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[Edouard-Vincent]: can you hear me?
[Ruseau]: Thank you all for making it. I'm going to begin. It's 4.02 on February 10th. This is a call to order the Rules Policy and Equity Subcommittee meeting. Please be advised that on Wednesday, February 10th, from 4 to 5 p.m., there will be a Rules Policy and Equity Subcommittee meeting held through remote participation via Zoom, pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12th order, suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law under Governor's March 15th, 2020 order, imposing strict limitations on the number of people that may gather in one place. This meeting of the Medford School Committee, Subcommittee on Rules, Policy and Equity will be conducted via remote participation to the greatest extent possible. Specific information in the guidelines for remote participation by members of the public and or parties with a right and or requirement to attend this meeting can be found on the city of Bedford website. For this meeting members of the public who wish to listen or watch the meeting may do so by accessing the meeting link contained in herein. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access and the proceedings in real time via technological means. In the event that we are unable to do so despite our best efforts, we will post on the City of Medford or Medford Community Media website an audio or video recording, transcript or other comprehensive record of the proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting. The meeting can be viewed on Medford Community Media on Comcast Channel 22. Actually, I don't know if that's true. Since the meeting will be held remotely, participants can log in or call into the following link. The Zoom meeting, which you're probably here, but if you're on Facebook or YouTube, is https://mps02155-org.zoom.us slash j slash 99779331597. Meeting ID is 99779331597. You may call into this by on your phone by calling 1-301-715-8592. And again, the meeting ID is 99779331597. Additionally, questions or comments may be submitted during the meeting by emailing pruseau at medford.k12.ma.us, submitting questions via email must include the following information, your first and last name, your Bedford Street address, and your question or comment. I guess I should take the agenda. Member Graham?
[Graham]: Here.
[Ruseau]: Member McLaughlin?
[Graham]: Here.
[Ruseau]: And Member Ruseau, present, three present. We have a quorum. The agenda, I probably should have done the attendance first, my apologies. the agenda for tonight. We have quite a few things on the agenda, and I'm going to take them in order, unless we find that item number one is going to take too much time, because item number two are policies that we need to get adopted right away for compliance. Item number one is the finalization of the annual reports and presentation schedule. I am going to share my screen so that Anybody who doesn't have the document isn't wondering what we're talking about. It's the big green button. All right. I can no longer so there everybody is. So first item on the agenda. The school committee has been working on a subcommittee has been working on a schedule of annual reports and presentations that we receive. This is the I drafted a policy that that the schedule would live in inside of. This is similar to what we did with the the calendar of observed days. So there's a title, a purpose, which explains what's the purpose of this policy, sort of a, why are we here? Then there's the policy. And let's see, should I read all these? I'll read these, because I'm not sure if everybody's had a chance to read all of this stuff yet. The purpose is this annual reports and presentation schedule aims to provide clarity for school committee members and all other constituents when the superintendent or others will present to the school committee throughout the year. The hope is that by having this schedule, there can be, I'm gonna increase the size of this. The hope is that by having this schedule, there can be reduced duplication through requests that were already planned to happen, reduced inquiries about when a report or presentation will be scheduled, and simplification of scheduling for the central administration and other presenters as advance notice will be known. As advance notice will be known. I think I have to fix that sentence. Let me just put a little comment there. This policy does not provide for comprehensive calendar of events or activities of the district and is only meant to specify reports or presentations the school committee will receive. Policy. Some of this stuff may well make more sense than the purpose versus the policy. Sometimes these things are not always clear where they belong. The content of each report or presentation is not within the scope of this policy except as required in the description to make clear what the report or presentation is about. A report or presentation may be an information only item added to the documents provided to the school committee for a meeting, or it may be an item for discussion or even a presentation. This policy does not specify how a report or presentation is provided to the school committee. This policy does not specify, it's an awful lot about what it doesn't do. This policy does not specify the date when a report or presentation will be provided to the school committee, but rather specifies the bracketed time that it is expected, such as the quarter, the first meeting of a month, or simply that a report or presentation is expected by annually, annually, or semi-annually. The superintendent in compliance with any other policies, rules, or procedures of the school committee will schedule specific dates for delivery of reports or presentations. Ad hoc reports or presentations are, did everybody lose me? I see a trying to connect. You can still see? Okay. Ad hoc reports or presentations are not covered by this policy and should follow the ad hoc report request procedure of the school committee. The report or presentation may be added to this schedule through the normal policy amendment process. Newly mandated reports or presentations from state or federal governments or regulators will be sent through the normal policy amendment process to ensure the accuracy of the schedule herein. Definitions of the language used herein can be found at, and I don't know that we actually have a page on our website anywhere where we have a bunch of definitions. I know member McLaughlin has brought this up before that we need one. So at the moment it just says, There's a link, but I don't know that it exists yet. So we may have to change that if it doesn't exist, because, you know, cart before the horse kind of problem. The schedule below would be unreadable if all acronyms and other educational or financial language were clarified in line with the name or description of the report or presentation. Therefore, some of the language has been retained for brevity