[cflR-3VqII8_SPEAKER_20]: and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
[Burke]: Item 2, approval of the minutes of the February 4, 2019 meeting. Motion to approve the minutes by Mr. Benedetto, seconded by Ms. Kreatz. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes. Approval of bills, transfer of funds. There's a motion on the floor to approve by Member DiBenedetto, seconded by Ms. Vandeclute.
[cflR-3VqII8_SPEAKER_20]: Roll call vote, please.
[Burke]: 7 in the affirmative, 0 in the negative. Motion passes. Approval of payrolls. Motion to approve by Ms. Kreatz, Ms. DiBenedetto. Seconded by Ms. DiBenedetto. Roll call vote, please.
[cflR-3VqII8_SPEAKER_20]: Yes, 7 in the affirmative, 0 in the negative. Motion passes. Report of secretary. Is there none?
[Burke]: None.
[Van der Kloot]: Ms. Van der Kloot. I make a motion to suspend the rules in order to take up item number 7 under community participation, the Jingle Bell Road Race funds distribution, as well as items number 2, 3, 4, and 5 under the report of the superintendent Roman numeral 8.
[Burke]: very good there's a motion on the floor for suspension of the rules all those in favor all those opposed motion passes community participation miss judy lonigan of the jingle bell road race to do her annual fund distribution Hello. How are you? Good to see you.
[Mn4KS2yu_8U_SPEAKER_26]: And we have Mr. John Murphy from the Members Plus Credit Union.
[Burke]: Hello, Mr. Murphy. How are you?
[Mn4KS2yu_8U_SPEAKER_26]: Welcome. He's a co-sponsor with us. Thank you. Wonderful. Should I just use this? Sure. Okay. We are presenting the checks to the, we have probably 30 altogether, but not everybody's are being represented tonight. So I'm going to call on the schools that are being represented. And the first one will be St. Joseph's School, and they are represented by Jacob Yee, Lexi Davis, and Grace Launigan. Come up and get the checks. If all of you who have, and we also have Violet Launigan who's in kindergarten, she's not letting in. Anyone who's been getting checks, would you all just line up so we don't have to take up the whole night. So every school that has a representative of you, just line up. That would be great. All right, in there. Joseph. Can you move in a little bit, honey? Before we go any further, I'd just like to ask all of you, when we're finished, if you would just go down on the stairs so we can take a group picture with everybody. Okay, thank you.
[Burke]: How exciting. Thank you.
[Mn4KS2yu_8U_SPEAKER_26]: Our next recipient is St. Raphael's School, and Patrick Coughlin is representing St. Raphael's.
[SPEAKER_07]: $2,105.13. Wait a minute. Come here, Patrick.
[Mn4KS2yu_8U_SPEAKER_26]: Patrick, come here so your mother can take a picture. Did you take a picture? Mary Beth? Oh, go ahead. OK. I'd just like to explain how we got these crazy cent numbers. What happens is everything that the school, the kids raise, either through sponsorship, runners, or selling the chances, goes 100% back to them. Lonergan Insurance and Real Estate and Members Plus, we pay for all the expenses of the school for the race. The shirts, the timer, the advertising, whatever. We pay for it. So they get 100% back. But anyone who runs in the race and they don't designate which organization or which school that they would like to have their funds go to, goes in a pool. And then at the end, Elaine Rocha, who's like a dynamo, I wouldn't do this in a million years, she takes that proportion and she divides it so the Roberts gets a certain percentage and it goes down. The more money you raise for yourself, the more money you get out of the pool. So that's a good incentive for everybody to get their little acts together. The next one is crew. Crew we have We have Dylan Barbino, Isaac Bassman, Maya Gomez, Aaron Diskin, and Hannah Chin. 2178.09 The next one is the Columbus School, and Bob Russo is representing Columbus School. 4,902.63.
[Burke]: Our next one is the Andrews Middle School, Susan Powers, Liam Antwine, Jen
[Mn4KS2yu_8U_SPEAKER_26]: My god, my mind's gone blind. Overberg and Hunter Overberg. The boys, Hunter and Liam, really did a great job on really trying to raise as much money for the school as they could. They sold chances everywhere they could, bake sales, voting days, whatever. They really did a good job. So I'd like to commend these two boys for what they did. 1,868.51. Our next recipient is the Asian Club, Justin Truong, Mr. King Chen, am I saying this right? Wendy Van Vaughn, I'm sorry. It's so good to see you.
[Van der Kloot]: Congratulations.
[SPEAKER_07]: Congratulations.
[Mn4KS2yu_8U_SPEAKER_26]: I mean, when you ask her, she'll take a picture, and I'll get you one. Representing the McGlynn School is Jody Lu. And Mr. Tucci. Oh, Mr. Tucci, I'm sorry. Mr. Tucci and Jody Lu, the principal and vice principal. The McGlynn School is getting? 886.
[SPEAKER_07]: Next time I'll check your work.
[Mn4KS2yu_8U_SPEAKER_26]: Everybody else does, so that's nothing new. We have one for you. You do. It's $1,140.02. And I final is anyone else left besides oh, which Okay, all right I'm sorry McGlynn Oh, you're with the?
[cflR-3VqII8_SPEAKER_20]: Middle school, elementary school. Oh, OK. That's the 886.
[SPEAKER_07]: OK.
[cflR-3VqII8_SPEAKER_20]: And what is your name? Bailey Shindell.
[Mn4KS2yu_8U_SPEAKER_26]: Bailey Shindell is representing the Columbus. The Andrews, I'm sorry. There's a middle and an elementary. Elementary. Yep. OK. Thank you. Last but not least is the Roberts. And representing the Roberts is Aaron Sharon, General Labossonet, and Courtney O'Connell.
[SPEAKER_07]: Well, why don't you do some fundraising next time. $10,736.27.
[Mn4KS2yu_8U_SPEAKER_26]: Also, they get two trophies. They get one for the most funds raised and the other one is for the most participants.
[SPEAKER_07]: The other trophy is still there.
[Mn4KS2yu_8U_SPEAKER_26]: I'd like to say that the total this year is that you all raised, all these organizations, clubs, teams, schools, $31,809. And last year you earned $31,698, so it's only a difference of about $150. But we'll do better and bigger next year. Thank you very much.
[Van der Kloot]: Mayor Burke.
[Burke]: So we want to thank Ms. Lonegan and all the Jingle Bell team that puts us together. We know it takes a village to pull off this event. And also DPW police that are out there making sure everyone stays safe and all the volunteers because there's a whole host of you that help out. So thank you all for what you do. Thank you.
[DiBenedetto]: Mr. Benedetto. Thank you. I just wanted to speak of all of the different programs that Judy herself has run through for this city throughout many, many years. I've learned a lot from her. She has a great sense of humor, and she outworks me every single day, as well as most of her crew, like Rosemary and the audience and many others that join her. They are here tirelessly working on this event and many others that raise money not only for our schools, but like our Alzheimer's Center, our Memory Loss Center. They do phenomenal work, and I am gonna join the group someday. I keep saying it, I don't know when that is, but I... I have great respect, thank you for all you do.
[Mn4KS2yu_8U_SPEAKER_26]: And during the festival, we raised $54,000.
[Burke]: Ms. Van der Kloot. Incredible work.
[Van der Kloot]: Judy, you are such an inspiration to our community. And you and all of your team, Rosemary, all the team, thank you so very much. My colleague said it perfectly, so I'll just add my thanks from the bottom of my heart.
[Mn4KS2yu_8U_SPEAKER_26]: It takes a village, and somebody said earlier, when we had girls on the committee, especially for the festival, this is us, seven of you, right?
[Burke]: Thank you. Next we have under Roman numeral 8, item 2, recognition of Columbus Elementary student writers. Ms. Caldwell.
[Caldwell]: Kara Bates is here. She's one of the, she is the grade five teacher here with the writers. Come up please, Kara. She's a grade five teacher at the Columbus Elementary School and she was working with her students on developing their creative writing skills. The children were inspired to be imaginative and innovative and had fun writing, so much fun writing, that when she received, when Ms. Bates received information from the young writers, She challenged them to write a 100-word mini saga for this publication. Young writers received 12,000 entries from Texas to California, Ohio to Maine. Perception, imagination, and creativity were as important as expression, originality, and the use of language as the students composed their 100-word sagas. The following students in Ms. Bates' class were chosen for this publication. I'd also like to acknowledge at this time Ms. Dr. Kay, the principal of the Columbus School, as well as Ms. Nancy Sherman Hudson, our elementary assistant principal at the Columbus School, and all the Columbus School fans in the audience. Thank you so much for coming. At this time, I'd like to read off the names of the winners who will be published soon. Udom Izone. Ismond Petit. Patricia Castillo. And Kristen Morris. So Elliot couldn't be with us, but Elliot and Glacey also won this award. Spooky Saga Massachusetts Authors is scheduled for publication on March 31st. The Columbus School will receive a copy of the book. So congratulations to our young writers.
