[Lungo-Koehn]: the proceedings in real time via technological means. In the event that we aren't able to do so, despite best efforts, we will post in the City of Medford and Medford Community Media websites an audio or video recording transcript or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting. The meeting can be viewed through Medford Community Media on Comcast Channel 22 and Verizon Channel 43 at 6 p.m. Meeting of the Medford School Committee virtual information, 5 p.m. Since the meeting will be held remotely, participants can log in or call in by using the following link or call in number. One of the numbers is 1929-205-6099. Please enter meeting ID 994-7939-4090 when prompted. Additionally, questions or comments can be submitted during the meeting by emailing medfordsc at medford.k12.ma.us. Those submitting must include the following information. Your first and last name, your Medford street address, your question or comment. And member McLaughlin, if you could take the role.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Here. Member Prince.
[Wray]: Yes, here.
[McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin here. Member Bestone. Here. Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: Here.
[McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot. Present. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Present, seven present, none absent. If we may all rise to salute the flag.
[SPEAKER_22]: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
[Lungo-Koehn]: And number two, we have negotiations and legal matters in executive session, executive session of the Medford School Committee pursuant to general law 30A, section 21A to complete the negotiation process on the superintendent's contract. Is there a motion to go into executive session? So moved. Moved by member Van der Kloot, seconded by? Second. Member Ruseau, roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, everybody, for your patience. I know we're a little bit over schedule from our executive session. Dr. Cushing, we can just remove that from, let's see. There we go. We're gonna move on to number two, approval of minutes from the February 8th 2021 regular school committee meeting. Is there a motion for approval? Motion for approval by member Van der Kloot, seconded by? Second. Member Ruseau, roll call.
[SPEAKER_21]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Krantz?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Correct. If you just want to unmute yourself. Number curtsy there.
[McLaughlin]: I'm trying to put it on gallery to see if I can see. Oh, she's asking to unmute she can unmute.
[Lungo-Koehn]: And I'm trying to press the button. Let's see.
[Ruseau]: Let's say she's a co-host. There we go.
[SPEAKER_22]: There you go, member Kraft.
[Kreatz]: Okay, sorry, I couldn't get to it, sorry.
[McLaughlin]: Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Minutes are approved. Number three, we have approval of bills, transfer of funds and approval of payrolls.
[McLaughlin]: Motion to approve.
[Lungo-Koehn]: by Member McLaughlin, seconded by? Second. Roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau?
[Ruseau]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot? Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative, paper passes. Number four, we have report of secretary. if there is one?
[McLaughlin]: No, there is no report of secretary.
[Ruseau]: Yes, member Uso. Thank you. Could you just ask that whoever is taking minutes to note that our student representative, Colin Bailey is actually in the meeting.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, Colin, Mr. Bailey, welcome. We will note that, thank you. And number five, we have reports of committees. First up is Curriculum Subcommittee from February 24th, 2021. Member Paula van de Kloet.