and clarity for the professional educators that will be using this schedule each year. Language has been simplified and made more accessible where possible without obscuring clarity for these stakeholders. So in our last meeting, I know we talked extensively about finding a way to make this frankly normal human readable rather than educator or finance speak. And that has been done to some extent, but I think it would become an unusable schedule if we were to really expand that out all the way. So I'm just gonna, and then there's a spot here for, oh, I'm sorry, section three is the actual schedule. Statutory refers to regulation or law and does not include a reference to reports or presentations ordered through the school committee. So for instance, we have a statutory report to get a CPAC presentation annually, I believe, maybe I'm wrong, but I think we do. So that statutory would be true, but any other kinds of reports or presentations that our school committee has decided are required are not considered statutory for the purposes of this. Monthly reports or presentations for July and August shall be held until the first meeting in September. I'm just gonna flip over to the actual document. So this is, pretty much the document we created last time, but a lot taken out of the description. And the reason was is that it got into what we wanted the report to actually look like. And each and every one of these, frankly, should probably have in its own attached document that says, you know, this is what the school committee expects an annual attendance report to look like. And if we don't wanna be doing this same policy four years from now, having never approved it, it seems like we need to kind of start high level and then go deeper as we can. I'm not sure how the other members feel about that, but that's just something when I took the minutes from the last meeting and how I went at it. So we have the name, the meeting type, whether it's statutory, frequency, any special details on when it's expected, such as before the budget is a good example. And then description. And I do think everything should have a description of some sort, but how much of a description sort of becomes the conversation. It would be nice if it would actually fit within a document that we're calling our policy. I have done some reformatting of the names. I bolded everything that I feel like we have to answer before we could consider sending this up to the school committee. There's an item on here, the budget legal notice. That one in particular made me wonder, is this, this is not a schedule of everything that needs to happen. And I don't think this budget legal notice is a report or presentation. It's a posting, a public posting. So that's why I bolded it as something to find out whether the members think we should remove from this list. Whew, I've done a lot of talking.
[Edouard-Vincent]: I was gonna say, Member Ruseau, that Since this event takes place every year, maybe the description could be that it's a under description, it's the legal notice. So it would be a formal budget presentation that is for the community, but that were legally required. Like it's, this one needs to happen prior to the presentation to the city council. um where you have this legally you know to be in compliance it needs to be go to go out to the public so i think where it is something that will happen annually maybe yeah what you deleted could go under description that could be your description yeah and then yeah i mean um sorry
[Ruseau]: the notice, though, is the thing we put up that says there is a meeting, and this is what it is. But the report of the presentation we're gonna get is the actual budget presentation. So I feel like the budget presentation, unless there is a very specific, it is statutory, it is annually. So prior to, Um. Sending City Council. Yes. Um and. And well, I don't have to say and your man did it because it's sort of in this other stuff. Okay, good. I'm glad I didn't just yank it out of there. Um there are some question marks that I don't think we have to answer before we send it up to the, um. Full school committee. I think that the Um, you know, the bullying prevent presentation. Um, we've had some laws changed relatively recently around this stuff. So there may be a statutory requirement for that. But I feel like all of these, whether they're statutory needs to be question mark can't be the answer and blank can't be the answer. Um, you know, I think when the superintendent and her staff pull out this thing every year, um, it shouldn't be a question about whether they can skip it or not because it's because they're busy. If it's, if it's statutory, it's statutory. And Why make you all go looking things up on the state's website? But I don't feel strongly we have to answer that question in this meeting, as long as we get those answers before we send it to the school committee, before the school committee receives it. What kind of a meeting though, I think is really just for us to decide. And some of these things are, Some of these things I think are much easier to say is to put them on a regular meeting and then others, I think are worthy of being their own meeting. The problem is, do we want to have 25 Committee of the Wholes already scheduled annually before we even begin any of our other work? So, you know, like the before and after school services and finances presentation, does anybody feel strongly whether that should be a regular or a special or committee of the whole?
[Edouard-Vincent]: I think that could be a regular meeting. I think in the past where we had challenges, if a challenge or a particular need were to arise, then we would definitely convert it to a committee of the whole. But I think annually having it at a regular meeting as a report, I think that that's a very reasonable expectation.
[Ruseau]: Member Graham.
[Graham]: I guess my only comment to that would be the goal, at least in part, for me is to do the financial review of the revolving accounts and to shed some light on that. So I just, I do wonder if any of these like financial reviews of our evolving accounts really should be part of the normal meeting or if there should be dedicated, you know, committee of the holes or whatever associated with them. I could go either way. I just want to make sure if we're planning for these to be part of the regular meeting that we are allocating the time to an actual financial review, which is what we should be doing with all these revolving accounts on an annual basis. So I don't particularly care about the format of the meeting. I just want to make sure that whenever we do it, we're not just like sort of passing it along and not doing the financial review, which I think is the fundamental requirement.
[Ruseau]: Yeah, if I may, you know, under meeting type right now, there's essentially two, you know, regular committees at the hall. We, I just feel like, you know, maybe this, maybe we did another type, like the budget, like a hearing.