[Burke]: How good? Wonderful, congratulations.
[Van der Kloot]: I just want to say that the members received your stories and we had a great time reading them. Especially things that made me feel a little creepy was things like green-fleshed army and you have been dead for years. So a great job kids.
[Burke]: Is there a motion to receive this report and place it on file? Mr. Russo? Seconded by Ms. Kreatz. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes. Item 3, recognition of Arden Ingersoll and Catherine Schmidt for accomplishments in music.
[Caldwell]: I get the best job in the world here tonight. I get to give out all the awards, but at this time I'd like to invite our Director of Fine Arts, Mr. Tony Zignib, to come up front please.
[a7nti5izX0Y_SPEAKER_00]: So we get to honor two more students from our music department for their accomplishments, recent accomplishments. Catherine Schmidt was accepted to the MMAA Junior Festival. She auditioned in Methuen on February 2nd and she was selected to the cello section. So she'll be rehearsing with with other students from around the northeast section of our state, and we'll get to perform with a guest conductor in Wakefield at the Galvin Middle School on March 31st for the MMEA Junior Festival. And fewer than half of the nearly 1,000 students who auditioned were accepted. So that's a pretty big deal. We almost had two. One of our trombonists missed the last spot on a tiebreaker. But Miss Mustone will have to wait till next year to go see her daughter. But I'm sure she'll make it next time. And then we have a return appearance by Arden Ingersoll. He was here a few weeks ago because he was accepted to the senior festival. Based on his audition, he was invited to audition for Allstate, which he did and which he made. And he'll be performing at Symphony Hall on March 3 with the Massachusetts Allstate.
[Burke]: Congratulations, Mr. Digny. There he is. Come on up, Artie. I know, for sure. Congratulations. You don't see her. OK. Congratulations.
[Van der Kloot]: Nice job, Arden. I love watching you play.
[Burke]: Is there a motion to accept this report and place it on file? So moved. Mr. Nishihara? Yes. Seconded by Ms. Krutz. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes. Paper number four. Could someone move to table? He could not be in attendance. Tristan could not be here tonight. Motion to table. Motion to table item four. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries. Item 5, Recognition of the Contributions of the Class of 1965. Dr. Maurice Edouard Vincent will be presenting.
[Edouard-Vincent]: So the Medford Public Schools would like to thank the class of 1965 for their generous ongoing donations to provide funds to support our students. The class of 1965 gives money to pay for T-passes and school supplies for those students who have financial need and the district is grateful for their continued generosity. We thank Sharon Diaso, president of the class of 1965, along with her colleagues who were there, which I'll ask to introduce themselves, for spearheading this work. And again, thank you for your continued support of our students.
[Unidentified]: Thanks. This does it all. This does it all. We can follow up.
[Sharon Deyeso]: Thank you very much. Good evening, Madam Mayor and also new superintendent, Mayor Vincent. I did teach for a while at the high school, a while ago, and it's a pleasure to be here tonight. We were actually very surprised when we got the call from Assistant Headmaster David Bloch about a week ago. We were like, this is really unnecessary. We just do it to get together. I'm only kidding. In the spirit of just the beginning of this, and I'll just take up a couple of sentences of time, because I think some people could benefit from this in case they wanted to start the same type of idea of going from their own class, we're probably going to extend this to maybe an upperclassman and then one lower, because it gets to be really kind of big and organized if you do it two way out. We had our 50th class reunion. about four years ago now, and we had wonderful attendance. We had about 800 in our graduating class a long time ago. So I happened to be at the high school doing an errand maybe a few weeks before that, and I'm looking around, I saw a bench, and I saw something else over here. And I mentioned to a few of my classmates that we've never really done anything. What is really meaningful? And being a part-time instructor now at Barnacle Hill Community College, I noticed during the last decade there were more, quote, if you will, needy kids, more so than when we went to school. We really had milk money sometimes ourselves. So I mentioned it to a few of my pals. I said, how about each year we have a brunch? and the residue of the ticket money, we start a book bag bus pass fund and it took off. So each year we try to have a very nice brunch. and we raise money that way. This year we were able to give four bus passes in two book bags. Last year we gave four or five bus passes in about six book bags. So our brunch will be, again, towards the fall because I had a big surgery and I couldn't orchestrate it this year. But we have wonderful people who attend who are very interested in the students, as I still am. This is my classmate, James Pryor, who is originally from Medford. And also Thomas Taranti, they went to the Columbus, so they were very proud of those kids tonight. So if anyone's thinking of a similar item to gyrate, that's really not a bad idea. So we're hoping it continues as long as I'm alive. And I want to thank you for the thanks. It makes us feel good, and we want to continue on. Congratulations.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Ms. D'Eso, can you please come forward?
[Burke]: Yes. We'd like to invite Sharon up and her compadres.
[Sharon Deyeso]: So nice to meet you. I'll see you one day. Thank you.
[Mn4KS2yu_8U_SPEAKER_26]: Congratulations. Nice job.
[Sharon Deyeso]: Thank you.
[Mn4KS2yu_8U_SPEAKER_26]: On behalf of your class, thank you.
[Unidentified]: Congratulations.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's a good picture.
[cflR-3VqII8_SPEAKER_20]: Mr. President.
[Burke]: Nice. Congrats. Is there a motion to accept this report and place it on file? There is. By Ms. Van der Kloot, seconded by Mr. Benedetto. Ms. Van der Kloot, did you wish to speak on this? Mayor, I did.
[Van der Kloot]: While we're under suspension, I wish to bring information to the committee. I was approached by Kirsten Patterson to discuss the potential of doing in-depth budget review this year in a slightly different way. We've normally had quick proposals that presentations that have come at the school committee. She suggested that we might do better to send it to a subcommittee to go for a very thorough, transparent look at the budget. I just wanted to ask Christine if she could come forward. She suggested that it would come to the, that we would set up the meetings through the personnel subcommittee since 80% or so of the budget is personnel. I'm the head of personnel, so I just want to make it clear that for me it would be always important that every member realizes that this would be a meeting that they are welcome and encouraged to attend. We debated back and forth what we do with the Committee of the Whole. That puts an obligation on the whole committee. It's difficult. There will be expected to be quite a number of meetings. And what's really important is that we always have a certain number of members present to review. So, Christine, could you speak to the proposal? Yes, thank you.
[Patterson]: So again, in the vein of transparency and being able to really go a little bit deeper in conversation and understanding of what some of the goals are for the district and being able to identify that as we're building the budget so that there's an understanding and consensus that while we have already approved certain areas, that means that other areas are going to have to have a balance. And by presenting this in a subcommittee format, we can really have some good discussion where this is truly building a budget and showing where we were a year ago, where we are right now, showing actual expenditures from the prior year. current expenditures year to date and then build from there, already identifying what we know for the collective bargaining units that have settled thus far and being able to really drill down into some of the concerns that have surfaced throughout the process and being able to really see the numbers before the very ending of the fiscal year when we're trying to get an actual budget approved. So we were hopeful that we would get support in this new format to really have some honest, good discussions and be able to have open, transparent communication for this process.
[Burke]: Mr. Ruggiero.
[Ruggiero]: Thank you very much for all these meetings. I just was curious, how many times do you anticipate on meeting?
[Patterson]: So our initial block of meetings, we are identifying six different subcommittee meetings.
[Ruggiero]: If possible, I mean, I would really like to attend these meetings because I'm very interested in this particular topic. I would prefer it to be as a committee of the whole. I understand perhaps we could vote on that now or we could discuss that.
[Burke]: I think this should be tabled. This isn't on our agenda this evening. Someone should table this for the next meeting so it's formally written on our agenda and the public has an opportunity to speak on this topic. Motion to table? By Ms. Mustone, seconded by Mr. Benedetto. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. It'll be on the next agenda. Okay, motion to revert to the regular order of business by Ms. Van der Kloot. Is there a second? Mr. Russo? All those in favor?
[cflR-3VqII8_SPEAKER_20]: Aye.
[Burke]: All those opposed? Motion passes. We are back on the calendar. Report of committee. Support services subcommittee. Mr. Russo? Yes.
[Ruseau]: Last Monday, was it last Monday? Yes. I believe it was. We met to just to send the policy to the full subcommittee. And we agreed to do that. I will be scheduling another subcommittee meeting to discuss the issues raised by some of the members. That's it.
[Burke]: All righty. Is there a motion to accept this report and place it on file by Mr. Russo, seconded by Mr. Ruggiero? All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes. Report of the superintendent. Item 1, superintendent's updates and comments.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Am I missing? That's correct. So as part of my updates and comments, I wanted to start by saying that I'm going to be showing a brief video that kind of captures the work that took place during our learning walks, the mathematics learning walks, the second round. I also just wanted to share that later on today, I would be presenting on our 5-6 middle school transition later for those who are interested in that report. But as most of you are aware, over the past two weeks, my team and I, along with members of Lesley University, completed our second round of our math learning walks, visiting the Brooks, Columbus, Roberts, and the McGlynn. Our former media teacher, Jack Dempsey, put together this video clip. And so I just want the school committee to know that he was not available to film when we were at the Brooks School, but we do have footage and photos from all of the schools that we did visit. Evidence.
