[Edouard-Vincent]: have played a positive role in the lives of so many of the students here and how they've gone on to have great success in their careers. So I just want to congratulate them all, all the inductees, and just encourage that positive work. Also yesterday was the Jingle Bell run and my associate superintendent, Diane Caldwell, and many others were there to participate in that fundraiser. And that was a fun event for families and children of all ages. And I really hope that it was a fruitful, or I would say lucrative, fundraiser for them. But it was definitely the holiday spirit reindeers and other things. So I was pleased to hear that that was a great event. And my final comments will be, since this is our short week, Wednesday is early release for all of our schools because we're getting ready to go into the Thanksgiving holiday break. So I just wish all of you a happy Thanksgiving break. If you do celebrate it and just enjoy the time with your family and friends. Thank you.
[Burke]: Thank you. I know a few of the colleagues were at the run yesterday. I'd say about 600 people. I know they pre-registered like 560, and people were still coming in well after the official start. So it was a very successful program. I know all the money goes back to the individual schools that raised it. So I'm sure we'll be seeing the Jingle Bell people at an upcoming meeting, where they'll be distributing nice checks back to the PTOs and the school department. So great day overall.
[Van der Kloot]: Ms. Van der Kloot. I just think that that was Judy Lonergan's baby and that she was the one who started it and I think that whenever we talk about we should mention because it was a great idea and she really put a lot of work into it and she got it off the ground and we're really, our schools have really benefited from the fundraising that the run accomplishes.
[Burke]: Very good. Thank you. Thank you. First item under the reports of the superintendent, report on Project HAIR grant.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Yes, Project HAIR grant will be presented by Rachel Perry. Thank you. Please come forward.
[Perry]: Good evening, Mayor Burke, Superintendent Vincent, members of the school committee. The Project HAIR substance use prevention curriculum grant has provided select middle schools funding to implement one of three evidence-based prevention curricula. One is which is the Michigan model, which we already have. We have the Michigan model from K-12. And what we're going to use it for, since we already have it, we're going to use the $13,387 for training for our staff. It will give them a two-day full training in the Michigan model with specifics to the substance use prevention units. That will be for our physical education, health education, and guidance counseling staff. We also have a little bit of money left over to make sure that we purchase extra kits for our guidance counsel so that they all have their each individual kits. We've been working really hard since I took over the department about four years ago to really increase our curriculum around substance use prevention. We had a school committee meeting about that time and There was a lot going on in the state, in the country. And we've come a long way since then. And this is just a great opportunity for us to really train our staff.
[Burke]: How many members will be participating in this training? Awesome. And how many are already trained?
[Perry]: So we had a training for elementary staff. So all the elementary teachers were trained, except the phys ed weren't trained at that time.
[Burke]: Very good. Thank you. Are there any questions? Motion to accept this report, placed it on file by Mr. Benedetto, seconded by Mr. Russo. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes. Thank you.
[Perry]: Thank you. Happy Thanksgiving.
[Burke]: Same to you. Thank you. Report on Childhood Obesity Prevention Program.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Yes, I'd like to ask Tony Vento, our Supervisor of Health Services, to please come forward. Thank you.
[Wray]: Good evening. Good evening, Mabel Burke, Superintendent Edouard-Vincent, and members of the school committee. So I'm reporting on a donation that was offered to the Medford Public Schools from Hallmark Health, now known as Melrose-Wakefield Hospital. And I wanted to thank Paul Russo, because it was a contact of his that brought this idea our way. We know childhood obesity is a serious public health issue. And we, as many other schools across the country, are providing many strategies to address the situation. The data that the school nurses collect in Medford shows grade 4 overweight and obesity rates to be between 43 and 45 percent. And we have a lot of programs. We have regularly scheduled physical education classes. We have dedicated recess time. We have the food nutrition program, which promotes healthy food and vegetables and portion control. So we are making a lot of similar movements as other schools across the country. So the donation that we're receiving is $2,000, and it's initially funded by the Bruins Foundation with the goal of promoting physical activity for children. When Rachel Perry and I met with the community representative from Hallmark Health, we decided we'd like to include all children at the grade 4 level. So we decided to use the gift to augment the physical education program that's already standing by buying personal pedometers for all the fourth grade students and setting up, you know, we're looking to promote and recognize the benefits of walking and developing that into your own ongoing personal fitness throughout your lifestyle. So everyone will get a personal pedometer. They'll record their steps through the week. And we're hoping that we can get teachers to encourage students to graph. The class can graph their steps and have a little class competition. And at the end of the program, we will award a prize to the class with the highest number of steps. We expect to run the program for 10 weeks between March 22nd and May 31st.
[Burke]: Wonderful. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Russo. Mr. Russo. Thank you.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. I just wanted to highlight how quickly this all happened. I had to go back in my emails, and I first was contacted on August 29th of this year. So I was really surprised when I saw this on the agenda, because this This level of efficiency needs to be highlighted. So thank you so much for getting it just done so quickly. Thank you. Thank you.
[Burke]: Very good. Is there a motion? Mr. Ruggiero?
[Ruggiero]: Do we have a sense? So you have the overweight and obesity statistic together. Do you have a sense of what the obesity statistic is for children in the fourth grade?
[Wray]: It's less than. I mean, this is aggregate data. So I didn't pull that out. typically it's about a third of what the overweight data is. If you want that at another time, I can provide that for you.
[Ruggiero]: I would be also interested to know different grades as well.
[Wray]: Oh, I have that. I have that here. So grade one ranges between 32% and 34% for overweight and obese BMIs. Grade seven, 34% to 46%.
[Fallon]: 40 to 47, did you say?
[Wray]: Grade 7 is 34 to 46. Oh, 34. And grade 10 is 39 to 42. The second number being female, girls, first number being boys.
[Ruggiero]: So the fourth grade has a particular problem.
[Wray]: It does. Part of that is because grade 4, that prepubertal growth, just normal growth and development, that age child will develop weight prior to having a height growth. So that's just normally what happens to all developing, growing children. But it's a good time, you know, grade four is a great time. You have kids that are easily engaged in projects like this and starting to understand a little bit of peer competition and motivation and it's a good age to start promoting some kind of program like this.
[Ruggiero]: I mean, the health effects of childhood obesity are significant.
[Wray]: They can be.
[Ruggiero]: For me, I think that this is a conversation I would like to have more of, if possible, especially thinking of solutions that we could do, whether it's a question of looking at our lunch program or looking at more activities for children, because these are some frightening statistics.
[Wray]: Yeah. Our lunch program does meet all the federal guidelines. Well, the federal guidelines aren't very good.
[Ruggiero]: 20% of America's children are obese, not overweight, but obese.
[Wray]: But we do look at portion control, we look at promoting healthy food, fruits and vegetables. There's a number of community organizations that offer some after school activity times. It's a population problem in our country.
[Ruggiero]: Do you think the lunch program in particular could be explored? Like we offer pizza every day at the high school, right?
[Wray]: I'd have to have Greta Smith come in to do that.
[Ruggiero]: I mean, I would personally, if we could, find time for it. I know we're having a busy, but if we could find time on the agenda. I'd really like to consider this problem, because I think we have a serious problem.
[Wray]: And Ms. Smith can address a lot of the finer details of our nutrition program with you.
[Burke]: Thank you. Mr. Russo.
[Ruseau]: How do our numbers compare to similar communities in Massachusetts?
[Wray]: Fairly similar.
[Wray]: Unfortunate.
[Ruseau]: All right.
[Burke]: Good. Well, thank you for getting this going so quickly. Thank you, Mr. Russo, for the recommendation. So before he's out, I'd like to request a report from the superintendent.
[Ruggiero]: complete child, the statistics broken down. By grade? Yeah, by grade, but not just overweight, but also by obesity. And if possible, I would like to really have a full conversation. Oh, you don't do overweight?
[Wray]: It's overweight and obese. We don't do heights and weights on every grade. We do grade 1, 4, 7, and 10. That's what the state mandates. OK.
[Ruggiero]: Well, I mean, that would at least be a start.
[Wray]: So you just want it broken down by overweight and obese.