[Graham]: Yeah, it's a budget, it's a budget meeting. And then whatever form that takes might, that might make more sense.
[Ruseau]: Yeah, I mean, I don't, we're not, I don't think we're tied to these being some kind of like actual legal definition of what kind of meeting. And so, you know, but I think, you know, we have in the details that this has to be prior to the actual budget meetings. And so, you know, okay, I think we could just leave that there for now. The bullying presentation, I think that needs to be a regular meeting for maximal, visibility, frankly. Superintendent, do you agree with that?
[Edouard-Vincent]: Yeah, I think the bullying presentation definitely can happen at a regular meeting. I'm very comfortable with that.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. The capital improvement plan has been a committee of the whole in the past. I felt I put that in there with a question mark because I wasn't 100% sure we want to keep it that way, but Does anybody have any feelings?
[Graham]: I haven't seen us get to a point where we have an actual like functioning capital improvement plan. I think we have pieces of what I would consider to be a functional capital improvement plan, but I think until we really get a format and a cadence down about how things would surface to that list and how we would talk about it, I would keep it as a committee of the whole.
[Ruseau]: Great, thank you. I would just say, before you were, last year was a tough year to become a new member. I felt like the year before we had finally sort of gotten that worked out. And then last year, the idea of capital improvement seemed sort of, unreasonable, so we didn't have that committee of the whole, unfortunately. So if it did. Yeah, I was there. Oh, you were there.
[Graham]: I was at the meeting. I would say it was the first time we did anything formal, but I would not say that it was fully functioning. Because I remember hearing feedback that the principals were not consulted on what went on the list. and they're largely responsible for their buildings. So I think, you know, I think there's just a process of like, how do things get surfaced to the list? What happens once they get on the list? You know, those kinds of things that I think there's just still some work. There's still just work to do, that's all.
[Ruseau]: Okay, thank you. I'm gonna skip down everything that doesn't have question marks in here. These are all from the old list that we looked at last time. changed the ordering of the language a bit so that, you know, the finance reports are kind of, you know, like in this prior year fiscal audit draft, prior year fiscal audit final, prior year fiscal report final, like there was some different language that would cause them to sort differently. So I've cleaned these all up. This one here, the grievance, Member McLaughlin, were you gonna?
[McLaughlin]: Yeah, excuse me, Paul, just for a second. Would you mind doing the same, increasing the font on this, please?
[Ruseau]: Oh, yeah, I don't know why I'm picking up so little. Yeah, of course. There, that better? So the grievances report, we have asked for that a couple of times. And I mean, my understanding of what we want is we wanna know How many grievances were there? How does that compare historically? How many were resolved in the different levels of grievance management and resolution? And I'm not, I actually don't think that is, it would be covered under executive session. We're not talking about a grievance. We're talking about, you know, like how many were there this year? So, I'm thinking we have to throw that into a regular meeting. Again, this can be just a report. It doesn't necessarily have to be a presentation unless, of course, we discover that grievances have gone through the roof and we want to understand why. Maybe we have a special meeting about that. Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, PBI's Office of Communications and the Communications Committee. Thanks, Paul. I don't mean to interrupt, but now that you're speaking of it and I'm looking down, thank you for making these alphabetically as well. legal issues as well. So for grievance report, and I don't know if it would be again, executive session or not, but I'm more interested in data. So specifically, things that have gone to hearing or that when a hearing has been filed to a legal report when there is, you know, case, you know, when there's legal action, right? Thank you. And expenditures. Thank you for both. For Yeah, And whether it's civil rights, special education, anything like that would be really helpful data-wise, again, not specifics. Thank you.
[Ruseau]: Excellent. That was, we've talked about several times. Good point. Thank you. All right, so moving on, I'm gonna try and get us to be at the halfway point and be halfway through the agenda. The health services report, I'm gonna skip down to only the ones that actually, so pre-budget. I felt like the thing we just had last, on Monday night was the pre-budget meeting. It was the presentation, the pre-budget presentation. Is that what everybody else thought that that was? I see a no. I don't know what this is exactly. So I find it hard to put it in here. Member Graham.
[Graham]: I mean, I think the, I think what it probably means is our series of pre-budget meetings that we have where we review all the departments, we go through their narratives and their budgets and their lists. So I don't think it's a meeting. I think it's a series of meetings. I thought what we went through on Monday night was like, like the kickoff of the budget season essentially, right? Like it was great because it, I thought it did a better job than the district has really ever done in saying like, this is how, this is how school budgets are created. But like, you know, last year we had a meeting where we talked about things we wanted to see in the budget. I think we sort of did that on Monday night, but I, you know, I considered that more like the kickoff than I did like the whole like pre-budget season.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Yeah, I would concur. I was gonna say it's both and I think it's, this would be, you know, what was presented the other night should be, I think the beginning of the budget sort of pre-budget. and in the future, I would like to see that sort of consistently every year that that's sort of the beginning. This is how it all works. And then when we wrap it up, this is how it all works. Sort of a good, you know, teaching best practice that we do that. And then I would agree with member Graham that the pre-budget meetings themselves were meetings with each department was sort of, we had the big picture overall and they were more than one meeting, but.