[Unidentified]: I try to finish it this time.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Thank you for your patience in watching that video, but I wanted to really focus and share with you this go-around that although you hear that we're talking about math learning walks and focusing on core actions, what does it actually look like? And so for the second round, these instructional rounds looked significantly different than the ones that took place in the fall. Because in the fall, for the sake of time, we tried doing two schools in one day. And so in speaking with our partners at Lesley, Patricia said, you know what, we'll make the sacrifice of time. let's separate it out so we can spend more time at each school and go deeper. And so what you saw were clips that when we conducted these learning walks, we met before the walk to kind of just do a quick overview of what the core actions were. Everyone got their assigned schedule. We went into the classrooms, observed instruction for an hour, and after observing instruction for an hour, we came back. And every group debriefed what they saw. And each school leader gave us specific core actions that they were focusing on with their respective school. So we worked in small groups, looked at our data. And so you saw a lot of stickies up on charts, but that was like part of the main meat of the work. And so I'm very appreciative to Jack for showing the discussions that would happen after observations, how we would debrief as a team and talk about what could next steps look like for that particular school. So I hope that this video piece that you got to see kind of opened your eyes, and I was fortunate that I had spoken with Paulette close to the time that I was doing one of the walks, and she was able to join for one of the walks. But we're going to do the walks again at the end of the school year, and so I do want to put it out to all of the school committee members who are interested. If your schedules allow, you need about three hours of time to participate in a learning walk, if you can even do one, once we have the dates, once all regular testing is done, I will put it out and hopefully be able to have more of you participate. in it, but it's truly, I feel it's like revolutionary work. We are all using the same language, talking about the instruction. And so although instruction was always happening, but now that we have a common language, I think we'll be able to see greater results in a shorter amount of time.
[Van der Kloot]: Ms. Van der Kloot. So as the superintendent mentioned, I was talking to her and asked if I could attend when she mentioned this. And I really felt that it was a wonderful opportunity to understand because I didn't, quite honestly, I really didn't understand what the superintendent was getting at when she was saying learning walks. You know, you spent 15 minutes in each class. I'm thinking, what are you going to find out in 15 minutes and whatever? So it was really terrific to be able to go. And as I watched this video, I'm sure that I saw things because I was able to participate. For instance, watching a student and understanding that concept of productive struggle was really great to see happening in our classroom, to understand why we want to encourage our teachers, to continue to have that grow in our classrooms. And again, if you have the opportunity in the next go-around, I highly would encourage my committee members to go and I'm quite thankful I was at the right place at the right time.
[DiBenedetto]: Mr. Benedetto. Thank you. So having done your second set of learning walks, do you notice, I know that we've encouraged, as a committee and through our administrators, to make sure that every school has the same opportunity for growth and is on the same...they're learning the same things across the district, and that one school isn't doing something differently. consistency.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Yes we're definitely seeing in the beauty one of the comments that was made by Dr. Bernadette Rigodelli when she was comparing one school to another one of the schools we each group So if you were in group two, you might have been observing grade four. So you might have had the opportunity to see four different fourth grade classrooms. And so for the most part, there's a pacing guide, a scope and sequence. The same content should be taught. So as you go into different rooms, everyone has their own unique style of teaching. but you're seeing the same content being taught to students and able to see how they are responding. In some of the other learning walks, because I didn't give really specifics, I just said we want to observe instruction and the principals were able to design a schedule. So we got sometimes you might go to another school and observe a third, a fourth, a fifth grade, and maybe a second grade classroom math instruction. And so we were able to see a significant difference. The language, we hear a lot of appropriate academic discourse taking place, official vocabulary. And again, in this go-around, you got to see all of the other directors participating in this instructional round because we do plan on scaling up the work throughout the district. And so it's important, even though the learning walks are happening at the elementary levels, you saw Headmaster DeLeva, you were able to see Principal Tucci, Principal Downs, Principal Toomey from the other schools, they too came to participate to see what would it look like. So Patricia, who's usually Our Leslie partner, who's usually with me, we've been partnering. Even she has said she has seen significant difference in terms of from where in the math language, how students were working with math in the fall to now at this midpoint. It's very intentional. Teachers are using manipulatives. Teachers are using manipulatives. You saw cutouts, magnets. It wasn't the same exact tool in every single classroom, but students are being given access They're multiple modalities, they're using videos, they're using magnets, they have opportunities to draw, they're using small whiteboards. So we're really happy to just see intentional practice and intentional attention being given to mathematics.
[DiBenedetto]: So I just had one more question. I saw the EL director. Yes, as well. Right, and I'm wondering if our special education department was present during the learning walks and if they're planning on being a bigger part. And do we go into small group settings that are also supposed to be learning, like pull-out classes?
[Edouard-Vincent]: for math or... Yes, we observe inclusion classes. When I've done my walks, I've gone to visit even sub-separate classrooms, depending what the classroom is. This particular time, my rounds, I was only in one room that was an inclusion room, but other members of the team could have been in rooms that had inclusion going on. Not everyone's scheduled for this second go around. Not everyone was able to hop in at this second round, but it was open and we intend on scaling it. The director of English language learners was there because EL students also take math. And so again, it's using the team leveraging members of the team to all work collaboratively towards one end to improve outcomes for all of our students.
[DiBenedetto]: It looked great.
[Ruseau]: Mr. Russo. Thank you. So how are classrooms selected? Are they selected ahead of time or are all classrooms actually observed?
[Edouard-Vincent]: So during the learning walks, we had our math coaches and our Fiza Khan, who's our supervisor of math, with us as well. So the coaches for this year, we had them focusing on grades three, four, and five at all of the elementary schools. So that is their main focus when they are in the schools two days a week. They are, when we do the purpose of the rounds, you know, one of the schools, we had four groups, we had a very large grouping, so we observed 16 classrooms. So taking 16 classrooms of a school, that would include all third, fourth, and fifth. So sometimes you were able to observe mathematics at kindergarten or first grade or second grade in order for everyone to have the opportunity to visit four classrooms. So it's 16 classrooms being observed, four rounds, each individual round was 15 minutes long. So for all elementary schools, we were able to go into third, fourth, and fifth grade classrooms.
[Ruseau]: My question really was, is every classroom being observed?
[Edouard-Vincent]: Every classroom is observed by a school leader, just because we have to follow the evaluation process. Every classroom is observed, but during a round, It's only 16 classrooms. So if there are 30 classrooms, we'll get to like half the school, depending on the total number.
[Ruseau]: I just wanted to make sure that we're not, you know, the principals or whomever's selecting which of those classrooms to select to observe aren't choosing their classrooms where they expect the best outcomes?