[Ruggiero]: Yeah, I just want to know how many are, because the differences between overweight can be a pound. But obese, that means you're walking into adulthood with a one in three chance of having type 2 diabetes, right? I mean, it's a serious problem. That's a lifelong condition.
[Burke]: On the motion before us, seconded by Mr. Russo. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. Next, report on social emotional learning.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Stacey Shulman is going to come forward to present that report.
[Schulman]: Good evening. Good evening, Mayor Burke, Superintendent Edouard-Vincent, and members of the school committee. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to talk about some of the social-emotional learning initiatives we have done thus far this school year. We have restarted the social-emotional learning committee on two levels, one with community partners as well as another with school administration. These teams review emerging needs and how we are supporting students in the school as well as the community. And we hope to continue with the SEL teams in each school building to focus on their individual school communities. In partnership with the Board of Health, as well as the Mystic Valley Health Coalition, we have completed a survey of district administrators on social-emotional learning to provide some insight to areas of success and opportunities for growth. One of the notable outcomes was that 92% of respondents strongly agreed to the statements, I understand and value social-emotional learning being taught to all students, which showed an overwhelming support for continued efforts regarding social-emotional learning throughout the district. In partnership with Elliott Human Services, we'll be starting an evening support group for parents caring for children or teens with anxiety and or depression. This will begin in the coming months, and thank you to Mr. Fallon, this will be hosted in the Bistro at Medford High School. We've expanded the zones of regulation methodology throughout all of our elementary and middle schools. Adjustment Councilors, school psychologists, guidance Councilors, occupational therapists, and speech pathologists are supporting classroom teachers and students in learning the language to improve the ability to foster emotional control and self-regulation. This provides a common language throughout the district, and we will continue these efforts over the next few years until all classrooms have the opportunity to participate. There have been a significant number of presentations for students as well as professional development for faculty. In October, Respond, Inc., a domestic violence prevention agency, came to speak with high school students in their health classes regarding the signs of a healthy relationship. This was the third year we had partnered with this agency, and we are very, very thankful of their work with our students and the generous amount of time they provided above and beyond the grant that we had received. The Columbus Elementary School received some training in October provided by DESE through their school SAFE program from Jason Wheeler, and this was around a supportive school environment for LBGT youth and their families. Counseling staff on Professional Development Day this past November 6th participated in crisis response training with the guidance of Deborah Rivlin from the Children's Room in Arlington. This provided more information for how to support students after a crisis as well as an opportunity to consider any unique circumstances within their building and additional preparations we would need. We have partnered with the NAN Project through Elliott Human Services to bring mental health awareness and suicide prevention to the high school. On this past PD day, many of NAN Project peer mentors presented to the high school faculty. Debbie Helms from the Samaritans presented on the risks, signs, and responses to a student in crisis for mental health. In December and February, the NAN Project peer mentors will be sharing their stories with students in the health classes, as well as to provide information how they can seek mental health support within the school. The NAN Project will provide the opportunity for high school faculty to receive an additional training in QPR, Question, Persuade, Refer, which is an evidence-based methodology for suicide prevention. We will also provide this training to a select number of junior and senior students in March 2019 to enable them as peer leaders. Elliott Human Services will join the McGlynn faculty on December 17th to discuss mental health in the classroom. This will review signs and symptoms of a potential mental health challenge as well as how to support students both in the classroom as well as additional support within the school building. Lisa Bandoyan from the Board of Health has organized another year of risk to resiliency training. This professional development series consists of five trainings to faculty, and this will offer 10 PDPs, run from November to May. We will have many more opportunities for faculty this coming year. We have added a new section to the Medford Public Schools website called social-emotional learning, and we will be populating that with opportunities as well as resources for faculty, staff, and students. Thank you.
[Van der Kloot]: I wondered, as you spoke about the zones of regulation, I know that the Medford Educational Foundation had received requests from different guidance Councilors or whatever for signage, for materials. Have we been able to provide our students with, or each of our schools with some materials to support the zones of regulation?
[Schulman]: We have some materials, but we're always looking for more, more posters for each of the classrooms.
[Van der Kloot]: Yeah, I think that the thing was, our concern was that, well, at the time, it seemed very piecemeal, and we wanted it to be unified so that every school had the same sort of things. To be honest with you, I see that as a school initiative since we're doing this, that these are things that we should provide our classrooms. So I'd really like to have an opportunity to sit down and see what we've got and what in each school and what really the Councilors and teachers, the principals feel is necessary in terms of some visual reminders.
[Schulman]: One of the items they've asked for is for assistance with color printing. So there are many sort of projects that classrooms can put together to learn what the different zones are, but they're by color, and the color printers are often very costly. So I think that was one of the items they were looking to seek, but I agree that an inventory of what we have and what we need is is not worthy.
[Van der Kloot]: Right. The foundation didn't want to fund piecemeal projects. It's not what we're about, so we've really been waiting for this year to see what the initiative is going to be. And perhaps we'll be able to support it to some degree, but only if we have an understanding that we have a comprehensive approach to it. Also, I just want to mention that Mr. Rousseau and I, Paul, we had a wonderful opportunity at the school committee conference to hear a professor from Yale speak on social emotional learning. I don't have his name with me today. I do know he's going to be doing an in-service sort of training, which was really geared for superintendents, but unfortunately it's the same days as your superintendent conference down on the Cape. But I think we should look into it and see if it's a possibility. He was truly inspiring. So it might be nice to be able to send someone from our district to go. Wonderful. Mr. Russo.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. Thank you for the report. So I know that making trainings available is different than mandatory because of contracts. Yes. So for the zones of regulations, I see that we want to make it so that in the next few years, there'll be the opportunity to participate. Yes. When it comes time for contract negotiations, it's good to know whether or not We provided the opportunity, and we provided the opportunity, and we are at 20% of people taking those opportunities versus 95%. Because if it's 95%, we don't have to bring it into the negotiations. But if the school committee wants this to happen, and we provide the opportunities, and few people are taking the opportunities, then maybe during negotiations, we would decide to make that part of the contract. And I find that not just on this, but in several other reports, never get a sense of what was the total number of teachers that could have taken the training? What was the total number that actually took the training? And making something mandatory in part of the contract costs money. We don't want to add something and make it mandatory if virtually everybody's doing it voluntarily. don't know what it means to make the opportunity available, and from a rollout perspective, does that mean most of the teachers will have actually done it or not? And I'm not saying you have an answer for that, but just sort of a bit of a pontification about some of these words and how they don't give me the information I feel like I need. And I do have another question, though. I have a bunch of questions. The survey, 92% of the respondents strongly agreed. How many respondents was that, and how many possible respondents was that?
[Schulman]: That's a good question. I'll have to look into that.
[Ruseau]: I'll just keep going with my questions. On the Columbus Elementary LGBTQ youth training that Desi did, which I was very happy to see, we aim to provide the training at all of our schools. I would be more than confident in saying that none of our schools do not have LGBTQ youth. So this is one of those things where having the training available at all the schools, I mean, what's the timeline? Are we talking like in the spring? Or are we talking in the next few years? Because all those students, that would benefit from this aren't getting the benefit until their teachers and the administration have been through the training. I don't think you have answers to these questions.
[Unidentified]: That's okay.
[Ruseau]: I'm sort of asking them out loud. The NAN project on suicide prevention, I see it says high school has been more than enough recent high-profile middle school suicides to make me question why we aren't doing it there.
[Schulman]: Yeah, so we asked the NAN project about that. They have not solidified a program for the middle school level, but they have graciously asked us to work with them this year to look at their curriculum on what they would be providing middle schools with the hope of rolling it out next year. And they would offer it to Medford for no cost, by the way. This is a free program they have provided to us. with the significant amount of staff time that they are providing for our training.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's awesome. Thank you. Nope, that was my last question. Thank you very much.
[Burke]: Thank you. Can I just follow up with one question in your second paragraph? You mentioned the committees, the school emotional learning committees, and you said there are individual committees at each of the schools?
[Schulman]: That is the goal.
[Burke]: That is the goal, so that's not in place right now?
[Schulman]: Not yet.
[Burke]: So we have our administration that has a committee, and then we have community partners. Who are the community partners?
[Schulman]: So we're meeting with the Board of Health, We're hoping that the Medford Family Network will be joining us as well as Elliott Human Services.