[Ruseau]: All right, thank you. That makes so much. more sense to me now. All right, let's see. What other ones were in here with question marks? There's a school open house schedule, which I completely agree should be a presentation or a report. I just wasn't sure. We have the kindergarten open houses, we have the middle school open houses, we also have high school for the incoming ninth graders. I don't know if this was supposed to mean all of them this globally. And if so, I'll just break it out into three because they would happen at different times of year, of course. And is that how everybody sort of understands that? Okay, good. So the short collaborative report or presentation, there was some good notes on that. And unfortunately, I have too many tabs open and that's not one of them. But my question was, should this actually be more of an out of district placement presentation rather than specific? Okay, great.
[Graham]: Yeah, the only thing I would say is, again, the short collaborative is a specific revolving account. And we had that meeting and it was, I thought it was really helpful information, but we didn't talk at all about the details of the revolving accounts. So not all out of district places are associated with a revolving account in the same way. So I think that's just a nuance that I wanna make sure it doesn't get lost because it's our responsibility to be looking at those revolving accounts.
[Ruseau]: Thank you, Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Yes, I would concur. And so I think that I, you know, I'm looking for the aggregated and disaggregated data on the added district placement. So, and if any of them obviously are revolving accounts, then I think that should be, you know, made known. And then member Graham or through the chair, if member Graham would clarify for folks who are going to be watching this in a recording or who else are on the line, how would you define a revolving account, please?
[Graham]: We have a list of revolving accounts that are established, I think by regulation at the State House that govern any instances where we are taking in revenue that is coming in sort of separate and apart from our city appropriation, separate and apart from our grant funding. But the accounts are set up to do just that, to revolve. So we can take money in, we can pay money out. on any of those accounts. There are lots of like legal and compliance issues associated with what you can take in and out of each one and how the money is spent. And we are working actively on creating a more clear way to describe that those processes with all of those independent revolving accounts, because they are all a little bit different. So that when people look at those numbers, there's some context of what they are. is like, you know, if there's $100,000 in a revolving account, is that a good thing? Is it a bad thing? And the answer is, it depends. So really sort of adding some context around what's the like nature and purpose of the revolving account, and then how do we account for all the funds that go in and out?
[McLaughlin]: Thank you. And I think going back to the, you know, the idea of definitions, you know, that is one that I would be adding. so that, you know, the community as a whole knows what that actually means. Thank you.
[Ruseau]: Excellent. Thank you. Um, so, um, you know, like anything, this is a starting point, not an end point. So, um, in order to get the ball rolling, is there a motion to approve this to send to the full committee with the updates that I have here and we'll finish prior to that actually getting there and all of these question marks getting filled in. Motion to approve. Second. Excellent. I guess I have to take the roll call on this. Member Graham?
[Graham]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: Member McLaughlin?
[Graham]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: Member Ruseau, yes, three in the affirmative. The policy is approved to send to the full committee at our next meeting. Thank you, I appreciate the work on moving through this. I know it's a lot of detail.
[McLaughlin]: Okay, so let's move on to- Member Ruseau, I also just wanna say thank you for putting that together. That was a lot of work.
[Ruseau]: Helpful for all of us, so thank you. And I realize there are other people on this meeting. If anybody has any questions, don't hesitate to just, if you can unmute yourself, do that. I can't see the people very well since I have the sharing going on, but don't hesitate to wave your hands if one of us will probably notice, I hope. So next on the agenda were policies that will be considered. We have the policy JB, which is equal educational opportunities, not that one. So I don't have it on screen. The current policy that exists on our policy manual online has an outdated version of this. This is the latest version based on the recommendations from the school committee association. And unless anybody has any questions or concerns about the language here, Is there a motion? I'm not going to read all of these. But is there a motion to approve and send to the full school committee?
[Graham]: Motion to approve?
[McLaughlin]: Second.
[Ruseau]: Excellent. And excellent. So on the motion to approve policy JB, educational, equal educational opportunities. Member Graham?
[McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: Member McLaughlin?
[McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: member. So yes, three in the affirmative. This will be sent up to the school committee for their consideration. Member Glawson?
[McLaughlin]: I'm sorry. Can I have a reconsideration of the motion? My apologies. Physical and intellectual abilities, if we could.
[Ruseau]: Is that a differences?
[McLaughlin]: Please.
[Ruseau]: I don't have any problem with that. Member Graham, do you have any problem with that? Excellent. Thank you. All right, great, thank you, and I will move on. So the next one is policy JFABD, policies and procedures, homeless student support services. So this is an update as well. This is actually, I believe this is actually a pretty substantial change over the old one we had. Um, and, um. This is one of the ones that are mandated for the upcoming, um. Audit or whatever they call those inspection inspections. Member Graham.