[Edouard-Vincent]: Oh no, no, no, yes, every classroom. That's why I'm saying sometimes it could be English language learner, whatever the grade level was, they're all teaching the same content. And so if you're looking at the standard and you're looking at how students, how the content's being presented to them, how do students have access to the content, and we're using the core actions to ground us in the same language. Okay, thank you. Okay, so I, that was part one of the report. I'm gonna try to abbreviate what's been happening in Medford over the past week or so, yes, since we just met last Monday. So one of our students at the Andrews Middle School, Brianna St. Germain, met Master Chef Leon. About two years ago, Brianna's mother reached out to the chef, asking him to send Brianna an autographed photo. He went above and beyond and went to their home and gave Brianna a cooking lesson. And she got to see one of his championship shirts received from the Master Chef show, judged by Chef Gordon Ramsay. Daniel Pontes Macedo, or Master Chef Leon, grew up in Medford and Somerville and served as a substitute teacher for a time for the Medford public schools. Chef Leon and Brianna made a wonderful steak dinner for her family. How wonderful that Master Chef Leon took time out of his schedule to spend with a local fan. Brianna has a memory that will last a lifetime. So although Medford Community Schools is not hosting a February vacation camp this year, they are hosting a volleyball camp at the McGlynn School, and there are extended ice skating hours available for all at the La Conte Rink. So we want people to be aware of that. Parents can find out additional information on our website and blog. Last Wednesday night, ninth grade course selection night, was held at Medford High School. It was a packed house. Students and parents first heard from Headmaster DeLeva and Principal Fallon. and then they were able to meet with curriculum directors in the library. One parent actually took the time to drop Headmaster DeLaver an email, applauding him and the rest of his staff on a wonderful presentation. She loved the fact that the high school and the vocational technical high school had merged and were able to offer so much more to all of our students. She expressed how great it was that the vocational technical track of study was no longer deemed a consolation prize. She couldn't rave about the course selection night enough. So I just want to say congratulations to the team, Headmaster DeLeva, and all who worked on coordinating that event. Also, last week, last Thursday, there was a vaping presentation and hidden in plain sight. It was held last Thursday night at the McGlynn School. Parents attended while their children were enjoying the annual Valentine's Day dance. There were over 100 students at the dance enjoying themselves. I did pop my head in for a while. Approximately 25 parents attended the vaping presentation by Diane Knight, the nurse and director of the Northeast Tobacco-Free Community Partnership. The Tobacco-Free Community Partnership is funded by the Massachusetts Tobacco Cessation and Prevention Program to support communities' efforts to help people quit using tobacco, prevent youth from starting, and protecting everyone from secondhand smoke. Her presentation was extremely informative. Then parents were escorted to the hidden in plain sight room, where parents could learn how their children might try to hide tobacco or marijuana or other drug paraphernalia. I know that I did learn a lot. School committee members Kathy Krutz and Paul Russo were also in attendance. And I want to thank Toni Wray, our Director of Health Services, Rachel Perry, our Director of Health Education, as well as Team Medford, Penny Bruce, who spearheaded the Hidden in Plain Sight presentation, Principal Nick Tucci for hosting and collaborating, this wonderful presentation and I think it should be repeated throughout the district because it was truly informative and it can help us keep all of our children safe. Some Mustang news. Last week we did mention that Tristan Howard won the Northeast Conference title for Indoor Track. So there are four regions in the state. And this past weekend, Tristan came in second place in the 55-meter race in the state finals. He qualified for the nationals and will be traveling to Chicago in the early spring sometime in March. So I just want to say congratulations to Tristan again, and he will be joining us on our March 4th meeting. Professional culture training. Last Wednesday, we had training with staff, but two weeks before that, we hosted professional culture training for both our administrators in the district, as well as our high school and middle school teachers. The training was provided by All One Health, our EAP provider, with additional information that was provided by DESE. The professional development session discussed harassment, sexual harassment, and bullying in the workplace. It also discussed the importance of reliability and responsibility of educators in a school community. It was a crowded, caring theater with approximately 300 educators who actively participated and they professionally pushed the presenters and provided administration with constructive feedback to build upon. So I was very appreciative of their participation and their feedback. That was last week. Last week as well, we had some excitement at Medford High School. On Friday, evacuations at Medford High School. So due to an electrical issue, and a Trojan Transformer issue, Medford High School had to be evacuated twice during Friday's classes. Both times, this was done out of an abundance of caution. At no time were students or staff in any danger. Building principals make the call when incidents like this occur. We appreciate that parents and guardians are nervous and want to be sure that their children are safe. Please know our goal is to issue notifications with the best information possible, as soon as possible. We strongly advise parents to listen to a verbal call from the building administrator or read posts on our blog, Twitter, or website. The facts will be listed there. Random posts on Facebook about what might be happening do not help anyone in these situations. We appreciate everyone's cooperation. I would like to publicly thank Associate Superintendent Diane Caldwell, Assistant Superintendent of Finance Christine Patterson, Headmaster DeLeva, Principal Fallon, Director of Building and Grounds John McLaughlin, the Medford Police Department, the Medford Fire Department, our assistant principals, Gail Trainor, David Blouk, Stephen Burnham, and Stacey Mulligan, our school resource officer, Rich Zeobro, our security officer, Bill Mazzica, my staff assistant, Emily Lazzaro, Eastern Bus Company, and our PR person, Lisa Evangelista, as well as the staff, custodians, all who work together to keep our students safe, In addition, a big thank you to the students who were very, very cooperative and paid attention to directions. They made me proud and they did act like true, true Mustangs and I just want to publicly thank them and acknowledge their support. Also, just as a reminder to all our listening audience, that fire lanes around our school buildings are marked clearly for that purpose. Fire lanes are not for parking. The Medford Police will be randomly patrolling the school and ticketing those who might park there. Fire lanes are for the safety of all in our buildings, so please be mindful of this. Friday was an example when we had at one point four fire trucks at the high school, police cars supporting us while we were trying to get to the root cause. So please keep that in mind. I also want to just recognize Saturday was a wonderful event. It was Medford Family Network's annual Valentine's Day Festival, and we had over 300 families that enjoyed the entertainment, food, and especially the ice cream. A great time was had by all. A few members of the city council joined. with all of the members of our school committee, and I thank all of you for being there, especially for the meet and greet. But I also want to acknowledge our city council members who were there, Rick Caraviello, George Scarpelli, Council President John Falco, and Council Vice President Breanna Lungo-Koehn, and State Representative Paul Donato. They were all there. It was really a happy event, a love fest. It was wonderful. I'd like to definitely extend a warm thanks to our director, Marie Cassidy. She has a heart the size of this room. And all of her staff, the friends of the Medford Family Network for hosting the lovely day and really reaching out to families. In addition, our family network also had hosted Friday night for family and friends, and again, it was held in gyms one and two at the high school, and featured knuckle bones and lots of games. They had over 40 families participate, which amounted to, these were families with multiple children, so there were a couple hundred people in the gymnasium participating in that event as well, and it's an excellent event. You should really stay tuned to their postings. Friday evening, after the excitement of the school day, I had the opportunity to go to the West Manfred Community Center. for their Black History Month kickoff. And with February being Black History Month, the West Medford Community Center presented a multimedia celebration that acknowledged African American veterans. There were poetry and spoken words from different genres. There was music provided by S Factor, an acapella group from Tufts University, and school committee member Paul Russo was able to be in attendance and attended the full event. from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Friday night for that kickoff. So that was great to see you there. I want to just make a brief announcement because we know that there are also going to be reports tomorrow about some inclement weather coming our way. in the afternoon, late afternoon for dismissal. So in preparation for that inclement weather, we are not having afternoon events at the school. There will not be the enrichment program at the Andrews and McGlynn. Families are going to be notified that at dismissal time, we will have regular dismissal. We won't be sending late buses, and we'll be doing that for all of our after-school programming tomorrow because we're unsure how it's going to be, but it looks like it's going to be worse in the evening, the evening commute. So we will continue to send notifications out. through phone calls and through our blogspot and website. Lastly, I'd like to wish all of you a very happy Valentine's Day for you and your families, and happy President's Day, which will be next week, and a restful February vacation, and take advantage, rest, relax, and I look forward to seeing you all in early March again.
[Burke]: Thank you so much.
[Edouard-Vincent]: You're welcome.
[Ruseau]: Mary Bird. Mr. Russo. a piece of new, I just would like to request a policy be sent to a subcommittee, the technology use policy. Could that be sent to the rules subcommittee? And do we need a vote for that?
[Burke]: Is the motion that the technology policy?
[Ruseau]: Technology use policy be sent to the rules subcommittee.
[Burke]: Be sent to the rules subcommittee. Is there a second on the motion? All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. Also, I just wanted to make one announcement. At 3 o'clock this Saturday at La Conte Rink, we will be paying tribute to Mr. John Welsh, who worked at the rink. He was also a Somerville school teacher who passed away about two months ago. So it's Saturday at 3. Please come down. Everything he did was for the kids, and we'd like to have a great showing as we unveil a plaque in his name. Next, item six, report on fifth to sixth grade transition. Dr. Edouard-Vincent.
[Edouard-Vincent]: So as I present to you this evening the fifth, sixth grade proposal, I do realize that many parents were wondering what was the district's position going to be. In my executive summary, normally the traditional method of choosing a middle school has entrenched misnomers that one middle school is better than the other. As an educator and superintendent, I am using my guiding principles of ACE, academic achievement for all, collaboration for all, and equity for all. In the vein of equity, it is my firm belief that the quality of education and level of commitment from the teaching staff will afford all students an excellent experience and growth in their educational development. In order to ensure equity for all of our students, a cohort model is being implemented. There will be a lottery, and 50% of students will be randomly selected from each elementary school, each fifth grade classroom. Half the students from each elementary school will go to the Andrews, and half will go to the McGlynn. Understanding the concerns, of parents dropping off and picking up at multiple locations, there will be an accommodation for sibling preference. Additionally, to support the needs of students, if there is an educational service requirement only offered at one middle school, then those needs would be accommodated for placement as well. This decision is not made without extensive review of the data and the need for a blended middle school environment. For example, the McGlynn Middle School data reveals that 60% of students are economically disadvantaged versus the Andrews Middle School with only 29% economically disadvantaged students. There are also vast differences in the number and percentages of ethnic backgrounds of our students that further drives the need for a lottery system. This system will provide all students with the opportunity to learn and share from each other's differences as they develop socially and emotionally in the middle school environment. My message is one Medford, one district. And this is fair and an unbiased process. This fair and unbiased process will demonstrate the power of equity and the value of a diverse learning environment. And the following tables, before you break out the configurations of the schools and what the potential numbers would look like. So I'm open for questions.