[SPEAKER_11]: Okay, so we have restarted it. Have we restarted it? We've had two meetings so far.
[Schulman]: So we're sort of building up to it.
[Burke]: I think it's really important that the teachers be involved as well, not just at the top level. Yes, I agree. Dig deep and get their input because they're dealing with the issues on the ground every day. So I think that's really important. Thank you.
[DiBenedetto]: Mr. Benedetto. So can we get Mr. Russo's very important questions in a follow-up report in the next few weeks after these trainings have come? Like how many people have come, all those specific questions. And we can email you them if you need them. That would be helpful. Thank you. So that way we don't expect people to come with the answers prior to the training. But after the training, it's really nice to have you come back and say how it went, how much participation, and if you feel like what went really well and what changes you would make for next time. And they were very good points. My question was, I just want to make sure we're incorporating the Curtis Tufts program that we have here. We have an alternative high school program. I would really like to see their presence at all of these trainings. These are experts that deal with children's needs all day, as well as our director of student services. They are experts within our district, and I think that they could bring a lot of value by their presence. And them going and hearing what this, whoever, all people, all parties attending, their concerns are, they also grow as educators and figure out what the needs are for the district and how to make our programs meet those needs. And it will help for pre-planning and being proactive rather than reactive about the needs within our community. So I strongly recommend that. And I motion to accept the report.
[Burke]: Thank you. Ms. O'Powell, would you like to comment, if you'd like to use Ms. Pretz's microphone? Yep. Come on up. We have to get her a water bottle.
[TWpH9s-16mQ_SPEAKER_15]: Oh, hello. I am a high school senior at Medford High School, and I work with several different clubs and part of it. And recently we've been talking a lot about mental health and mental health awareness. And I'm kind of curious about, you said here, We, on the second page, third paragraph, we said, we will also provide this training to a select member of junior and senior students in March. That's right. Will those students be from Erfurt High? Yes. And around which time will you be asking students to join you for the select training?
[Schulman]: So we're offering the training after the peer mentors speak within the health classes, and we're figuring out those dates coming up.
[TWpH9s-16mQ_SPEAKER_15]: And also another question, you said here that it's working towards mental health awareness in all different parts of the schools, all different school buildings. Is that through QPR and Risk to Resiliency, or is that?
[Schulman]: So Risk to Resiliency is the faculty professional development series. And the NAN project is offering the QPR training to faculty and some students as well.
[TWpH9s-16mQ_SPEAKER_15]: And how are you picking the students that will receive the training?
[Schulman]: I think it'll be through a volunteer basis after the peer mentors present in the health classes, as well as probably some nominations for club leaders as well.
[Burke]: That's all. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Ruggiero.
[Ruggiero]: Thank you, Mayor Burke. Thank you for the report. I just recently finished William Dersowitch's book, Excellent Sheep. and it talks about this idea of the raising rates of anxiety and depression among children and students in America. I wanted to know, do we compile statistics about reported incidences of depression in our school system?
[Schulman]: We have the Community That Cares survey that surveys students and asks them some questions related to this, but we do not have specific data on every student if they have been specifically diagnosed with anxiety or depression.
[Wray]: So any student that has a physician-diagnosed mental health illness that comes through on a physical or as part of any ongoing case management with the nurses, we do keep that data.
[Ruggiero]: for children of a certain socioeconomic class, they might not necessarily have access to. I'm just curious, like, when children come in and report a scenario or report suicidal thoughts, for example, is that information recorded?
[Wray]: by different burials like that gets a little bit more difficult because the school brains system doesn't, I'm not able to pull that out. I have to go hand by hand through every single one. So no, it's not broken out like that. But I do know the incidents of For example, last year in the end-of-the-year status report that goes to the Department of Public Health, district-wide we had 660 students with a physician-diagnosed mental illness.
[Ruggiero]: That's like a fourth of our students. No, like an eighth of our students.
[Wray]: parents have the, um, they have the ability to control who knows that information and who doesn't. So, um, I think that's probably a smaller number than what may be out there, um, because of, you know, the parent has the discretion on whether they, whether they disclose that or not.
[Ruggiero]: Sure.
[Wray]: Statistically, it's 20%.
[Ruggiero]: Statistically, it's 20%. And is that what we found with the surveys, where students self-reporting that statistic? On the survey, do you say, I have suicidal thoughts, for example? Is that on the survey?
[Wray]: There is a self-report of anxiety and depression, and actually I've been working with a lot of these numbers for a grant that I'm putting together. On the Community Care Survey from 2017, 31% of our high school and middle school students reported, self-reported having feelings of depression and anxiety. So there's more self-report than there is physician diagnosis.
[Ruggiero]: And do you have a sense of how that's changed over time, or is that number remaining consistent?
[Wray]: I don't know how that's changed over time. I've only looked at the most recent survey, which was 2017.
[Ruggiero]: I think it would be very helpful for me if we could look for a report, while we're doing the obesity report, if we could have sort of a health day. It would be interesting for me to see reports and statistics about obesity, statistics about mental health, and also statistics about drug use as well, because I would like to see sort of the many different comorbidities, I guess, of health in our system.
[Wray]: I can tell you about our most recent data on that as well.
[Ruggiero]: Oh, okay, great.
[Wray]: So depending on age, the high school data for tobacco use, vaping and, tobacco use, no, excuse me, vaping, marijuana, and alcohol ranges between 19% and 24%.
[Ruggiero]: Do you have a sense if children are self-medicating? If they're using alcohol, for example, to treat their depression?
[Wray]: I assume that's a likely assumption. In middle school, the rates were lower. It was between 6% and about, I want to think, 13%.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[Burke]: We can compile those statistics. That would help get very much involved in that as well.
[Ruggiero]: To the chair, Dr. Edward-Vincent, are these statistics provided to the state versus different school systems? It would be interesting for me to know how Arlington is doing, how Medford's doing, how Somerville's doing, like our sister cities in the neighborhood. What are the health factors of those districts? Would they report to the state?
[Edouard-Vincent]: Um, I'm not going to say yes, but I don't know how much of it I actually would have access to, but I'm willing to.
[Wray]: So every, um, school districts that receive essential school health services grants, they have to report that, um, this data on the end of the year status reports. And we also report monthly data to the Department of Public Health. I don't know what, I mean, I don't have access to other districts' data. They used to compile this in a report, and I haven't seen them recently on the Department of Public Health website.
[Ruggiero]: I mean, it would be interesting for me to, maybe we could request that from the Department of Education. Public health. Oh, public health or education. I'm not sure where the data would be compiled. But it would be very interesting for me to know how we're doing, and especially in regards to Like I said, other factors that maybe if we improved diet, we'd also help depression, help drug use as well. Thank you.
[Burke]: Very good. Mr. Russo.
[Ruseau]: Last year, I think it was in December, I attended a school committee meeting at the high school because of construction here. And there was a report on a survey
[Burke]: That was at public health. That was Penny that presented to the school committee. We had the meeting at the high schools.
[Ruseau]: Yes. Is that an annual? Yes. And so will we be having that again in December or whenever? OK, great. Thank you.
[Wray]: The communities that care survey is also scheduled to be conducted again February of 2019. So we'll be gearing up to send out those surveys again.
[Burke]: Thank you. Very good. Is there a motion for approval as amended by the questions that have been asked this evening? So moved by Ms. Van der Kloot, seconded by Mr. Benedetto. All those in favor?
[Perry]: Aye.
[Burke]: All those opposed? Motion passes. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Report on Professional Development Day, November 6, 2018.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Dr. Bernadette Rigodelli, Director of E-12.