[Graham]: I had a couple of. Items here, and I thought I actually tagged them in the Google drive, but I'm not seeing them on your copy, so I'll just tell you what they are. In the first paragraph where it says, including Head Start comparable preschool programs. Yeah, see, including, I would say including, but not limited to, and I was also a little bit further down in that list of options. It lists gifted and talented programs. And I would actually recommend that we strike that, because A, we don't have it, but B, that's a different nut for another day. So I would recommend that we remove that. And then if you go down to page two at the bottom, This paragraph that starts with, if the student does not have immediate access to immunization records, I think this is basically saying that students can still enroll under a personal exception and that students and families will be encouraged to get their documents as soon as possible and the district liaison is directed to assist. I guess my question was, is it our policy that they will assist just with like getting the records or if students lack immunization, is the district liaison also going to help ensure that they have like appropriate access to a provider who can help them get their immunizations? Does that make sense? So it's like paperwork or is it immunization or is it both?
[Edouard-Vincent]: superintendent? I interpret it to be both that we would be able to support them through our medical office and you know get them either you know support them in getting additional medical care to get their immunizations. So that's that's something that the medical office the health services department definitely supports families in getting it done. There are, you know, I think a few families maybe for religious purposes that may not believe in vaccinations, but almost everyone else, they have support in accessing doctors and getting immunized and having it properly documented.
[Graham]: So perhaps we can just say the district liaison is directed to assist in obtaining available records and or immunization or something like that that calls that out. Cause when I read it, I was like, are we worried about paperwork or like students being immunized? And I think it's both. So I wanna make sure it says that.
[Ruseau]: How's that sound? Directed to assist in obtaining available records or accessing immunization services.
[Graham]: Perfect.
[Ruseau]: Excellent.
[Graham]: And then on the next page under dispute resolution, what is that number two and that number three?
[Ruseau]: That's me doing a really bad job of copying and pasting. At present, it's a link to the wrong thing. when I pasted, these are just an example of one here. They're actually footnotes. And when I copied and pasted, there's one right here. And when I copied and pasted, it actually converted it into the same thing that you're seeing here, where it has, bizarrely, it has a particular policy that is actually advisory committee policy. And I have a clue why it's doing that. So I will fix those. Okay.
[Graham]: I was like, if this is a list of something I'm missing item number one, because it's like, that's what caught my eye. And then I was like, wait, there's links here. I'm not sure what they are. So I just wanted to point that out. Okay. That was those were all of my questions on this one.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. Thanks for noticing it. I did look for them, but apparently I missed those. Member McLaughlin, did you have any other comments?
[McLaughlin]: No, thank you.
[Ruseau]: Okay. Motion to approve. Is there a second? Second. As amended once I finish that. Yeah. Member Graham.
[McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: Member Ruseau, yes. Three in the affirmative. This will be fixed and sent up to the school committee for the next agenda. Thank you all. Let's see, the next one is J-F-A-B-E. There it is. Let's see, did I include any of those mistakes in that? I don't see them. So Susie, hi. Can you unmute?
[Lh9iUewuUkw_SPEAKER_15]: I've realized that the version you're working from, Paul, is not the version that Jenny made the corrections on. So the version in the folder is the one where you can see that. So either work from yours and then send them over to me after, or just reshare them with me.
[Ruseau]: OK, thank you. Yeah, I went into the folder today, and Google is not showing me any of those files, even though it I, anyways, we'll worry about Google drive later.
[Lh9iUewuUkw_SPEAKER_15]: So just that's Jenny.
[Graham]: That's why you're not seeing your, um, your it's fine. I literally, I was just putting them in before the meeting. So, um, but I did have a couple of questions about this one under definitions. Um, we talk about children enrolled kindergarten through 12. Um, does this policy need to cover our pre-K students?
[Edouard-Vincent]: I would say since we have pre-K students, why don't we just add pre, just the, yeah, pre-K through 12, so it covers everyone. Thank you.
[McLaughlin]: Maya, excuse me. Yes. Yeah, I also would say, you know, what about our transition students, superintendent, so our 18 to 22?
[Ruseau]: Good question.
[Edouard-Vincent]: That is a very good question.
[Ruseau]: Actually, when we go down to the legal references, that might actually answer the question. Interstate compact. So I can take this as the to-do. We do want to get this approved. So I would be happy to take this as a to-do to look at to find out what this even says, because I frankly don't know, and amend the text to include those adults if the interstate compact does include them. Or we can send it up as is and put it right back on the agenda to amend, but we do need to have at least this for the audit or whatever it's called. I can go either way. Remember, Graham?
[Graham]: There's one other on page two in the third bullet, there's another reference to gifted and talented programs that we should strike.
[Ruseau]: Yes, thank you. And English as a second language is actually, we call it English learners. That's the preferred language now.
[Graham]: And other than that, I'm fine with this, if you can confirm. So as a motion to approve as amended.
[McLaughlin]: That's the pending confirmation, right?
[Ruseau]: 23, yes, 22. Is it 22? Thank you. And they are called the transitional, is that what they're?
[McLaughlin]: Transition program, I think is, yep. Transition to adulthood. I would just call it transition program, Paul.