[DiBenedetto]: Mr. Benedetto. Thank you. I had the opportunity to speak to the superintendent about this prior to her presenting this report. I think this is a very fair way to make sure that both schools have equal opportunity for all students. I wholeheartedly support this idea, and I also I would like to talk to the superintendent about an idea that she had when she interviewed with the school committee about the possibility of having one school be a fifth, sixth grade building, and the other school be a seventh, eighth grade building, so that the children are merging, starting in fifth grade and become one group, one class moving forward from that point on. So, I would like to make a motion on the floor to give the superintendent time a few years to look at that and maybe whatever contracts we have to change with teachers or to put a team together to move our district forward in that manner. And I'm looking for support from my other members.
[Edouard-Vincent]: So could I comment? I just wanted to comment that I know, as you said, I did present the 5, 6, 7, 8 model. And so with our current enrollment right now, the Andrews and the McGlynn approximately, we're talking about 1,000 students, 500 students at each school. And by adding the fifth grade, that would put us at about a little over 1,300 students. which would significantly increase the enrollment at the schools, because as we were talking, that would end up putting 650 students in each building. So right now, the Andrews has like 472, the McGlynn has approximately 450. And so I know we would end up confronting a capacity challenge for the size of the building. So that was additional data that I was trying to unearth. But I'm still always willing to look at other options. But from a physical plant, physical capacity, We're talking 500, maybe 550, but to go all the way up to 650 students per building, we would come into a space issue.
[Burke]: Ms.
[Van der Kloot]: Vandekloot, you're all set. First, Superintendent, I really appreciate your fair and equitable approach to this dilemma that we've had. However, I do believe that it certainly is going to still cause some consternation. One specific question, just to start. In the past, the McGlynn Elementary students really had a, if they wanted to stay at the McGlynn, they did. Now it appears that this group of students, half of them would be going to the Andrew School. Is that correct?
[Edouard-Vincent]: So where we talked about sibling preference, at the McGlynn, since it's already one campus, it would be the option of reverse sibling preference for a parent. Maybe they may have a child in fourth grade and a child in second grade, and so to keep them in one building. But I thought about that as well, and I felt like if I said that McGlynn students were required to stay the full eight years at the McGlynn. And the remaining three elementary schools, those children would have an option of traveling as a cohort that I felt if we're going to try to be fair, then we should do it for all of the schools. And we're going to honor sibling preference as long as, you know, if a student is in the school currently, you know, matriculated, enrolled in school at that time. So that was a way to try to say, I didn't want to say the Roberts, the Brooks, and the Columbus, you know, half to the Andrews, and then the McGlynn, you don't have that option. You're required to stay. I kind of felt like if we're going to do it for one, do it for all of them, and just do it fairly.
[Van der Kloot]: Now, one of the questions we've had in the past had to do with the sibling preference, and I just want to be very clear as we roll this out that the sibling preference of people, and there was a past policy and discussion that happened, and it was around the fact that Parents argued that they had been guaranteed sibling preference for the year after their students. So a child perhaps was going up to the high school and going into 9th grade, but another child was coming in at the 6th grade level. And the reason behind it was that they had spent all that time contributing and building the school, and the parents had relationships which they wanted to continue. because of their support of the school. I just want to be clear that as we roll this out, that's one of the things that has arisen in the past that we need to be clear on.
[Edouard-Vincent]: My recommendation with this current proposal would be sibling preference if you had a rising sixth grader and you had a student in seventh or going into eighth grade. So you need to be enrolled. So it couldn't be someone who graduated and you have someone coming up because then you Yep, the whole point is to make it convenient for parents that they're not dropping one student at the McGlynn and one student at another location, but if you're now having one child at the high school then You should be in the lottery just like everyone else It's randomized It's unless your child has a special programmatic need or sibling preference of a sibling currently enrolled.
[Van der Kloot]: I absolutely understand where you're going, but I just wanted to be clear.
[Burke]: Now the school committee vote from about three or four years ago, correct?
[Van der Kloot]: Right, right.
[Burke]: So that was a vote taken by... Because there was an issue.
[Van der Kloot]: And in fact, there was a letter and the parents were able to substantiate it. you know, policy can change. We just need to be very clear about it. The other thing I guess is I'm curious about how you're going to roll this out now after our, I would assume we'll vote on it, but after our approval, how will you sell this to the community?
[Edouard-Vincent]: So I truly believe that this is the fair way. I have been in the schools. I've been looking at instruction. I love being in the field. I feel there is this perception. There's a perception gap about the two middle schools. And again, I wish Jessetta McGlynn on. I was there Thursday evening, I was there Saturday again. Being at the schools, children are learning. I believe that we have high quality teachers, we have fully licensed, certified teachers across the whole entire district. So no matter what middle school your child ends up, it's not like one school only has licensed teachers and the other school has substitutes. I believe when I say one Medford, one district, that no matter which school your child goes to, they are going to receive a quality education by teachers that are caring and will push them academically.
[Van der Kloot]: I think, I mean, I believe that too. I think that the other concern that will arise will be the friendship groups. My child's over here at this school and all the friends are going over to the other school. And to that means, I think that it's really, really important that we do a very concerted effort of understanding, especially now that it's very clear that we're going to have these new mixed groups of students, that we foster activities and create opportunities for kids to get to know new children, and we make that very much part of our goal as we enter this new phase.
[Edouard-Vincent]: And I want to say, where you were talking about the friends from parents that I've had the opportunity to speak with, one of the things that was said in the past was that Some students ended up not being able to have even one friend. But if you think you have a group and you do 50-50, if you have eight friends, maybe in your cohort it'll be four going to one school, four going to another school. But this is really an opportunity to unify the district because all the students end up together at the high school campus. And they have, right now, the partnership between Principal Downs and Principal Tucci. They're working collaboratively. They have after school enrichment program. So they do provide students with opportunities to mingle between the two schools. And so I feel what's most important is that the parents know that their child is receiving a quality education by teachers that are highly, all professional, all certified, and by teachers that are going to provide their child with a quality, rigorous learning experience.
[Burke]: Thank you, Mayor Burke.
[Ruggiero]: This was a major issue to me when I was campaigning for school committee, and I'm really glad to see the beginning motions of resolving the problem, especially the economic and social disparities between the two schools I've always found very troubling. I do have a couple of questions about it, however. Given that some teachers have after school programs at some schools versus other, will students at the McGlynn be able to take an after school program at the Andrews and vice versa?
[Edouard-Vincent]: Yes, so they have enrichment programs. So some of it is with the arts. Some of the offerings are available at both locations. So that's three days a week where they have the late buses, and families choose to allow their students to participate in that enrichment programming. It's an option to the families. And so I don't see any of that changing, any of that going away.
[Ruggiero]: And also I was concerned before the issue was joining the two schools or having a random lottery. was that there were programmatic reasons. For example, English learners were assigned to one school and other environments. Will those considerations still apply?
[Edouard-Vincent]: Yes. So yes, we will still honor if someone is required to have a certain amount of ESL instruction, they need a specialized program. For ELL, they would still be assigned to the McGlynn Middle, because that's where those expert teachers are housed. And if students have particular disabilities, if they're part of the TLP program, the TLP program is still, the therapeutic learning program is still housed at the Andrews. So for those pieces, we would take that into consideration, and then the remaining students would be added to the lottery.
[Ruggiero]: Yeah, I think there's a lot of, I think ultimately this will be this, unless we make a true difference between the two schools, where one has a magnet for one environment and another has a magnet for another environment, which is an option. perhaps we should explore, but this probably is the fairest option to make sure that we don't have the same economic disparities that we have now. However, I would like to know more about the rollout of this program, and I'd like to make a motion that we have a committee of the whole meeting where we talk more about this issue. I think it's excellent, and I think this is a great start. I just would like to have more material at hand to see sort of all the steps and implementation, and I want to make sure we can have a forum for community participation. before we make an official vote on this plan.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Can I ask when you're saying the steps?
[Ruggiero]: I want to understand a little bit more about the implementation, and I would like to make sure that the community has an opportunity to buy into the process versus something that's just a surprise at the end of the year. Because people are right now, at least two years ago, we're used to being able to choose. And that's something that we are going to say, well, you know, it wasn't working for us. We're changing the program. Here's why. I just want to make sure that the community has an opportunity to participate in that conversation. So is there a second for my motion?
[Kreatz]: I would like to. I'm going to second because I have it written down here that we've always had school choice. And I'm a little surprised that there's not going to be a selection form. And that's something that I think like the elementary students have always looked forward to getting ready to fill out that middle school selection form. And you know, talking with their friends and picking their schools. And so we have students right now that are in fifth grade that might have been looking forward to doing that and they're not gonna get that opportunity. I feel like this is, I mean, I think it's a great way to, you know, to keep everything unbiased and keep everybody in the different schools and meeting everybody. But at the same time, it's a very difficult time, you know, moving from elementary school to middle school. And we didn't have any prior information about this, so I wasn't expecting it. I thought maybe we were going to be doing something like we did last year where the school would, you know, the students would fill out their forms, and if there wasn't enough enrollment, then we would do the lottery, the partial lottery. And, because we did talk about last year that the McGlynn students mostly wanted, is selected, the McGlynn elementary schools because they felt comfortable there. But I do understand it's tough because I understand that you want to split them up to meet other students and they're going to meet them in high school. It's a little, you know, I'm a little, you know, concerned myself and just a little bit unsure, you know, what's the process and how is the public going to take this. And, you know, I'm just thinking about that we have school choice and now we're not going to give them that school choice.