[Ricciardelli]: Good evening, Mayor Burke, Superintendent Edouard-Vincent, and members of the Medford School Committee. So I'm here tonight to give you an overview report on the first of two district-wide professional development days. So this professional development day occurred on Tuesday, November 6th. Again, it was district-wide. The venue was varied. It occurred in almost every school in the district. I believe the only school that we did not have workshops taking place was the Roberts. Robert's faculty obviously were engaged in the workshops, but just not on site. So a majority of the teachers on the elementary level attended one of two workshops. So if they were K-2 teachers, they attended the RTI training workshop, which was a day-long workshop. If they were teachers of grades three to five, they attended the math protocols workshop. The Math Protocols Workshop was a Department of Ed sponsored workshop that several of us in the district, including myself, were trained on last year. So again, it was a protocol developed by the Department of Ed to acclimate teachers on how to best teach students with learning disabilities. On the secondary level, both middle and high school, most of the teachers participated in workshops in the morning that were content-related, and in the afternoon which were building-related. And then there were other workshops that were more specific in nature to a specific area. So for example, physical therapists had their workshop, occupational therapists, their workshop, speech-language pathologists had their workshop. A more detailed breakup of the 28 workshops that took place can be found in the packet that you were given prior to this meeting tonight. A really important part of what we do when we have a professional development day is to gauge how people feel about how the day went. So you will see in the report that we gauge their feeling by asking them five questions. And we also gave them an opportunity to write their own open response, which we have. But for the purposes here, to keep it quantitative, I have the results of the following. So we asked these five prompt questions. The first was, I feel the objectives of the workshop were met. So on a scale of one to five, the respondents, on average, responded with a 4.7. The second prompt, the presenter of the workshop was or were well prepared. So in a number of cases there was more than one presenter. And the mean result of that was a 4.9, again on a scale of 1 to 5. The third prompt, the presenter allowed enough time for questions. The result there was 4.8. The fourth prompt, I feel this program can be incorporated into my curriculum. That rated a 4.5. And then lastly, I feel that this program balanced theory and practice. So the mean there was a 4.6. So a comment was made earlier about how many respondents does this include. I will tell you there were about 745 respondents, keeping in mind that some teachers attended two workshops. So we don't have 740, I think it was 745 or 743 teachers in the district, but several attended more than one. To get a little bit more specific because it was raised and we talked about the non-project, there were 64 respondents for the non-projects. I'm just giving you specific here. All of the prompts for those questions occurred within a similar range to the responses that I gave you for the whole. The lowest being a 4.2 and the highest being a 4.9. So I think that the responses, the response averages that you have in the report were pretty indicative of the results of the district-wide workshops. Many of the workshops were conducted by specialists in their field. Other workshops were conducted by highly trained, competent, skilled people within the district. So I think we had a good mix. Overall, anecdotally, from looking at those open response questions, we had a very good response. I will say that we had one teacher who told me when I was at the McGlen, and I think you shared it with Dr. Edouard-Vincent, that in his 12 years in the district, this was by far the best PD he had had, and I will say that was from a social studies group. And I know that social studies group was very, very happy, as was I. So overall, I would say it was very positive. I am happy to answer any questions that you have.
[Burke]: Ms. Riccadeli, did you ask for any suggestions at the end of it, if people, teachers, professionals, would like to see a certain topic covered? I know this is very expansive, what you did offer.
[Ricciardelli]: So many of the respondents were happy that we offered a lot of content-related professional development, because that has been an issue of concern in the past. I think a lot of people wanted more time. That was a comment that came up over and over. They wanted more time, especially in those content-related workshops. We try to balance it, because there are things that are really important for teachers to hear. For example, the non-project, that's important. So where teachers in the foreign language perhaps may have wanted to stay in their grammar workshop, it was important for them to get the balance of getting the non-project. So I think it's always kind of a struggle on how you divide your time. To specifically answer your question, I think more time with the content was feedback that I saw over and over in the 740 plus responses.
[Burke]: Very good. Mr. Russo.
[Ruseau]: Thank you for answering my first question before I asked it. I had a question. Well, first I wanted to say I was really excited to see that Teaching Pathways through the Music Curriculum was in there. That sounds wonderful. And I have to assume that one was very well received based on all the other ratings.
[Ricciardelli]: It was. And I have the ratings. To go through them right now, I do have them readily available. It was good. Both of the music workshops were conducted by in-district teachers who are very highly respected.
[Ruseau]: And then my last question is, so around the curriculum review and media technology, the computer science frameworks that I see and I have actually, I think read them all, the Massachusetts ones, and I know that the federal ones put out during the Obama administration were, really they were computer science frameworks. And what Massachusetts adopted was this sort of watered down thing that Massachusetts legislature thought we could probably do something like that. So their computer science frameworks includes typing and using a mouse, which is not a computer science, isn't in the computer science framework. So I'm just wondering if we are just sticking straight to the computer science frameworks, or are we going to go above and beyond to do what we really should be doing?
[Ricciardelli]: So with regard to the keyboarding and that, that is also found in the ELA framework. So in between what is expected for typing open responses in ELA as far as standardized testing and the standards. I think it's a mix. I think what you're getting at, what you're asking is, are we dealing with the higher order thinking computer science skills? I think there's always room for improvement. We are sticking with the Massachusetts frameworks. And I think your question really begs some more discussion with regard to that.
[Ricciardelli]: Not tonight. Thank you. I don't have the answer for you. Are there any other questions? Mr. Giro?
[Ruggiero]: Yeah. Just like everyone else, I've attended good PD days and terrible PD days. How did we do last year?
[Ricciardelli]: So we had two professional development days last year. If you remember, the second of the two was the day that we devoted to security, which I believe was February 26th. So I'm going to go back to the one last November. I didn't bring the results with me.
[Ruggiero]: Yeah, that's what I was curious about, the survey response.
[Ricciardelli]: So what I will say is that we did not have as many workshops as we did this time. So there were 28 this time. I don't remember offhand how many we had. I don't remember the responses being as rich and as good as these. The last time I thought we had a very positive reaction from the respondents was when our professional development committee helped out and we did it collectively with our professional development committee. So I think that was two years ago. So I'd have to look back to look at the numbers. We do keep them. So I think that's probably the best answer I can give you. That's fine.
[Ruggiero]: That's fine. And I wanted to know, how often does the PD committee meet the professional development committee?
[Ricciardelli]: The PD committee has not met in I'm not sure when the last time. I would say it's, I think 2017 was the last time I met.
[Ruggiero]: Okay. And so did you pick out these workshops yourself or did you work with the superintendent to find these workshops?
[Ricciardelli]: This was a group effort. It was the superintendent, it was Diane Caldwell, the associate superintendent, it was our directors. We do things collaboratively. I certainly cannot take You know, I'm not responsible for the entirety of this project. It really was a group effort.
[Ruggiero]: Well, thank you very much for putting it on.
[Burke]: Very good. Is there a motion on the floor to accept this report placed on file by Mr. Benedetto, seconded by Ms. Van der Kloot? All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes. Next, report on ABCD award to Marie Cassidy. Ms. Caldwell.
[Caldwell]: Good evening, everyone. I'd like to call Marie Cassidy up, please. So most of you have already read the report that's already on the blog that Lisa Evangelista provided, and it's part of this report. On October 26th at the Marriott Copley Plaza Place, the 2018 ABCD Community Heroes Celebration was held. Our own Marie Cassidy, longtime director of Medford Family Network, was one of the 20 who received this Community Hero Award. For me, this is pretty exciting. We celebrate our kids all the time. We bring them to you. And now I get to bring you one of our own to celebrate Marie Cassidy. So it makes me very happy to do this. Marie has been director of Medford Family Network for 25 years. She is an advocate, tireless advocate, for our students. She works with community collaborations all the time. She supports our EL families. She helps families connect with resources to other communities. She has a summer fun program, which some people don't know, but I'll tell you in a minute how much it means to me. She reads stories all the time. You just walk by Marie's office and her rooms, and it's filled with joy. That's how I feel. So I'm going to tell you two quick stories. One is about an opportunity that I had to listen to a family tell their story of sadness and despair. This family lost their own child, and they were floundering emotionally themselves. They were unable to help their younger son cope. A friend suggested they go to see Marie Cassidy at Medford Family Network. Marie helped this family find their way back again. Councilors helped this family get strong so that they could support themselves and their son. Through utilization of the Medford Family Network, playgroups, parenting education programs, and the referral services, this family flourished. to the point that they became leaders of the Parent Advisory Board. And now this mother is offering a parent education program herself, paying it forward, all thanks to Marie Cassidy. This mother shared her story with the Children's Trust when I was at a meeting one time. It really touched my heart. But another wonderful thing that Marie Cassidy does is Her husband wanted to take her on vacation. This is really hard for Marie, because she's a worker. She's a workaholic, doesn't like to leave. So he said, I have tickets for Paris, I think it was. And he said, you have to go. So Marie asked me, she said, Diane, can you just do a play group for me at Wright's Pond? Well, I'm up for any kind of game. So I said, well, what do I have to do? She said, well, just show up and pick up the stuff and put it in your car. I had no idea what stuff Marie had. If you've been to her rooms, you've seen how much stuff. So we piled, I think there were two cars filled with stuff. Toys, games, blankets, all kinds of stuff. Books, yeah, everything. Blocks, so the kids come to Wright's Pond and everybody's playing. But one of the best parts for me was the singer-dancer we had. that was playing games and singing and the kids were up there, but I really think I danced just as much, if not more, than those kids. So for me, it is my pleasure and my honor to recognize Ms. Marie Cassidy for all she does for us.