[Van der Kloot]: Hi, so this is a very extensive, it was an extensive meeting, so I'm going to condense the minutes for the purpose of just sort of summarizing the meeting. We had two presentations that evening. The first was from Molly Leighton, director of our technology. She spoke to the curriculum and what's covered in each of the grade levels. She also spoke to questions like, what are her future goals? She wants to expand the library makerspace, expansion of student tech help desks, bring girls who code club Medford Public Schools and build course pathways. Full-time librarians in all schools with certified school librarian tech integration leaders. She did note that the department is light. Part of that, of course, is due to the tragic death of a staff member. One of the things that she also spoke of about was that computer skills, it's not just the computer classes, but also embedding skills within the curriculum across the board. So it's not a standalone. So example, writing on the computer, for example, using a slideshow to present a science project. Tech teachers had to teach proficiently with keyboards for MCAS, use it throughout the day, and now extremely important that everyone has a Chromebook. So member Graham asked about a new curriculum. Ms. Layden said, I don't think so. So this year and last year, we have supported staff and students how to use Google Classrooms, emails, online research tools. Some of those things will continue to evolve depending on needs. More a skill set than a set curriculum. Ms. Layden talked about the influx of tech funding, which of course was a positive. And I asked about how do we support our classroom teachers? Are we doing enough to support our teachers in areas they don't feel comfortable with Google Classroom, et cetera? Ms. Layden responded that library and tech teachers work hand in hand with classmates, teachers reinforcing and assisting when needed. Again, she went back and talked about the library staff is stretched thin and this of course has ramifications for what they can accomplish. So I would sum that up. I asked about the other things that we need as a committee to be aware of for budget requests. And she said, the ordered Chrome tables for kindergarten finally arrived, as did the document cameras for teachers. So those were very delayed in arriving, but they're finally here. Instructional labs will need upgrading for coding. We would look to build in a replacement budget for the future. Okay, the next presentation was by Dr. Riccadeli, who spoke to us about the world language curriculum. Much of this discussion really focused on the middle school level and whether French should be added as an option. There's a great deal of interest. I think one of the points which, I saw some level of where it wasn't fully decided as Dr. Riccadeli was suggesting that it would start off with grade six next year to offer French. She suggested that we have staff who's already able to speak French, but I know that there was also expressed by member Graham, any interest in having that extended at least into grade seven and possibly grade eight. We adjourned at 530.
[Ruseau]: Motion to approve.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion for approval by Member Ruseau, seconded by? Second. Member Kreatz, roll call.
[SPEAKER_21]: Member Graham? Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone?
[U1EIl_L-LWc_SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot? Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Some of the affirmatives are in the negative. Minutes are approved. Number two, we have committee of the whole meeting, March 1st, 2021. Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn, recommendation to approve evaluation of Superintendent Maurice-Edouard Vincent for the school year 2019-2020. At this meeting, we just discussed the evaluation with Dr. Edouard-Vincent, who got amazing scores. We ask her to keep up the good work. Is there a motion for approval of those minutes?
[McLaughlin]: Motion to approve. Second.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion for approval by Member McLaughlin, seconded by Member Kreatz. Roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone?
[Clerk]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau?
[Ruseau]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: 7 in the affirmative.
[Lungo-Koehn]: 7 in the affirmative, 0 in the negative. Minutes are approved. Number 3, communications stakeholder engagement in strategic planning subcommittee meeting, March 2, 2021. Member Jenny Graham, chair.
[Graham]: Hi, thanks. So we met on the 2nd of March, and the topics that we covered were really around infusing some community engagement into the work that the district has been doing to craft a strategic plan. We reviewed a plan and some options to host Roundtables in early April, and we wanna target the week of April 5th, and we would be hosting two roundtables, and the superintendent will circulate information about the details of that. But the roundtables would operate much like the roundtables we did back last spring, where we were talking about the reopening of school. and but would be focused on questions around the vision of where and the direction of the district so that that community input could be pulled into the strategic planning work that is already underway. So we talked about having two 90 minute sessions. One would start at five and one would start at 630 just to provide some small timing shifts for families. There'll be breakout rooms at each of the roundtable that will sort of operate identically and focus on the different levels and classifications of folks who may be interested in joining and have something to say specific to elementary or middle school, high school. We talked about a breakout room for our special education families, and we also talked about breakout rooms for those who need translations much like we did in the spring. In thinking about all of that I would also suggest that we have one for teachers because they'll be critical to whatever strategic plans are put into place. So at the meeting we talked about the sort of structure of the roundtables that would occur And then we talked about a survey that the district would send out at the conclusion of the roundtable in late April so that we collect even yet more information from the families in the community about the strategic plan so that, you know, attendance at the meeting is not a requirement in order to provide input on the overall information that we are looking to see as part of the strategic plan. And then from there, the administration will take all of that information and assimilate it with much of the work they have been doing and has been underway for over a year now, although halted by the pandemic, with still a goal that we will look at that strategic plan in detail in June of this year so that we can begin to implement and execute against it. So again the roundtables would will be sort of penciled in for the week of April 6th, April 5th and the communication subcommittee meeting that's scheduled for that week will be canceled so that we can make space for the for the roundtables. And then the survey draft will go out as somewhat contingent on some of the initial feedback from the roundtables. And then we'll go out around April vacation and have a couple of week turnaround time for folks to think and respond. And that's it.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Wonderful job. Motion for approval by member McLaughlin, seconded by? Second. Member Kreatz, roll call. Member Graham?
