65 minutes total words: 516  |
total time: 0.82 minutes total words: 104  |
|