[Burke]: Please come up here and address the audience.
[Unidentified]: All the way up here, yes, all the way.
[Burke]: The Medford Public Schools is proud to recognize Marie Cassidy for receiving the Community Hero Award signed by all of us. Thank you. It really is. We're so proud to know you. And she always puts the families and the children first, always. I can speak of a Rights Pond story, too. I don't want to embarrass her, but we were doing a night with the performances up at Rights Pond this past summer, and Marie, got rear-ended. Her car got rear-ended as she was approaching the pond. Does she stop, panic, go home? No. She pulls her car up, the trunk's all pushed in and everything else. All the toys were in there. And she's like, don't worry about me. I'm fine. I have to get these for the kids. And I'm like, oh my god, I wouldn't be panicking. But always, everything you do, the 1,000 million lights that you put up here for your event, We just took them down, I think. But you do an amazing job. Thank you very much. And you're such a spirit in our community. Thank you very, very much. Thank you. Can I say a few words? Yes, it's all yours.
[SPEAKER_17]: Thank you so very, very much. As you know and you heard, I absolutely love the opportunity that I've been given to do this. I'm a born and bred MIFA girl, and I can say that. And I absolutely love the fact that I can give back to my community. And what I hope I've given to you was my years as a park instructor in Medford, as a arts and dramatic supervisor, as a teacher at the Roberts Junior High School, as a social worker, as a Head Start director, a Head Start teacher, a community development specialist for the Office for Children, and a grant writer. That was a really important part. So pulling that all together, I was given the opportunity to start this program 25 years ago. And I have been loving every single minute of it. The joys, the frustrations, the challenges, and the ever-changing Medford that we have going, right? It's changing all the time. And we have to grow and change with it. So I hope we've done it. But I have not done this alone. I have an amazing staff that works for me and with me. I have an amazing community. the government here in Medford. I have an amazing business community, organizations, the hospital. Collaborations and partnerships go on and on and on. And we continue to make them. And that's the beauty of this. We want to continually grow, never replicate or duplicate, but always give the best we can. And together, together, we will do this. Again, I want to tell you how I am blessed with an amazing staff. playgroup leaders, parenting educators, child care staff, outreach workers, ESOL teachers who really love what they're doing. We all have that kind of passion. And I think it reflects back to the Medford school system who opened those doors for this to happen. The school committee opened those doors and continue to open those doors to let it all happen. I want to very briefly tell you the five protective factors under which all of our programs, everything we do, all the fun stuff and the tough stuff are underpinned by. And they are social connections. We want to make sure our families are not isolated and alone. For all of our families who live or work in Medford. Parent resilience. When those tough days come, it may be next year, it may be last year, we want that bounce back factor so parents can have opportunities through me, through my staff, through our programs, through information and referral services to get what they need to bounce back. We're a child abuse prevention program as well as an education program. We offer child development and parenting education information. So we are peppered with all kinds of opportunities, single-shot programs, long-term curricula, all kinds of ways where parents continually learn how to be the best they can be. kids can be difficult. Behavior issues are everywhere. So how do we become better at dealing with them? That's what we do. The fourth one is concrete supports in times of need. You may have heard about my mitten trail for the holiday help, about my turkey trail to help our families with food support and all of that. That's concrete supports in times of need. It may be short-term, it may be long-term housing issues. domestic violence issues, we're there to help concrete supports in real ways. If we can't give it, then we'll get it for you in the best way we can. And the last one we spoke about a little earlier this evening is social and emotional competencies in children and adults. So we do that. We offer all kinds of programs from birth up to age eight. So we get the parents in there early in the ballgame. And I know we need to do more of it because we haven't reached every single family yet. But with your help, we can continue to do that. So I'm going to cry, but I am blessed to be here. I am blessed to be here. And to be a hero, I guess we're all heroes together, OK? We're all doing this together for our families. So thank you very much.
[Burke]: Marie, other side. That machine's in the way. Congratulations. Is there a motion to receive this report? Placed it on file by Mr. Benedetto, seconded by Mr. Russo. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion passes. Report on Grade 8 Open House.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Yes, Paul DeLava, Headmaster, and Principal Chad Collin. Good evening.
[D'Alleva]: Good evening, Mayor Burke, School Committee, Dr. Edouard Vincent. On Thursday, October 18th, from 6.30 to 8.30 p.m., the MHS and MVTHS Complex had our annual 8th grade open house. This year we tried to do something a little bit different than previous years, where we tried to do student-led tours throughout the building, hitting certain stations and certain spots. The second half of the night, which we thought would work out as well if people wanted to come later, we tried to do a self-guided tour. So if you entered the building, you could have got a map. and head in that direction. In an analyzation of the night, we did notice there was a lot more student-led tours than self-guided tours that were coming into the building. The reason why the format had changed is I'd met with a few families that were looking for a different experience than what they had before. Utilizing some things that I had done at the Andrews and hoping that we could do some things a little bit different up at the high school as well as the vocational school, kind of became the brainchild of this program. During this time, students went to designated areas, certain areas within science labs and certain areas within classrooms. the club fair, the gymnasium, vocational shops. What we came to realize is that there's a lot of stops for a short amount of time. Based on feedback that we asked from families after that night, I think it was a good night overall, but not everybody could get where they needed to go. As a matter of fact, I think we did a laudation When it got to the self-guided tours, we then decided to kind of invite people to break off and go into areas that they could leave their student-led tour and go into different areas of that evening. I did try to say goodnight to everybody to see as a sort of formative assessment how the night went. And people left pretty positive regarding this. We did send out the survey a little later, and again, feedback, maybe we should send it out a little earlier. I think I sent it out the next day, and we didn't get as many responses as I'd hoped to have gotten. But again, responses are good either way, so it helps us reflect on what we need to adapt. That's my end, if there's anything that you'd like to add as well.
[Fallon]: No, just that we had our 17 programs open on the vocational side. We had demonstrations in five of our programs ongoing throughout the evening, so parents could see students actually working on things, live projects. T-shirts were being made in graphic arts, carpentry theater project, media tech. Everything was open, but there were certain shops that were doing demonstrations. It's the second year we've done that. So last year I tried it. It was a big hit. So each year, we'll try to rotate through a few different programs. Or at some point, we might have even more giving demonstrations. But I echo what Paul said. There's just not enough time. And it'd be great if we're going to streamline it. And we're going to really figure out how to do it even better next year.
[DiBenedetto]: Very good. Thank you. Mr. Benedetto. I just had a question. I know in the past, you used to do two different nights, one for vocational and one the high school side. And I know since the merger that we try to combine it because it is one school with two programs. And I just want to make sure students that not necessarily think the high school might be for them might get that opportunity. And the opposite as well, students that might not have thought of the vocational programming or looking at it have that opportunity. So I do like the idea of it. It's just a lot to cover in one evening. And I just was wondering how, you know, if you're going to have another night and maybe in the spring, just because people weren't able to get around.
[D'Alleva]: So I think the challenge we run into, and there's a few challenges that go into it. Number one, we don't want people to think that There's a vocational side and a high school side. We want everybody to know that this is now one school. So a lot of the reasons of doing it the same night is to kind of keep that same message that's coming across, that it's not Medford High School, it's not us, it's both of us as one. There's some contractual things we run into. I will say on the high school side, that's volunteering. On the vocational side, that was their night of service per the contract. So we also run into those kinds of issues as well of trying to figure out what's going to be the contractual night of service, which as of right now, the second night of parent-teacher conference nights are going on at the high school. So we have to always try to divvy up the use of having people come at night. I'm sure a lot of people love to volunteer, and I will say that. A ton of people volunteered. That was not really the issue. It's, I guess, again, how do you balance so many stops and so little time?