[Edouard-Vincent]: So I do want to say, as the school committee, that the final decision will be from you. But I do also want to say, I think it would be wrong of me not to say it, that the current system that is in place is a segregated system. It's very segregated, and we need to call it as it is. And when you look at the tables, and you see how the schools are divided out, We are educating all children, so I just want to formally say that we are endorsing segregation, and that's for the community to hear as well. I know it's hard, it's 2019, and this is Medford, but the current system is a segregated system, and it says something about us as a district, so I encourage bringing it to Committee of the Whole, But the final decision will be the decision of the school committee. So I just want to say that.
[Burke]: Mr. Russo?
[Ruseau]: I just wanted to also refresh our memories of last week when we found that 60 of the eighth graders at the McGlynn are going on the trip. and 128 from the Andrews are going on the same trip with almost the same enrollment. So it's segregation in every way that that word can be used. And in my mind, it's completely unacceptable, even if the public isn't happy about it. So I fully support this. And in fact, I emailed the superintendent probably making her think I was in her office with her or something, saying, when are we going to do this? Because we should do this, what she's proposing. And I couldn't support it more. So thank you.
[Burke]: Ms. Opara, our school committee representative from Medford High School.
[SPEAKER_15]: I just have two things to say very quickly. I did not really go through the Medford public middle school elementary school system. I went to a charter school, but I did babysit someone who is in the Medford middle school right now, and I babysat her through elementary school. And I thought it was very interesting, because I remember her getting ready for middle school and talking about how she's going to, her friend, who was a different race from her, is going to be going to the McLean, and she'll be going to the Andrews. I thought it was very interesting that it split up. I didn't understand how it was split up, and what happened, and why that is. And the girl I babysat, she was from a very prominent background, where her parents were very comfortable. I guess that's one thing I was exposed to, apparently, that I didn't really understand before, and not going to Mefford School District. And then I, myself, went to a charter school, as I stated previously. And since coming to Mefford High School, I understand why people don't really like charter schools. It is a lot different from what people expect. And the thing is that it is unfair and a lot of chances that people get different chances, that people that it's a different group of people, a selected core group of students in one place. And hearing this tonight and seeing that there are disparities in each school, that there's one school that more kids are benefiting from, like 128 students are going on the same trip that only 60 students from another school are able to go to. And I'm not saying that There is some overlying problem that maybe we're not looking at, but you said it is a segregated system. I think that it is something that needs to be addressed because Medford calls out the charter school system. And to have one school system where it's like only 29% of students are economically disadvantaged and another school system where 60% of students are economically disadvantaged seems as if Medford has its own charter school, where kids are able to enroll into a school where they're with a greater a better population of students, for lack of better words. And I just think it's unfair because since coming to Medford High School, I see all the things that, you know, at the end of the day, you're going to end up at Medford High School. And you have so much opportunity around you to be better people and to get to know each other and do all these great things and to really put a division in that when they're so young and have them see that maybe have students feel who go to one school feel like they're not good enough as other students. I understand how that's unfair, and I understand that it is something that needs to be fixed from what I can see.
[Burke]: Thank you very much. Thank you. Your honest comments. Mr. Benedetto, next.
[DiBenedetto]: Thank you. I just want to remind people when the new schools were built, part of the charter, the request to build the new schools was based on diversity in those buildings. And I know we received funding for those schools because of that. Racial balance plan we had to enact. It was a really important piece of our new schools. And I know they're not new anymore, and we don't receive federal funds anymore. But the idea, the reason we received it, because it was such a great idea. And if we lost that along the way, we maybe need to renew that at this point. I mean, as everybody knows, I do work at a charter school. And there's students from all different socioeconomic backgrounds. And the diversity goes up and down depending on the year and how many families love it and apply for their children. And I've been there for 24 years and seen those ups and downs. And we're seeing that a little bit right now with our middle schools. It used to be McGlynn was the school to go to when my children were going to middle school. And then it was the Andrews, and it would bounce back and forth. But I don't know if we ever stopped and looked at it so deeply and see the lasting effects of it. So this is our opportunity to make sure that all children are given every opportunity for the best education and to be surrounded by all different types of people in their school. So I don't want to lose this opportunity. I think starting now, February, by doing a mailing, doing a phone call, maybe doing a meeting at each elementary school for fifth grade class night or whatever, whichever way we do it, if we do all of those things and make sure we do great outreach and we just, you know, I'm sure the superintendent will I think it will be fine. I'm sure we'll plot a plan with the other administrators and say when we do, you know, open houses at both buildings just so parents can see both buildings, they should still do those because your child's going to be going to a different building. And at those opportunities, just remind people that there is a new way of how we're doing this. Just get the word out. I think it will be fine. I'm sure that there will be some areas or some students that not with their friends and, you know, we can handle things as they come. I mean, change is always a little bit hard, but then it's the new way.
[Van der Kloot]: So earlier tonight, we in subcommittee talked about sort of the guiding principles of the Medford School Committee. And what really we said was that we were here for all students and to make sure that their educational opportunities were the best for them. And if I go back to that guiding principle and I look at what the superintendent just presented to us, I see that there may be some short-term pain. The long-term gain of making an equitable middle school environment is where we need to go for the benefit of all students. I appreciate that my colleague Mr. Ruggiero might like some more time to digest it and to talk a little bit about rollout. On the other hand, I am pulled because I would also like to affirm the policy and say that we should move forward and then have a subcommittee meeting to talk about what kind of presentations we're going to have. So I would like to, and I'm just trying to figure out the right rules of order to do this,
[Burke]: His would come first.
[Van der Kloot]: His would come first. Can I change yours?
[Burke]: No. Would you be amenable? Mr. Agiro, point of information.
[Ruggiero]: My concern is this. I think that we absolutely, most of us can agree that the system that we have now is not working. is I think that there's another option that might be worth exploring, and that would have a magnet school for one environment, and a magnet school for, let's say, math or science, and a magnet school for language arts or humanities.
[Burke]: But that wouldn't be for September. That would take so long to get that into place.
[Ruggiero]: I understand completely, but it would be, once again, to get a sense of rollout, I think is important. And if you have four friends, and you have a cohort of four peers that you've always been with, for whatever reason, it's not mathematically impossible. I mean, it's probable that there will be groups of friends split up where one kid's at one school and the rest of the group's at the other. It's just going to happen. And these are options. I just want to make sure that we're making the right choice. If this is a one-year kind of deal while we discuss other things, I'd be a little bit more comfortable. But once again, I mean, I certainly share the superintendent's concerns. It was an important issue for me during the campaign. And it's still an important issue for me. I just want to make sure that we're doing this in the right way and exploring all options versus like, oh, this is the new normal. Let's all do it now.
[Mustone]: I think the lottery has been long needed. The superintendent's predecessor had told me that every year it went back and forth with which school was more popular, like Member DiBenedetto said. That's not addressing the issue. I think Paulette said it perfectly. It might be painful. I have a fifth grader. Maybe she'll end up at McGlen and her three siblings went to the Andrews. I want to live with that if it's at doing the right thing. This is a justice issue. We haven't done it. We've never bite the bullet before in the past, I'm appreciating the superintendent saying this is the right thing to do by our children. I understand you want to make sure it's rolled out well. I have great confidence the superintendent will make sure it's rolled out well, that the parents are informed. But this is my third year on the school committee and it's been frustrating every year because First of all, we're not a school choice program. Your predecessors say last year that we're a school choice. No elementary schools you get to choose. You go by where they tell you live. We've never followed school choice as it's really the definition of it. So I understand we need to make sure it's rolled out well, but this needs to be done. It's been a long time, and I'm tired of the schools going back and forth depending on personnel issues. If we have equal number of kids at both schools, it shouldn't matter about who the administration is. It's about the kids in the classroom who make the culture. Thank you.
[Burke]: Ms. Van der Kloot, you're all set? You blinking again? OK. So just in terms of- There's a motion on the floor to send this to Committee of the Whole to discuss the rollout and possibly other options. There's a second, I believe, by Ms. Kreatz.
[SPEAKER_05]: Can we change the committee of the whole to discuss the rollout so that we can find out how we're going to meet the community?