[McLaughlin]: Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member van der Kloot? Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Minutes are approved. Next, we have number four, building and ground subcommittee meeting, March 3rd, 2021. Member Kathy Kreatz, who is the chair. Member Kreatz.
[Kreatz]: Yes. I'm also going to summarize my meeting minutes. So I've condensed them to just about two pages. I'll be brief, as can be. We had a building and grounds meeting on March 3rd. One of the topics we discussed was the high school generator. I shared the specs with everybody via email. We received the specs from Gone Green. The total estimate is 186,925. John McLaughlin informed the committee, it's very important to replace the generator. There were two generators at Medford High School, one in the front and one in the back of the building. The one on the vocational side is the one that failed. If we had a power event in the winter, we could have problems with the pipes freezing. We got an update from John McLaughlin after the meeting. He shared an email with us. He spoke to the contractor about the life expectancy of the spec that we got for the new generator. It's going to be 20 years with proper maintenance. Mr. Murphy informed us he met with procurement officials last week regarding the need to go through bidding process for the repairs. The generator is a capital expense and not an operating cost. Mr. Russo and Ms. Van der Kloot expressed, while we have to struggle with priorities, we don't want to be in a situation where the pipes could burst. We want to avoid the huge emergency costs. There was a vote taken on the floor. I motioned to consider the generator as a high priority item at the upcoming Committee of the Whole meeting on March 22nd. It was seconded by Paulette Van der Kloot. All in favor in the motion passed. Mayor, I just wanted to know, do we need to take that motion on the floor this evening or will that be okay for the Committee of the Whole meeting? You can take the vote on the floor, just to confirm. So I motion to consider the generator as a high priority item at the upcoming committee of the whole meeting on March 22nd. Second.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion for approval by member Kreatz, seconded by member Rousseau. Roll call.
[SPEAKER_21]: Member Graham.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau?
[Ruseau]: Yes.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Van der Kloot? Yes. Mayor Long-O'Connor? Yes. Seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Paper passes.
[Kreatz]: Thank you. After we revisited the discussion about the high school entrance there with three separate projects we talked about ramp at the front of the high school sign in beautification. We had a well thought discussion about the high school ramp. Everyone in attendance shared feedback. The project is a capital project and it will require structural engineer to do the drawings to get an idea of the scope of the project. to make the ramp ADA compliant is very expensive. Mr. Cles Andreessen, who is an architect and parent, let us know legally we either leave it as is or do the whole project. Mr. Murphy stated it would be best if we brought forth a suite of recommendations, including the front entrance, the generator, and more to the committee to discuss. Also, this may need authorization from the city on some improvements. Next, we discussed a sign for the Merritt High School entrance. Last year, Chris Donovan, parent, shared an idea of a picture idea we had for a sign of the 50th birthday celebration. I mentioned it would be a great idea if the vocational students could assist with the sign in either one of the shops, metal fabrication or robotic shop, with their laser plasma cutter. Mr. Cushing shared another idea. With Groton-Dunstable, they have a mesh banner that would be cost-effective for us. It would beautify the building in the short term and allow us to continue with the improvement of the front entrance. Dr. Edouard-Maurice remarked, with so much concrete, there are opportunities to add enhancements. She pointed out it's difficult to know where the front of the school is. Whatever the wording could be, we could work with the vocational students. The picture that was shared does show a true front entrance and official main entrance, even if it would be the short time, a new sign landscaping would be the superintendent's recommended priority. Dr. Edward Maurice did a check-in with Mr. Fallon while we were in the meeting, and the vocational student shops do have a machine that would make the sign doable. Mr. Fallon will figure out a cost and give us an estimate. There was another vote taken on the floor. Mr. Van der Kloot motioned to contact Mr. Fallon to get a price on these improvements. Also, she would like to get the cost estimate of the banner for the front. exploring the front entranceway banner. On the side building, it's behind the theater where that concrete section expands. At this time, I am making that motion on the floor this evening so that we can put those estimates forth. Can you please restate the motion? Yes. Okay. Yeah, no problem. Ms. Van der Kloot motioned to contact principal Chad Fallon to get a price estimate on the improvements for the lettering on the front of the front entrance of the school and also to get a cost estimate on the banner for the front of the school. And we're thinking, you know, the banner, if we could get an estimate on the banner for the cement and a banner for the front entrance, just so that we can do a cost comparison.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, if I may just comment on that. I can't support a banner as a way to welcome our ninth through 12th grade class. We're hoping to get this before the start of the new school year. And I truly feel that we need a real sign as a way to welcome our students back to school. I don't think a banner will do it in my opinion. And I know we were able to come up with the $816,000 that was left over from the science labs, as well as I think it was 112,000 from the old boiler project. So I can't support a banner. I don't know if we... Member Van der Kloot.