[Ruseau]: Okay, it's just the language of it, school-age children enrolled in pre-K through 12th grade. I could then put, you know, as well as,
[McLaughlin]: or including, yeah, the transition program 18 to 22. I think transition might be capital T, but just, yeah. Thank you.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. And I will put that in parentheses or whatever, depending on what the law says. And Susie, do you have your hand up still? Because you just did not lower it. Or do you have another question? Okay, thank you. All right. So were there any other comments? Anybody else in the meeting have anything to say on it? Excellent. And so was there, I believe somebody made a motion.
[McLaughlin]: Second. I was amended.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. So member Graham? Did you lose?
[Graham]: Yes, sorry, I lost my mouse. That's okay. Couldn't get to the mute button.
[Ruseau]: And member McLaughlin?
[Graham]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: And member Rossell, yes, three in the affirmative. I will send this up to the full committee for hopefully for approval pending the updates, the outcome of what I find out on those. And next we have, listen, we have to do this in the correct order. GBEBD. So the reason we have to do this one in the correct order is this one is actually referenced by the other one. So this is a policy that somehow we don't have. And this is the policy on online fundraising, crowd funding and solicitations. This is from, I have not made any changes to this one. This is the text right out of the policy service we use. I don't think I've made any changes. No. And member Graham's hand's up. So, member Graham.
[Graham]: I just had a couple of maybe questions for the superintendent. And it's really around like A little bit around how, how does this actually work so and the reason I asked is because I've been told by teachers that they've been told they can't do these very things by various members of the leadership team over the years and. I don't know if that's like still the case or not. I'm assuming it's not if we're creating this policy, but there's definitely like a vibe out there that this is not this is not allowable. So I just, you know, a couple of things that jumped out at me like in the third paragraph, we talk about the prince, you know, they need to communicate to the principles around any sort of online fundraising or crowdsourcing they're going to do. And I would like to see that be tracked consistently because I would like to have some visibility into what things teachers are out fundraising for that the district is not providing. And then sort of in a related sense, If you scroll down to the bottom of that page, it says employees using crowdfunding services shall periodically disclose the individuals who have supported. I would recommend that that actually be a requirement at the completion of such an event. Usually, they're fairly time limited. But again, doing that in a way that is consistent across buildings and teachers that is seamless that doesn't create like a pile of work for Susie or somebody else, but provide some visibility to us about about things that are being funded and that and and whatnot, and then. In that same paragraph, it says the superintendent shall maintain these disclosures as public records available for public review. I would actually love to see this become an annual report that is informative to us at budget time, because if our teachers are, you know, if all of our teachers are out fundraising for something like headphones, right, and I know we've got a lot of headphones right now, so that's probably not something they're gonna do, but if they're all out fundraising for headphones, I think the school committee needs to know that that's a deficiency in the structure of the budget, that these things that are being requested universally are not being provided. So I think in this similar spirit to wanting to understand PTOs and other organizations that are fundraising to supplement school budgets, I would like to see us codify this in some way. So I'm not necessarily, I don't have a lot of changes to this document, but it's more of, I think, a process question and maybe it needs to tie back to the report list that we just talked about.
[Edouard-Vincent]: And I just want to comment, Member Graham, that to your point where we could have the crowdsourcing services using the GoFundMe pages, our hope would be if, for example, PTOs are fundraising for a specific item, and then you also have multiple people fundraising or using the GoFundMe for the same exact services, that we have been very clear that when GoFundMe or if people were to attempt to use those things that we would need to be in the know in order to supervise and make sure that it's being used for what the intent is. And I say that because you know, technology and requesting things on behalf of a school that may not end up eventually being used with students within the district. That is something that we need to just be very aware of. And so not to say that people don't have the best of intentions, But unfortunately, it's kind of like a very slippery slope that there definitely needs to be close supervision. If the PTO is purchasing headphones with the microphone, and someone else is also purchasing Bose headphones at the same exact time, and when you look for the inventory and say, oh, Bose headphones were ordered, and you ask, where are they? And you're not able to come across them. So that was where we were very clear, not that we were trying to stifle people wanting to take advantage of what's available. It needs to be aligned. It needs to be, I would say it needs to be in complete alignment with what's already available. You know, at the schools, and so principals need to be involved I just feel with the GoFundMe pages. Sometimes, you know, you hit a goldmine, and it's something wonderful. something is acquired, it needs to be stamped or labeled with Medford Public Schools and sometimes you have, you know, someone in Medford Public Schools and then they relocate to Connecticut and they say, well, I got this as a teacher, I'm taking the Bose headphones with me to, you know, a public school system in another state and those items should belong and be cataloged as property of Medford Public Schools. So that's where we have been. uh, providing strong oversight and making sure that it's something that's documented and that we're aware of where it's going at, you know, any given point in time. So that's where the, um, the restrictions are, but where the PTOs have, you know, the liberty to be able to say we're doing this, it would be redundant to allow people to ask for the same exact know, multiple of headphones or whatever, whatever else it may be.