[Van der Kloot]: I did get to attend the evening, and I did find it very difficult to get around to all the different places. I joined a tour group. I will say the kids were great, and I heard and read in here, in your report, which is terrific, even though you didn't get that many responses, the responses you did get were very helpful. And many of them mentioned how terrific the tour guides were. But I was a little bit concerned because it did seem that it was hard I went back and, you know, went back to the CCSR and then it was all the way back around and it was like, whoa, this isn't, you know, and I started to see people sort of leave their tour group, which was problematical. The other thing is, and it's just because you're before me, I'm going to ask the question. In here, a couple people mentioned it was very hot and I think they were referring particularly to the vocational school. After that evening, I asked John McLaughlin, about the heat issue, and he did tell me that someone was coming in on November 6th. Is it better now?
[D'Alleva]: Yes, it feels better.
[Van der Kloot]: Yeah, good. Because I haven't followed it up in any other way, you know what I'm saying, and so I just was curious how it was.
[D'Alleva]: May I respond?
[Van der Kloot]: Yeah, please.
[D'Alleva]: I understand where it was problematic getting to everywhere, but I want to take note that this is the first time we've tried something like this. Sure. It will always be things that we need to improve on. So again, it was a brainchild. It was something we were going to try differently. Being my experience at the Andrews and knowing the feedback I received from parents in eighth grade at the time from last year, I tried to take that into account this year regarding things that were concerning on the last open house. So a lot of the reasons why we did the student-led tours was to kind of see if that would balance out.
[Van der Kloot]: Sure. Paul, my comments aren't meant to be a criticism. Oh, no, no, no. Of course not. It's just a question of the fact is that you've got a lot of things to showcase and, you know, it's a relatively short two hours of showcasing them. So I'm glad, you know, that it went as well as it did and that, you know, as you, I think it's a continual refinement process. Yes, absolutely.
[D'Alleva]: Absolutely.
[Burke]: Do you plan another one later in the year?
[D'Alleva]: So again, we go through the challenges of the contract, which is determining what nights we can have people there. For us, it would be another volunteer night. On the vocational side, they have advisory committees as well that are contractually there. So it's not like we would not try not to do something like that. It's just, again, getting the manpower and getting the whole, everything situated again and planned out.
[Fallon]: And I can say too that the teachers on the vocational side, when we met after it to debrief, there are a large amount of teachers that would do something again. We talked about doing it on a Saturday, we talked about doing it on a Sunday for a couple hours for some of the programs to be open. I have to tell you, probably almost all of my teachers would come back because they're passionate, because they want to show. So we have a few things in the works. I'll be reporting to you later in the year. One being that when I go and visit the eighth graders, we're going to provide opportunities for them to come over. We're going to provide a bus. Anyone who's interested and wants to come over, they're going to be able to. It doesn't get the parents, but sometimes that's OK. Sometimes it's good for the students to come and experience it, get excited, and go home and talk to the parents. So there's going to be opportunities for them to come back in a different capacity. So stay tuned, because we do have some ideas.
[Burke]: Excellent. Very good. Thank you.
[DiBenedetto]: Mr. Benedetto. I'll follow up to that. I know that they had summer program, like a preview of different programs that the high school vocational programming offers. Is that going to be in the works for next summer as well? Yes. And can we advertise that very early?
[D'Alleva]: Yeah, we tend to think that was advertised around March, actually, when we received it. Very good.
[Kreatz]: Ms. Kurtz. Yes, I just wanted to thank you for the report. And I was there that night, too, with Paulette. And I joined a tour, and I really liked the student-guided tours and reading the survey. I think a lot of people did, and they liked seeing all the students in the classrooms. And so I was wondering, you know, some of the comments mentioned that maybe if the tours were a little bit shorter, like maybe like two minutes or three minutes instead of five minutes, and maybe could they cover, couple of different programs like side-by-side on one floor because I noticed that some of the tours went right by some of the programs that the kids were waiting outside and they just kind of walked right by those programs and you know I kind of felt bad and they said oh where are they going are they coming back and you know and and I know that they had to stick to their tour groups but and I know you were just trying it out for the first time this year but I did I really liked the tours because having somebody walk you around it was more organized. But I know to get through all those programs, it would take hours.
[D'Alleva]: And I will say, it's not a well thought out science, especially when you're doing it. When I did it at the Andrews, there are some people that are very passionate about what they're presenting. So the two minutes, even if you try and you prep and keep it to two minutes as best you can, you can't stifle the excitement that's what they're presenting. So sometimes it goes over on that end of it as well. Again, things in the works, I think like Chad had said, we both debriefed. We debriefed with staff. We're looking on how to improve. I don't think taking this format away is exactly the right way to go in my feeling, but I think there's plenty that we can adapt and improve on.
[Kreatz]: And there was one comment that I really liked, and it talked about the cleanliness of the school. I was, you know, really impressed because that's something that we don't hear a lot about. So that was something that I was excited about. I'm just going to try to find it here.
[Burke]: We'll thank Carolyn for that. Yeah, no, it was awesome.
[Kreatz]: I was, wow, that was amazing, you know.
[D'Alleva]: Don't worry, I met them again on Friday.
[Kreatz]: So I just wanted to, you know, I mean, I really appreciate the survey results and, you know, thank you very much, both of you. Thank you.
[Burke]: Thank you very much. Is there a motion to receive this report and place on file by Ms. Van der Kloot, seconded by Ms. Kreatz? All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes. And our report on Veterans Day. Ms. Chiesa?
[Edouard-Vincent]: Yes. Dr. Chiesa, our Director of Humanities.
[Chiesa]: Good evening, Mayor Burke. Good evening. Superintendent Edouard Vincent and members of the school committee, how are you? To commemorate Veterans Day, the Humanities Department and the Office of Veterans Services work together to sponsor the Veterans Day speaker program at the high school. This is the program's 18th year, and it provides high school students and faculty with the opportunity to directly interact with veterans. Veterans visit various high school classrooms, They discuss with their students combat and non-combat experiences, and it's an enormously rewarding experience. This year's program took place November 8th, on Thursday, November 8th. And again, it was co-coordinated between the Director of Veteran Services, Mr. Michael Durham, and myself. The day began in the superintendent's conference room at 7.30 in the morning. We had a breakfast of coffee and donuts that was graciously provided by the Dunkin' Donuts in West Medford. And we also had juice and fruit provided by food services department at the high school. We had a wonderful lunch also with sandwiches and various salads provided by food services department. As a special touch, we had Noah Kreatz, a graduate of Medford Vocational Technical High School, present his exhibit of war memorabilia. And this was his collection that he's graciously shared with the veterans and got quite a lot of questions and a lot of enthusiasm from everybody. Throughout the day, on this particular day, we had 13 veterans who were from several different eras, including the Vietnam War, the Persian Gulf War, and the Iraq War. They visited 46 classrooms and they provided us with a wonderful overview. Mayor Burke and Superintendent Edouard-Vincent were also in attendance, so thank you both for taking the time to join us. And many of the veterans, I just want to add, are graduates of Medford High School and Medford Vocational Technical High School. And it was a really wonderful day, as it's always been. The students were able to get a very authentic piece of history with our veterans. So thank you. Thank you.
[Burke]: Thank you. It was also an opportunity for Lieutenant Durham, who's our new veterans service director, to meet a lot of our veterans in our city, as well as the students and teachers at Medford High School. I know it was a great day. And many of our police officers are veterans, and they participated as well. So it was a great showing, I think, from the community at large.
[Chiesa]: It was wonderful.
[Burke]: To really hit home how important it is, and what they had to endure, and their families as well.
[Chiesa]: Yes. And if I might add. Mr. Durham was amazing. Working with him is his first year. And he hit the ground running. And he did a great job when we worked closely together. And a lot of the veterans, they give up their day to come. Most of them came and spent the whole day with us. A lot of them are working the night shift if they're a police officer later in the day. And they really very graciously spent time with the students and very much appreciate it. Thank you.