[Van der Kloot]: So I always think that we had a discussion about sort of two different things. One was the front entrance and doing that with a sign and nice, as our community member presented. The other was the, looking into a banner that might go along the whole front of the building, just to be, add a little bit more sparkle, if you would, a little bit more, you know, interest in it. I don't think right now we were getting to the point where it was just final, this is what we would do, but because there were cost concerns, like how much is a banner? I think that the, you know, from my point of view, I was definitely interested in making the front of the school clear, clear cut, name, nice, whatever. But if the banner is a not too expensive way of also bringing some excitement to the building, I think we should look into it. So just to get a price. Yes, just to get a price, just to have an understanding of what we're talking about.
[Kreatz]: Member Kreatz? Yes, some point of information. So I don't know if I read it clearly, but so the first part of the motion was to contact Principal Fallon to ask if he could get an estimate on the lettering that was in the picture that I shared. It wouldn't be like, we haven't decided on the lettering and what's gonna go on the lettering, whether it be Medford High School or Mustang Pride. That was just an idea that was shared with me because I'm the chairperson of the Building and Ground Subcommittee. That particular picture had lettering. It looked like it was made out of sheet metal and the equipment that the two shops that I had mentioned, which was the robotics and automation and the metal fabrication shops, They do have a laser and a plasma cutter. And so those two machines, I believe, it might be possible for the vocational shops and or teachers and students possibly to create that lettering sign which would go on the front of the front entrance high school where you go up on the ramp. And then the idea that Mr. Cushing was sharing with us had to do with the large concrete section that is behind the Caron Theater. So all that concrete to brighten up that area Mr. Cushing shared an idea of having a banner that might look nice, you know, to cover up the concrete and it might have, you know, we just talked about ideas like having Mustangs running or maybe Mustang Pride could go there with some Mustangs and then the lettering would be on the front of the school with maybe Medford High School so that there's a distinct front entrance and um I did I did ask about this um the lettering you know would be I believe would be able to take him down if we were to you know have either the vocational students do it or an outside company and that lettering could be then put on you know a renovation in another area, if at some time, maybe five to 10 years from now, there is a full renovation, but the structure of the building itself is sound, so they might keep the original structure. I do think that the estimates are for getting prices on those so that at our next meeting, we can talk about the next part of the plan,
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Member Kreatz. So is there a motion for approval to just get estimates? Motion to approve by Member Van der Kloot, seconded by? Second. Member Ruseau, roll call?
[SPEAKER_21]: Member Graham?
[McLaughlin]: Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone?
[Clerk]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot? Yes. Mayor Longo-Klein?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative, paper passes. Number six, community participation. Public participation emails, questions, or comments can be submitted during the meeting by emailing medfordsc at medford.k12.ma.us. Those submitting must include the following information, your first and last name, your Medford street address, your question or comment. Member Van der Kloot?