[Graham]: Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I mean, you know, the whole notion of like, how we asset tag these things is a different can of worms like I, you know, I, I've been involved in PTOs, you know, with my kids and, you know, there was a year we bought rugs for every teacher. Those rugs, you know, I think if you ask the PTO, they would be like, yeah, we gave them to the teachers. And the PTOs are sort of, you know, it's not top of mind for them and through no criticism to say, Who am I giving this to? Am I giving this to Marice Edouard-Vincent or am I giving this to the school and Marice Edouard-Vincent's going to use it? There's probably like a sort of a sidebar discussion that we could have about that. But certainly if we're taking an equipment, it should definitely be asset tagged so it can be tracked. So yeah, I just, as I was reading this, I wasn't sure that, whether or not there was a way for it to be clear to the school committee what those things are so that we can have a sense of like where the funding is falling short or how teachers are innovating in their classroom. So those were all of my comments. They were sort of all tied up in the same sort of thought process for this one.
[Ruseau]: Thank you, Member Graham. Dr. Cushing, I think you handed up. There's two of you now.
[Cushing]: There is. I seem to be having some stability issues on my main desktop. So if I warble in speaking, just let me know and I can switch quickly. So this is the big high level policy. So I think periodically would actually be fine. And what we would do is we would create an internal procedure Form for approval that would be shared with central office central office would be the approval. The only thing I would say is like superintendent or superintendent designee. And what this does is there's no mechanism right now. to allow for these things or to not allow, and I'll give you one example. There's an organization that started up at some point, offering a free extra monitor to make sure that all teachers had two monitors. And so you can donate to that in financial means and then they will literally send a monitor, an extra monitor to a teacher. Now, that's something that would be wonderful for a lot of our situations, but there's no actual mechanism to say, yes, as a Medford Public Schools employee, it's okay to do that. And so this policy will give us the mechanism to do that. And then for us to implement the procedure, not the policy, the procedure will be the arm that allows us to put up like the rules, regulations, different things like that. Sometimes you wanna read what people are putting out there so that it doesn't sound like the district isn't providing anything, but how are you doing these things in a manner that is respecting the taxpayers of Medford, all right, but saying that it might be something additional. While also going to member Graham's point of, we wanna track these things for the future so that if there is a lot of one request that Is that something that the district should be allocating resources for? But I think periodically is okay, especially in longer term ones, but our procedure would definitely have that end of term, end of run piece for it to be there.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. I'm gonna try and squeeze in that last policy. Any other recommended changes? comments.
[McLaughlin]: Motion to approve. Second.
[Ruseau]: Member and that that will include, um. And annual report to be performed and, um and, um. That the superintendent will create some kind of methodology. I'll add that sentence. We can always amend it when we get to the full committee. So if you think I bungled the
[Graham]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: And member McLaughlin?
[Graham]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: And member Rossell, yes. Three in the affirmative. The policy will be sent to the full school committee as amended. And then finally, okay, this is just a, oh, sorry. Here we go. Gifts to and solicitations by staff. This is, I don't believe, let me expand the size of this some. This is, I had to write an awful lot of policies and update a lot of policies this weekend. So forgive me for trying to get my head on about which one this is. Okay, so this is taken from another, I believe an MASC policy. Let's see. Yes, the December. This is actually one that we probably should have updated a very long time ago. Wait, is this new? Um, so I. Is there any questions or comments?
[McLaughlin]: Motion to report. Quiet.
[Ruseau]: Y'all really want to make me look good on time. Is there a second?
[Graham]: Okay, sorry, I was just finishing reading. I missed this one.
[Ruseau]: Oh, I'm sorry.
[Graham]: No, it's okay, I'm done.
[Ruseau]: I'm scrolling all over the place for anybody who's actually just trying to read it on screen, my apologies. So this is, I mean, just for anybody that's interested, this is actually stuff coming right out of the law. So it's not like, I don't think we have much wiggle room on any of this stuff. And it's totally pulled right from our annual ethics course that we have to take.
[Cushing]: Sorry to interrupt, but I think going to Member Graham's point, if you scroll down, it basically covers that any gifts to the teachers are gifts for school use. So it seems that gifts for school use, that rug that you mentioned as one example, then that section then covers that it's solely for the classroom. And it would seem that it remains with the district. But it may be something that you wanna clarify in the future. Because I think, I guess in my mind, any gifts to the teacher outside of say maybe like a $5 gift card for Starbucks or something along, Any gifts to the teacher are to enhance and improve the instructional opportunities and academic outcomes for the students of Medford. Therefore, they should remain with the students of Medford if a teacher decides to move forward elsewhere.
[Ruseau]: Thank you, Dr. Cushing. That definitely is how I understand it. And this is version one. So if we all feel like we need to make some additional changes. I'm happy to bring it back here, of course. So I heard a motion to approve and second. Member McLaughlin, did you have another comment? No, okay. Member Graham.
[McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: Member Ruseau, yes. That's three in the affirmative. This will be sent up to the full school committee. Ms. Weiss. I see your hand up again, and I think you had a question.
[Lh9iUewuUkw_SPEAKER_15]: I was typing, and I apologize if I missed this, but the policy on the agenda, this is regarding the one about foster care, because I guess our previous policy, JFABE, students who move in the middle of the year, also included foster care, but DESE wants a its own policy on foster care, so that was why I had put the mask one into that folder. So I didn't know if we could, I can't make a motion, but if you would consider that.