[Burke]: It's Mr. Ruggiero's resolution. It's up to him to amend it or change it. You'll withdraw for now. Community member, please announce your name and address, please, for our record.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you. My name is Melanie McLaughlin, and I live on Alston Street in West Medford. I've had three children that have attended the Brooks Elementary School. One at the Andrews, one at the McGlynn, and then ultimately the high school. And I just wanted to add, I could not get up in this scenario. I had to, for those of you who know me. know that I do care very much about social justice and equity and equality of opportunity for all children. So I did have to get up and say, when people were talking about how do we talk about this, I think, you know, as in all situations with education, the data tells a story, the data speaks for itself. Look at the data. Take a moment. We were looking at the data in the audience and there are people in the audience that frankly are stunned by this data. It does tell a story and it tells a very important story. This is a segregated system and it's not a socially just system. I would also ask that the school committee consider taking it a step further in terms of thinking about students with disabilities in this scenario as well. Because, you know, I understand the programmatic elements. I understand the budgeting concerns. when we're talking about programmatic elements. But all means all. Every student should have, you know, the opportunity to have the randomization and the experience of being at any of the schools, not one or the other. You know, that's the school that the kids with the disabilities go to. This is not. That's not okay either. And I'm sorry, but when we talk about inclusive classrooms, what does that mean for the other classrooms? Are they exclusive? When we talk about even segregated, classrooms, what does even mean? I mean, I really do think we need to take this another step and really be looking at this as a whole. And I appreciate the opportunity for you to let me speak. Thank you. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_15]: Ms. Opara. Oh, hello. Well, I came, I'm not sure if I mentioned this, I came to the school, Medford High School last February, and one thing I noticed was that there were a lot of different enclaves in the high school, racial enclaves, ethnic enclaves, and so forth, and it was not something I was very used to, having gone to a very homogenous school. groups, schools before. And so I've been working with Mr. DeLeva as a reason to address the issues of enclaves. And I do think that situations like this where you have different schools and they're different socioeconomic standings, greatly different socioeconomic standings in each school does contribute to the issue of enclaves in the future. You are looking at seniors in high school who have gone to school with each other for the past four years and have never met each other, have never talked to each other. And these are things that are enforced. And they go on past high school. They continue on to college. They continue on to their adult life. And it's sad. not being exposed to a multitude of cultures, a multitude of ethnicities is something that should not happen, especially when you come from Mecca, which is such a diverse community. And to combat the issue of enclaves that we do deal with in the school, and it's very apparent, and it's a very difficult situation that we have to deal with, I think this is something that has to be done.
[Burke]: Mr. Russo's up next. Mr. Russo. Thank you very much. Thank you for that.
[Ruseau]: I'm so proud. That was excellent. I have less to say.
[Burke]: I know.
[DiBenedetto]: I wanted to get up and clap.
[Ruseau]: Yes. The issue of all meaning all, I think, is very, very important and why I do think that the 5678, my colleague had suggested a motion to consider that, although I think a few years is perhaps a little bit of a long term. I think it would be nice to understand what our options really are about getting all the kids together as early as possible. I mean, when I spoke to the director of EL, and I believe the director of special education, a 4, 5, 6, sorry, a 5, 6, 7, 8 model It, at least for EL, solved a lot of problems. And certainly, all the kids would be in one place. So the services issue, I think, would automatically resolve itself. Whether or not we physically have the physical plant to handle that, I think we really should look at that in depth. So I'd like to make a motion that
[Mustone]: Are you seconding Erin's?
[Ruseau]: I'm seconding Erin's, and she'll let me change it from a few years out, too.
[Burke]: But I think the superintendent responded to Erin from a space needs analysis, that the extra grade, the whole fifth grade being in one, he added another. Right, but what about putting all of the 337 fifth graders? Added into the middle schools.
[Ruseau]: And how many kids are at the McGlynn Elementary?
[Edouard-Vincent]: McGlynn Elementary.
[Burke]: How many students are in elementary school? Under 100, I would say. What about 70? Is it that small? 70, maybe?
[Edouard-Vincent]: No, all elementary schools have approximately 500 students as well. Right. The fifth grade. The fifth grade class is 86 students, I believe, at the MacLennan.
[Ruseau]: I mean, if we're going to take the principle of all equals all, to do something with the facilities to really get to all is all, or is it better to double the special education budget, which is a totally impossible thing I recognize. Some kids having the lottery and some not having the lottery isn't fair, period. I mean, there's nobody who thinks that's fair, right? So I think it would be good to have a number. for what it would look like to resolve that, so that really all the children have the lottery. What's the dollar? Are we talking $70 million more a year? Are we talking $700,000 more a year? I don't know. I don't think anybody knows. But we need a number so we can decide.
[Burke]: This is a fifth and sixth together, and seventh and eighth in another school?
[Mustone]: Yeah, like a projection. A projection of how it would roll out.
[Ruseau]: Or EL in both places, and special ed. You know what? Let's pretend you had two kids in middle school on the autism spectrum. I know that's not real. Instead of putting them all in the same school, you've somehow managed to do it in both schools. I mean, there's got to be a number that we can, we have to be able to decide what that number is so we can decide that all is just too expensive for Medford right now. Or is, which is what we've decided right now without knowing what the number is. So, I mean, I guess, what are our options and what would it cost the EL department to have all of those services in both schools? I had two other quick questions. One, the open houses, I presume, will still happen. Yes? Yes. And my other question was, we should be able to do the lottery much, much earlier. than previously because, well, than last year, obviously, because we aren't going to be worried that there's going to be like a whole bunch more kids at one school or the other. And then, you know, as kids come and go from registration, we can just, oh, this school needs the next kid, this school needs the next kid. So we should be able to do this much earlier, perhaps even before open houses, which would make the experience sort of what it was when we had this regular choice. The kids who go to the Andrews are the kids that are going to the Andrews for open house. And based on my experiences last year, parents who knew they were going to select the Andrews went to the Andrews. And they didn't go to the McLean open house and vice versa. So I also know that neither one of those schools can handle all of the families the entire district in one night.
[Unidentified]: There's no parking.
[Ruseau]: There's no way to do it. So if we can get the lottery before the open houses, I think that would be an excellent thing to do. That's not a motion. I mean, you have to figure out whether you can do it.
[Burke]: Because the decision's already been made for you, assuming this policy is adopted.
[Ruseau]: Right, right.
[Van der Kloot]: Ms. Van der Kloot. To my colleague, Mr. Rousseau, I think that there's some pragmatic questions. We started this year with a new superintendent, and she certainly needed some time to get on board and to learn the ropes and learn all the people and start with an instructional initiative with the math, which we saw earlier. If there was clearly a simple answer other than this in terms of the size or whatever, I think she would have presented it tonight or suggested it. The in-depth that you speak of I think is probably worthwhile doing for the whole committee and community to really understand. But I think that there's a question that is before us in the immediate, and that is next year. And I don't think it's realistic to have had the superintendent come back and try and figure out all of those in-depth questions. I think that we need to set that as a goal. Yeah? Mr. Russo, point of information.
[Ruseau]: I fully support this. But the economically disadvantaged students that we're trying to level out so that all of the students get to experience each other, which is really, really important. They also all need to experience kids on the autism spectrum. And they all need to experience all kinds of kids, kids who don't speak English. And they're not. So I'm not sure that I would, I just think that that, that point is important is that there's not something special about the kids who are economically disadvantaged or advantaged and how they need to mix compared to how all of those kids also need to mix with kids with disabilities and who don't speak English as a first language. So to me, it's exactly the same thing. It's just a different, just because it's expensive.
[Van der Kloot]: I agree with you. I'm just trying to figure out the timeline, the pragmatic point of all of this, is trying to say. And maybe we certainly want to, as we're doing this, we certainly want to be looking at that questions in terms of either our special education or our EL students. Is there a way to better incorporate them into the schools? and equal opportunities. I think that the question before us right at the moment is, I hear that there is a general feeling amongst members that this is the right thing to do, that the superintendent has come to us and she's shown us numbers, numbers speak. We've talked about equity. We've talked about doing the right thing for all students. I hear that we actually have some level of consensus in terms of what we need to do. What I don't hear consensus on yet is whether we're going to approve the policy tonight and then have a subcommittee, or as the motion states, first have a subcommittee meeting and then approve the policy. Mr. Ruggiero.
[Ruggiero]: I think it's important to recognize there are a lot of questions that still are up in the air. Like, for example, how we are doing some programmatic switches between some kids, if they have EL, are going to go to this school. Some kids with other needs are going to go to this school. I mean, these issues are up in the air. While I have complete faith in the superintendent, I think it's important for us to suss these questions out. Member Mustone, I completely understand your frustration, and I know that you just want to go, and I get it. But I don't think delaying this two weeks, a week and a half, for us to have a committee of the whole is going to destroy the program rollout. I just don't. I think that it would be important for us to take a breath. We have a problem. but to take a beat, think about this problem all together, and we're probably all going to, once we answer our questions, we're probably all going to agree that this is the right, this is the best thing for Medford, perhaps. But I think that we do need a little more time to think about this.
[Burke]: If you'd like to make are you standing by your motion to send it to committee of the whole is there a second by miss Kreatz to send to committee of the whole I Think a week two weeks.