[Burke]: We have a question.
[TWpH9s-16mQ_SPEAKER_15]: I don't have a question but more like a statement. So I came to Medford High in February and I've been to three different high schools overall. And Veterans Day has always been very mundane. You don't really do much. Maybe you have a veteran's drive, but that's very separate from the regular school day. So the first time seeing veterans come to school and having them involved and having people ask questions, and I had a lot of friends and peers talk to me about veterans coming to their classes. I didn't have one in my class for separate reasons, but I thought it was just a very awesome thing to see, and it was very nice to see how they related back, and how the teachers talked about it, and I thought it was very meaningful to the veterans and other people, and it seems very sincere, so thank you for that. Thank you for saying that. Thank you very much. We appreciate that. Thank you for sharing that with us.
[Burke]: Thank you. Nice job. Is there a motion to receive this report and place it on file? Yes. Moved by Mr. Rousseau, seconded by Ms. Vanden Heuvel. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. The next item is negotiations and legal matters, which is there a motion to move this paper out of order to put to the end of the docket? There's a motion by Ms. VanCleef, seconded by Mr. Russo. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion has it. New business. Whereas community participation is critical to a well-functioning school system, and whereas many parents find evenings difficult to arrange child care so that they can attend scheduled meetings, therefore be it resolved that the school committee schedule community participation meetings on two Saturday afternoons every year Through participation with parent-teacher groups, child care and entertainment will be made available to parents. In addition to school committee activities, other school volunteer groups will post opportunities for further parent engagement. The dates of these events will be determined at the convenience of the superintendent of schools, Mr. Ruggiero, the author of this item.
[Ruggiero]: Yet when I decided to run for school committee, one main question motivated me. Simply stated, I wondered, with over 4,000 students and $58 million in assets, why are most school committee meetings so poorly attended by parents? Before I ran, I feared that it is as they say on TV. People were simply disinterested and disengaged in local politics. But knocking on thousands of doors, a passion and brilliance drove me to continue. After a few months, an obvious answer arose. It was our timing. People have amazing energy and ideas to help drive our schools forward. But 7 o'clock on a Monday is a challenging, if not almost impossible time for many parents to voice their opinions. Dozens of parents have voiced support for a biannual weekend meeting such as I have proposed. But tonight's meeting time came into conflict with, and these are real responses I got from tonight, late night work schedules that just came up, the parent-teacher conference that are coming up, bedtimes, family dinner. Thus, I suggest we hold a meeting when parents can attend. As you can hear in the resolution, I suggest two meetings held on perhaps a Saturday afternoon every year. I propose we create an idea fair of sorts on important topics such as addressing our budget or energizing after school activities. The goals and themes of these meetings can be chosen by our committee and our superintendent to ensure that we are generating momentum to projects that we already have in the works. But I hope that we can really move forward real school committee meetings, where great ideas can begin to get some action. Additionally, I would like to invite Corey Check members of the PTO to help with child care, entertainment, and food during the event. With these amenities, busy parents don't have to wrestle dinner or childcare for frisky kids. Personally, I would love to see these events catered by our new bistro. But most importantly, I would like volunteer groups and PTOs associated with our schools to advertise opportunities for people to contribute. Clay Shirky coined the phrase cognitive surplus to describe the untapped energy and talent people have available after work. I honestly believe that the city of Medford contains hundreds of scientists that would love to open up and help out with STEM students. Hundreds of artists ready to inspire. Dozens of CEO dads and professor moms ready to open up their business and labs, if only asked at a time when they aren't at work or tucking in their kids. Before we open the floor, I want to acknowledge that I've left a lot of the details and dates of these meetings open to discussion. I know that our superintendent has to work out the details, and I hope to work with her as we move forward. Seeing that we are almost up to Christmas, perhaps only one meeting this year is possible. But I'm really excited about this proposal, and I can assure you many, many parents feel like that this would be a great addition to our school system. So thank you.
[Burke]: Thank you. On the motion, Mr. Russo.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. My question is, have you looked to see if other communities have done something along this line and their success?
[Ruggiero]: I've done a little broad research. I know that some private schools have done it in the past. When I was a teacher, private schools would hold a weekend open house backslash.
[Ruseau]: And I just want to make it, when I read this, I do not see that this is a school committee meeting. We will not deliberate, we won't have to have a quorum, the whole thing has to disband, or is this a school committee meeting you want to have where we take votes and there's roll call and somebody doesn't show up and the whole thing's over because we didn't have a quorum. So I just want to be clear which one you think. Yes, all the people that would be involved, yes.
[Ruggiero]: I mean, this is something that we can leave open to debate as well. But is it possible for us to have an official meeting where we're not following Robert's rules and therefore making it a very not
[Burke]: We would have, if I could interject, if it's a school committee meeting held on another day, it would be just like this. It would have to be like this. It wouldn't be like an open house, which a private school that doesn't have a school committee would offer where they want to show off their school, which is what they just did a few nights ago. That's very different than a committee meeting.
[Ruseau]: And I guess that's where I'm trying to really get at is because I've had conversations with Mr. Ruggiero and others about how this isn't a dinner table. And there's nothing physically or operationally we can do to make this feel like anything other than it is. If I could inject a point, there's no reason that we could have a recess for 15 minutes
[Ruggiero]: Some of the rules are just have a recess and just have a listening session as well, where we're all present. But if we do deliberate, if we do make decisions, yes, we would have to reform the committee or after a recess period.
[Burke]: Are you all set, Mr. Rizzo? Ms. Stone.
[Mustone]: I appreciate you wanting parents to get here. I'd love to see parents here often, but like most of us, we do also have kids with bedtimes and feeding dinner. We have eight subcommittees that I think if a parent has a real concern about an issue, we've all been emailed on that issue. And most of the time, if it's an issue that a number of parents are concerned with, it does get addressed at a subcommittee, whether it's buildings and grounds, community relations, curriculum, special ed. So if we only book this twice a year, the concern that might bring a parent out might not even be on the agenda for those two meetings a year. So I'm not sure if this would really get parents here. I think a meeting open to parents, like the community relations where parents have an actual concern about relations, they can come to the subcommittee meeting. Or if it's a concern about class size, we can bring it to curriculum and talk to the parents who are very concerned and make a time for them that works for them to get there, whether it's at 4 o'clock on a Wednesday or, you know, 7 o'clock on a Thursday night. I just, having two meetings a year, That doesn't mean their issue is going to fall on the agenda for those two meetings.
[Ruggiero]: I would like to suggest that we have a system, a way of thinking about it.
[Mustone]: Yeah.
[Ruggiero]: If something goes wrong, and it's really bad, all the parents show up. Wouldn't it be great if the system was, let's actually work together on making something right? A more proactive response in how we plan the policies of our schools. I feel like parents have reached out to all of us. I'm sure we all have solid problems that people have reached out that we've all done solutions.
[Mustone]: whether it's going to the high school for TLC with Mr. DeLava or doing a walk audit on Salem Street for parents at the Roberts. I know everyone here has done projects specific to parents who've reached out. So I haven't heard from parents saying that they haven't been heard or there's an issue that they would have come if it wasn't on a Monday night at 7. Maybe it's different parent group than I'm speaking with than you are speaking with. But I haven't yet heard a parent say, Mia, We need a meeting on a Saturday because the school committee is not hearing us or not addressing something that we've brought to your attention.
[Ruggiero]: Once again, like I said, I don't think that the question is, oh, there's some terrible thing that we're just not doing, per se, like a slide that needs to be prepared. I think the issue is more inviting people that have a resource available that they might be able to provide. And by creating a time when they can actually attend, they can actually begin to engage with the community and try to figure out how they can fit that resource into the needs of our schools. Are you all set?
[Mustone]: Yeah, I think we'll agree to disagree, at least on my side.