[Van der Kloot]: Yes, there were four altogether. The first one I'm going to read has to do with MCAS. It was submitted by Eileen Manziel of 42 Winter Street. She writes, question, what are the new dates for MCAS testing? Are parents still able to opt out their child children if they so choose? Sincerely, Eileen Manziel.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Dr. Cushing.
[Cushing]: So we actually just received the commissioner's update today, just a little while ago that testing for grades. Let me pull it up here actually, because it literally just came in. The testing for MCAS for grades three through eight testing schedule has been postponed. The updated tentative testing windows for grades three through five have been changed to Monday, May 10th through Friday, June 11th. for the tests in ELA, mathematics, science, technology, engineering. Testing dates are still yet to be determined for grades six through eight. That just came in this evening. As far as opt-out, there's no official opt-out, but we had said earlier, DESE doesn't allow an opt-out, but we had said earlier that the best way for parents to let the educators know, the principal know, is to submit an email and reach out. But I also want to allow Ms. Galussi to speak if that's okay with the chair.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Absolutely, Ms. Galussi.
[Galusi]: Dr. Cushing pretty much covered everything. He reflected the new dates. The elementary principals had already set their MCAS schedules for April and I believe had communicated those with families so we're now back to the drawing board for May and once those dates are finalized we'll be reporting that out. Dr. Cushing also mentioned that if there are families since as of right now there is no remote option to take the MCAS at least at the elementary level, with those first dates being the ones shared. If there are parents, especially in the remote learning academy, that do not wish to have their students come to school to take MCAS, then they need to send an email to the school principal. I hope that's helpful.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Ms.
[Van der Kloot]: Galusi. Next email, please. So there are three more emails regarding the Columbus School. Mayor, do you wish me to read them now?
[Lungo-Koehn]: We have that two resolutions at the middle to end of our meeting. So I think we should probably save them as others may want to comment as well.
[Van der Kloot]: OK. what your preference is. Okay, thank you. So, and I'll keep on checking. Thank you very much, Member Van der Kloot.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Next up, we have report of superintendent. Number one is superintendents updates and comments, Dr. Edouard-Vincent.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Good evening. Today is International Women's Day, a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. which began in 1911. This year, the theme is hashtag choose challenge. From challenge comes change. I am proud that Medford is a community that values female voices at the table. Celebrating women's achievements only helps to forge equality. Also, I have some positive news to share. This week's COVID-19 testing program, we administered over 2,700 tests, and I'm pleased to report that after three days of testing, our Mustang community yielded zero positive cases. Additionally, earlier this week, or last week, Governor Baker announced that teachers and staff in K through 12 education and early education and care would soon be eligible to take their vaccine. So this is a critical step, a critical next step toward restoring a sense of normalcy for our students and for all of Medford. So with the continued decline in virus positivity rates and the stated intention of the Commissioner of Ed to soon require modification around structured learning time, we are taking active steps to prepare for the likelihood of the increase of in-person instruction. This effort toward restoring more normalcy is an important step in helping our students to prepare for next school year. Obviously, our hope for next year will be to open and be continuing to provide instruction for the full week. Working towards that goal, Um, preparation will begin to take place right now. We are continuing to wait for additional guidance this week from the commissioner regarding his announcement that was made on Friday. Um, the focus would be to start with elementary schools and eventually stagger that out six through 12. This week we have a time-sensitive request that we asked of the parent community of students that are in grades six through 12 that we are asking that you would confirm which cohort your child is in by this Friday, March 12th. There is an exception for remote learning due to COVID-related circumstances. However, we do need to have accurate accounting of which cohort students are involved in. And so, in person attendance for all students in grades six through 12, starting effective next Monday, March 15. And again, your identification of which cohort you are in and your participation in extracurricular activities will be contingent upon the adherence to the in-person attendance and scheduling expectations for your cohort. So this week, or this past week, I should say on Thursday, We had the opportunity to hear from our elementary students, parents, caregivers, and members of our staff at the elementary levels regarding their expectations this year and their expectations