[Ruseau]: Sure, let me just bring it up.
[Graham]: And I read that one, I didn't have any questions about it.
[Ruseau]: Does it have a number, a policy ID?
[Lh9iUewuUkw_SPEAKER_15]: Um, hang on a second. It says J F A B F. Ah, All right.
[Ruseau]: Um, yes. The F and the E probably confused me at some point. Um, Okay. Um, and let me just bring up to see if we already have one of any sort.
[Edouard-Vincent]: It's at the top of your box member result. Which box this one? I shared the JFABF with you, the children in foster care document with you.
[Ruseau]: Yes. I'm sorry, when did you share it?
[Edouard-Vincent]: Just right now. I just shared it with you. Hopefully it's showing at the top of your... Oh, no, because I'm sharing my screen.
[Ruseau]: I cannot see almost anything. Let me see chat. No. I can just, I can pull this up probably quicker than figuring out what Zoom is doing to me. Okay, so we don't even have this policy at all right now. That makes this a lot quicker and easier. So did the other members have a chance to look at this in the folder? I did not. So if the two of you have, that's two out of three and that's good enough for me. I will take this text and make it into a pretty Google Doc like the others. I believe this one is definitely urgently needed for that audit as well. So I'm comfortable with taking the version that MASC has. They would of course not reference like a particular school district. So that won't actually pose any editing challenges. this. Does anybody want to motion to accept this policy? As it is written. Motion to approve. Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Yeah, I'll second. Well, let me just ask a question first. Um so just again for the viewers, um, two things one when you're talking about the audit, would you mind sharing what that is? And then the other is for folks, um, HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator): I'm the original is all on the website and most of which was procured from the mass association of school committees regarding policy that we have currently existing and for the ones that we're changing, right? I just, sometimes I feel like we, sometimes I just feel like we get ahead of ourselves and don't, I know it's the end of the meeting, but maybe next time, even for the beginning of the meeting, we can just sort of give a little bit of a lay the groundwork or for lay people that are out there that where this is coming from, because it's occurring to me now when people are looking at the JFABF and the MASC and things like that, that people might be wondering what the heck this is and where it's coming from. just a little orientation. And I'm okay with moving this forward since it is from the Mass Association of School Committees and is recommended by them for their policy. And then if there are things that need to be changed, as you said, this is the first pass and can be changed on the floor of school committee as well. But thank you.
[Ruseau]: Thank you, Member McLaughlin. And I also, your point about sort of orienting the public. I think that actually including a link in the agenda that references the old policy. You can click it and go right to it. And the new recommended policy, you can click and go right to it. Totally reasonable to do and include in our agendas going forward. It does sort of require that the work is done early enough to be able to do that. But certainly the existing policies are obviously going to be available before a posting. So I appreciate that feedback and I know I'll work to do that. Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you. And can you just clarify the audit? Are you talking about coordinated program? Well, it's not called that anymore, but what is the audit that you're referring to?
[Ruseau]: I'll have to let somebody else who knows answer.
[Cushing]: I believe it's the tiered focus monitoring.
[McLaughlin]: So in other words, did the Department of Education does an annual audit with our school district on tiered monitoring, right? And tiered systems of support you're talking about? I'm sorry, can you elaborate, Dr. Cashew, just for a moment?
[Lh9iUewuUkw_SPEAKER_15]: I can read. Diane Caldwell's been working on this. It isn't necessarily that Medford's done anything wrong, but I can read the descriptor. It says DESE is conducting an educational stability program review of all districts. Medford is part of the first 60 to be evaluated, and DESE would like all districts to adopt policies for military foster care and homeless that are ESSA compliant. They suggest we use the policies from MASC dated October 2019. Thank you.
[McLaughlin]: And again, for ESSA, for folks who are listening, that's the Every Student Succeeds Act. And so that's a federal act that we're required to be compliant with. Thank you. And I'll just try to remember when we do the acronyms, I'll just be calling out just so again, nothing personal to anybody else, but more so having gone to graduate school just a couple of years ago and feeling like everybody was speaking a foreign language. It's good to remember just when we're talking tiered systems and ESSA and MASC and we could go on and on. I think somebody needs to, I think Randy Rainbow needs to do a whole education acronym video.
[Ruseau]: I would love that. Me too. All right, so on the motion to approve, member Graham?
[McLaughlin]: Second, yes.
[Ruseau]: Member McLaughlin?
[McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: Member Ruseau, yes. Dr. Cushing, did you have your hand up? I'm sorry. OK, thank you. So that's three in the affirmative. We'll send this policy up once I put it into a format that I can stand. I really do dislike the plain text format of our policy service. And that concludes our meeting. I apologize for running over nine minutes. Is there a motion to adjourn? Second. Member Graham, motion to adjourn? Second. And now I'm asking if you... Oh, yes. Member McLaughlin?
[Graham]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: Member Rossell, yes, three in the affirmative. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you.
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