[Kreatz]: Ms. Krutz? Yes, so I have a question. Did we conduct any surveys with the community, like an online survey asking them, you know, would they come to a school committee meeting on a Saturday? We already have the calendar set for the year already, for the whole school year. And then contractually with the administrators that come and present, you know, can we, can they come and mandate, like we would actually have to, you know, mandate them to, you know, they work Monday through Friday, you know, late into the evening. They're away from their families all week, all night. And now we're going to have them, I'm sorry, you've got to be away from your family one more time. because we need you to come in on a Saturday. I mean, I'm just... Has anybody asked the administration, like, what are their thoughts or views, you know? Before we just jump right in and making a decision that we're going to have meetings on Saturdays, I was just curious what was done behind the scenes, because I haven't received any inquiries from parents asking to have a Saturday meeting either. So it came to me as, what is this all about? I didn't know. I was confused because it was almost the message we got was mentioning that there was a lot of communication between school committee members. And I was just wondering who, because I haven't been communicating on it or receiving messages myself. And I just, it brought up more questions, for example, sports and church, you know, athlete dancing and band. And those are going to be other reasons why parents can't come to the Saturday school committee meeting. Weddings, communions, birthdays, like it just goes on and on. Like there's more events on the weekends, Saturdays especially, doctor's appointments, dentist appointments. I know I tend to put my dentist appointments on Saturdays, you know, and a lot of families might. I mean, there's like, there's equally amount of reasons to have it on a Saturday, not have it on a Saturday. You know, it's just, I'm thinking maybe we should do a survey before we jump into making any decisions, and that's what I'm thinking.
[Burke]: Mr. Benedetto, and then Ms. Van der Kloot.
[DiBenedetto]: Thank you. So I really think that my colleague is trying to do is have like a brainstorming, meet the school committee, bring your talent and your ideas for us, like maybe a goal setting meeting with the school committee present, like to hear what the community thinks are priorities. thinks ways that they can join the school committee in different ways, the school department in different ways and be helpful, active participants in the school community as a whole as opposed to having a more formal meeting. If I'm hearing you correctly from what I'm hearing. And I think he's looking for an opportunity to have a way for people to access, to have access to us as a committee and to just like volunteer and give us ideas and priorities and like dialogue. More so than like an official meeting with administrators and That, is that what, am I hearing correctly? Is that more what you're looking for? I need some clarity on that. Community participation throughout the district in ways that parents and, you know, community participation and involvement both with the school department and the school committee. It's just to open it up, to hear the voices of the people in our community and to meet them and to see what they have to offer and what they'd like to do and what they see our future as. At least that's what I'm hearing and I could be off base. I don't know if my colleague wants to clarify a little bit more.
[Ruggiero]: I do an official survey. This is unscientific. We mis-explained it. Yeah, there's always going to be issues on the weekend as well. So some parents, they get told that Monday we may not be able to go on Saturday. But I do believe that if we create an event atmosphere, we create like child care or a movie that we project, create something that's more fun as well.
[Burke]: there's child care in the environment, maybe ice cream, that could also provide incentives. That happens at other events that we're all, that we're at. Ms. Van der Kloot, I'm sorry.
[Van der Kloot]: Right. So, Michael, I've been thinking about this a lot in different ways. One of the things, as soon as you just said ice cream, one of the things that I was thinking about is, and I think there are some things that you haven't really been able to participate in yet, So, for example, having a formal meeting and having all of this sort of information fair and volunteer fair and child care and entertainment seems at odds. They don't seem to fit together for me in terms. I'm not sure what the value is. But there is always value, always valuable being accessible to constituents. So part of the thing that many of us have done is, for example, in February, the MFN hosts the Ice Cream Social. It's a Saturday afternoon. And I was trying to say to myself, OK, so one piece, for example, is most often, certainly many of us are there. Maybe what we should do is start 45 minutes early or something and have an opportunity, meet the school committee members before we go and serve ice cream. Because we always go serve ice cream. Frankly, it's a great time to meet and interact with community members and their kids. And it's a lot of fun. But maybe there's a way to formalize a little piece of that so that there's a session beforehand or you know, we have our job to do. And of course, you have to be careful because you don't want to compete with the magician, okay? So that's one way. Another thing that we used to have was an evening with the superintendent, which the school committee members tended to show up at. And for a while, there was a period of time when we actually got a pretty good response. It was an opportunity then for the superintendent, and I might say, if we might say, an evening with the superintendent and school committee members for the community to come to hear the initiatives of the superintendent and school committee so that it was sort of understanding what the vision was of the body and doing something which was targeted I think the question that, and we've discussed volunteer work in the community engagement subcommittee has talked about volunteer work, to me that almost feels separate. Or we have a health fair that happens on Saturday. And the health fair would be, if you were to think about health care and volunteering, we already have an event. it's well attended, that we could combine a piece where the school committee members are present at that and we might set up other school activities to bring in that piece. As your resolution stands, I can't support it because I think that it's not focused enough to be valuable because it's going to be an awful lot of work. to create that event and wondering whether it will work. But to take your idea and say, which I think certainly has value, and to take a look at different pieces of it and say, how do we accomplish what you want to accomplish in existing venues which we could expand? without creating so much work, I think has value. So right now, rather than vote on it, I think the interesting thing is I think it should go back to the Community Engagement Subcommittee and that that would be the place to kind of sort out and to identify ways that we could work on this objective without going to one Saturday event. Now, the other piece of it, which I've mentioned to you just a little bit, I do think that one other thing that we might look at, maybe it comes at the same time when we do a superintendent thing, is helping inform the committee a little bit more about our budget. So, just another piece.
[Burke]: Are you making a motion to send it?
[Van der Kloot]: So I'm making a motion to send it to subcommittee.
[Burke]: Is there a second on the floor to send it to the subcommittee to work out some of the details? There's a second by Ms. Kreatz. All those in favor?
[Van der Kloot]: Aye.
[Burke]: All those opposed? Motion carries. Also, we have We'd like to send our sincere condolences to the family of Ernest Ernie Lorenz, who was of Pinnacle, New Hampshire. Prior to his retirement in 1991, he worked as a custodian for the city of Medford for 18 years, and he also had worked for the Hudson bus lines. Likewise, to the family of Mary Bullen, mother of Janet Ricardo, former Medford Public Schools secretary, and her husband Matthew Ricardo, former Medford Public Schools custodian. the grandmother of Michelle Bissell, who we all know works for Diane, executive assistant to the associate superintendent and her husband John, M.H.S. maintenance, and great-grandmother to Janelle DeSanto, kindergarten teacher at the Brooks Elementary School. If we could rise for a moment of silence on the passing of these two individuals. Ms. DiBenedetto. We're not ready to adjourn. We still have negotiations.
[DiBenedetto]: Oh, yeah. Before we move to executive session, could we just go over the requested reports? I think we've received some of them. And just make sure that the list is.
[Burke]: The first item is the status of PTO registration form, 10118.
[DiBenedetto]: If we could get an update of where we are on that in the next few weeks or early January, that would be great.
[Burke]: The status of the safety report has come to our attention that they have individual reports for each of the schools. We have not received those yet. As soon as they are received, we will schedule a committee meeting to discuss them in a high level fashion because they are deemed emergency management documents. So the documents will not be distributed to members of the committee or the public, obviously. But it will be highlighted narrative that will be delivered to us.
[DiBenedetto]: Will we receive one big report with every school?
[Burke]: You'll get one executive summary. And you will not get detailed information because of emergency management issues.
[DiBenedetto]: And is there a time? Do you have an idea of when that would be?
[Burke]: We're waiting to get the individual reports.
[DiBenedetto]: It's a part of the executive session.
[Burke]: Yeah, we're going to update later on.
[DiBenedetto]: Gotcha.
[Burke]: Disability awareness report, special ed subcommittee.
[DiBenedetto]: We had an update on that and we'll be having a follow-up meeting. I just want to speak with the superintendent about scheduling that and my associates, of course, as well as the special education and the special education pack.
[Burke]: And the next one is a January item. Very good. We had put negotiations and legal matters off to the end of the docket. Is there a motion from the committee to go into executive session by Ms. Mustone, seconded by Ms. Kreatz? Roll call vote, please.
[DiBenedetto]: Yes.
[Burke]: Yes, the vote is seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative, the motion passes. We will enter executive session and we will most likely adjourn, we will adjourn from opening up our executive session later on.
[Unidentified]: Thank you.
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