[Ruggiero]: We're not talking about five months.
[Burke]: Mr. Dileva.
[D'Alleva]: Hi. Hello, so I guess I'll title myself as former principal of the Andrews Middle School and And not yet. We're getting there. Some things to consider where I agree holding off. What you have to now consider is what you're doing with the open houses that are coming up. Therefore, if things aren't changing, then the open house will be what it always has been for people to decide to choose. But if you are changing, you're now changing those open houses to more be of like an orientation type of thing. Time is always of the essence when it comes to a decision, because it affects everything down the line for that. So I just wanted to kind of keep that in mind. If I could share my two cents, too, as being the former principal of the Andrews, I will say from a scheduling standpoint, the imbalance is tough to do, where you're trying to get everybody what they want, For example, you come into sixth grade, and you want Spanish, and you want band and orchestra, and you want all of that. And we want to give you all of that. But in reality, we only have so many teachers for so many things. So the number inequity sometimes can be a problem as well. So I just wanted to make sure you had this point of information. Thank you.
[Burke]: Okay, there's a motion on the floor to send this to Committee of the Whole. The motion is to send this paper to Committee of the Whole to then bring a resolution back out to the floor. His motion is to not approve it, to send it to Committee of the Whole.
[Van der Kloot]: So next week is vacation week.
[Burke]: If it gets voted on, we will figure out a night to have a committee of the whole. But right now, it's to send it to committee of the whole. Or if that fails, then someone could make a motion to approve the said policy changes. So the motion on the floor right now, send to committee of the whole. Roll call vote, please.
[cflR-3VqII8_SPEAKER_20]: 17 in a row. Democrats. Yes. One of us don't know where she is. Yes. Who is that? No.
[Burke]: No. No. Two in the affirmative, five in the negative. The motion fails. Is there a motion on the floor to approve this policy change? Ms. Van der Kloot.
[Van der Kloot]: I make a motion to approve the policy change and follow it up with the committee of the whole meeting.
[Burke]: There's a motion on the floor to approve the policy change, follow up by a committee of the whole to determine the rollout procedures, seconded by Mr. Russo, and also in conjunction with the superintendent's recommendation to withdraw that prior school committee resolution deeming a rising freshman not to be a sibling preference item, however that was worded originally. Is that?
[Van der Kloot]: Yeah, I'd like that to be a separate.
[Burke]: I mean separate okay to change on the motion for approval Followed up by a committee of the whole roll call vote, please Yes Yes seven in the affirmative zero in the negative the motion passes on the resolution item B for the preferences it is for the the superintendent's recommending that the preference be for children that would be in the same school at the same time. So no rising freshmen would be deemed a preference. That's your recommendation. Ms. Vandekloot.
[Van der Kloot]: I make a motion to accept the superintendent's recommendation.
[Burke]: On the motion to accept the superintendent's recommendation, is there a second? Second by Mr. Russo. Roll call vote, please. Yes. Yes.
[cflR-3VqII8_SPEAKER_20]: Yes. Yes.
[Burke]: Yes. Yes. Vote is 7 in the affirmative, 0 in the negative. Motion passes. Thank you very much. OK. Item 7, report on UDL Emergency Preparedness Committee Kathleen Madaglio and Melanie McLaughlin. This is a girls hockey game. I'm going to put you on. I shut them all off.
[q-Y9QUDQ70c_SPEAKER_08]: OK. Good evening, everyone. We'd like to thank you for allowing us to come speak about our committee. This is a CPAC special education collaboration that we started last year, during the last school year. And so we've been meeting for the last year and a half, talking about emergency preparedness in schools. Originally, the title of our presentation committee was emergency preparedness for students with disabilities. But as we started to do our research and, you know, get into our elbows here, we realized that it was really important to be talking about all individuals who are in the schools. So, you know, including the adults who interface with students every day, parents who come to the buildings, young siblings who might be with parents as they walk through the schools, as well as all the students themselves. We are following the principle of universal design, whereas you create procedures that can be applied to any person in any of our buildings. Thank you. I'd like to point out that back in 2000, the Massachusetts legislature passed a law requiring all school districts to create a multi-hazard evacuation plan that is specific to each building. So here in Medford, each one of our buildings do have evacuation plans for the entire facility. They must also establish crisis response teams, designate who is in charge of the team, and designate substitutes in case that person is not available in the event of an emergency. There needs to be a communication plan, crisis procedures for safe entrance to and exit from the school by students, parents, and employees, and policies for enforcing school discipline and maintaining a safe and orderly environment during a crisis. These plans are required to be updated on an annual basis. And then, of course, all individuals who are in the building need to be informed as to what these plans are. That's why schools have emergency evacuation drills to make sure everybody knows what to do. Back in July of 2004, President Bush signed an executive order. Whoops, sorry. requiring that each school, when they take a look at their emergency plans, that they take a look at what the needs are for individuals with disabilities who are in these buildings. Because obviously, it was a big flaw. And it requires the public entities to include people with disabilities in each of their emergency preparedness efforts. So here in Massachusetts, we're a little out of sequence here. Most plans are guided by the Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools Technical Assistance Center, or REMS. However, it seems that in most of the literature that we could locate, the reference purely is, and don't forget about students with disabilities in your plans. So look at the unique needs of students, revise your plan accordingly, and make sure that student needs are met. There's no real substantial discussion about what to do or how to help staff prepare on how to support students for emergencies. So as our work continued, we started to discover that our first responders were also a little bit confused about what we should do on an individual student basis. So I just want to point out, this is our committee. We have members of that committee here in our audience. So Joan Bowen, Susanna. Susanna, you want to say hi there? Paul DeLeva. Hi. And Tanya. And we meet at least a month on a monthly basis to talk about all of our research. OK. So, one of the first recommendations that came from our work was to really take a look at individual needs of students and document what their needs might be to help guide decision making. So, first we're looking at all students and our first thought was, oh wow, does every student need an individual plan? So, you know, that's an awful lot of plans in a school district. we needed a way to help teams decide whether a student requires their own individual plan. So one thing we did was we interviewed our staff, we took surveys, and asked principals, like, who are the students in your buildings who seem to struggle when you have drills? Okay, so we started, we took a look at each of those students, we were looking at what their presentation was, and we were kind of surprised because There were students who looked like maybe they need a lot of help every day, who had no problem following the group and doing what needed to be done during an evacuation. We also discovered that there were students who were in gen ed who had a lot of difficulty and needed a lot of support and maybe didn't require that level of support at other times. So we developed an individualized emergency response determination form. So this is currently in We've launched it. We're trying to take a look and see whether or not we need to tweak it. And Suzanne was very, very helpful in doing the research around what other communities have done and pulling together our original version of this form. So you can see that and see what we've been doing. Several of our schools have started to utilize the form to review emergency planning with families during their team meetings and are designing individual plans. So in about a month or so, we'll be surveying each of those evaluation team leaders and their team members who have been using the form to see whether or not we need to make any revisions. We have other students who require emergency toolkits. So our classroom teachers have been busy putting together kits where they might carry an emergency bag with them as they a leafer drill to help students practice using some of those tools that they can use to support the students during an emergency. And we've coordinated with first responders for training and understanding around the needs of students with disabilities. So we're actually in a very sort of precursory stage there. We held a forum last spring where we brought together first responders and members of the community at a CPAC meeting. We talked about emergency responses. I know many of you were there. It was a very informative meeting. I think we all learned a lot. And we've opened a dialogue to talk to our local first responders around what needs might be to provide additional support and training around specific disability-related needs. We have collected social stories for students, for staff to use with students to help them to teach them procedures around evacuation drills to support them during practice drills so they're readily available and in place if there ever is an emergency. We're in the stage of involving community stakeholders, including families, first responders, school personnel, as subject matter experts to be included in school emergency planning. One of our more recent projects has been to survey local communities to ask what are they doing. So we've called probably 20 different communities, police departments and fire departments, to say, what are you doing around emergency procedures and supporting the needs of individuals with disabilities in the event of an emergency? And so the following are several resources that we found other communities to use, such as the Municipal Police Training Committee, The Rescue Task Force to train police and firefighters around active threats. The Mass Commission Against Discrimination that offers trainings on the law, presentations to community groups, speakers at events to promote fairness, equity, and inclusion. The Mass Firefighting Academy trains municipal fire service personnel at no cost. Make sure I don't crack all my notes here.
[McLaughlin]: One of the things I just wanted to add as well is that, as Kathy was speaking earlier around students with disabilities, the other piece is that you don't know when you might be a student with a disability or an individual with a disability. So one day you might be fine, and the next day you trip off the curb, and suddenly you've got a boot on your foot, and you're not going to be able to exit the building as easily as anybody else either. And so this is an ongoing process that people need to be thinking about for also, like Kathy was saying earlier, our adults in the building as well. We have teachers who might have needs, other staff who might have needs that we should be thinking about.