for next year. It was a wonderful conversation. Many members of the school committee were able to join different portions of the listening sessions that took place. So thank you, school committee members, for your support attendance last week. I would like to remind everyone that tomorrow, March 9th, we will be holding another listening session for our middle school students, and a similar session on Thursday, March 11th, for our high school students. We will be having similar listening sessions for all of our cohorts, A, B, C, and D, and we would like to provide our seniors with an opportunity to be able to share their specific concerns as seniors. So March 11th, this Thursday, we want to hear from you. Translation will be available both tomorrow and on Thursday in the following languages, Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole, and Arabic. Closed captioning is also available. I would like to take this opportunity to thank DA Marion Ryan and her amazing staff of assistant DAs. Alia Khalidi, Doug Cannon, Catherine Folger, Adrian Lynch, Tom Ralph, Tom Brandt, Beth Dunigan, Alice Casey, and D.A. Ryan's press director, Megan Kelly, for their important presentation on racial equity, anti-bias, and white privilege for our teachers and staff. These difficult conversations need to be had in order for our community to be more unified. I appreciate District Attorney Ryan's leadership on these issues as we continue to move forward together. I have some wonderful news to share. Math Counts. It provides engaging math programs to middle school students of all ability levels to build confidence and improve attitudes about math and problem solving. For only the second year, Medford's Club participated in the Math Counts Math Competition, a national middle school math competition I am pleased to announce that Adrita Samant, a 7th grade student at the Andrews Middle School finished in sixth place in the Math Counts Chapter Invitational. By doing so, she has qualified for the state rounds of the competition that will take place in three weeks. This competition began with a total of 2,000 students from all over Massachusetts. only 300 students qualified for the chapter invitational, out of which Adrita is one of only 45 students who have qualified for the state invitational. So I just want to say congratulations to you, Adrita. Make us proud and try your best. We're very happy that you made this great accomplishment. And I look forward to hearing how the competition goes. Um, believe it or not, almost a year ago, Wednesday, March 10th, it's going to mark the one year anniversary that governor Baker issued a lockdown to stop the spread of the mysterious COVID-19 virus at the time, believe it or not, it's already been a year. There was so much that was unknown. Then we all assumed. we'd be back to our regular schedules after a few weeks. Obviously, that did not happen. All of us have been affected in some way by the virus, whether medically, financially, educationally, and or socially. With the advent of the vaccine, we do see normalcy returning soon. However, we must continue to wear our masks social distance, wash our hands, and most importantly, work together. As I have always said, we are one district, one Medford. As we move forward in our uncertain world, the Medford Public Schools remains dedicated to providing a safe, equitable, and consistent education for all of our students with a strong focus on social emotional health. So later today, coming up, you're going to hear an update from our nurse, Toni Wray, on what's happening with COVID-19. And then after that, I will be announcing our poetry winners. So that is to come, our unity poem. And I'm really excited to recognize the students that were selected, and they will be sharing their poems with us this evening. So thank you, and those are my remarks for the day.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Dr. Edward-Vincent. We have member McLaughlin and member Van der Kloot.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Edward-Vincent for this update. I have a question on the confirming the cohort by this Friday for the grades six through 12. I did get a robocall about that today, and I wanted to ask more about that because I want to make sure that the community is understanding, if I'm understanding it correctly, that if you can confirm your cohort, so for instance, if you're in cohort B going in on Monday and Tuesday, and you confirm that cohort this Friday, that there's no changing that cohort. have an option to go remote again for the rest of the year. Is that accurate, Dr. Edward-Vincent?
[SPEAKER_21]: You're on mute. Yes.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Yes, that is accurate. One of the observations that has been occurring, which prompted us to ask, notify parents and have them clarify what cohort their child is participating in, because we have students who were signed up for cohorts, cohort B or cohort C, and there was inconsistent attendance and participation. And so for the purposes of reporting to DESE and also having an accurate record of attendance and data, there were different codes. And so students would come one week and then go and be remote the following week and then come back another week. So there's been a lot of inconsistency. So this declaration of cohorts is really mostly geared towards students that are in cohort B, cohort C, who are fluctuating back and forth between B and D or C and D. So there was a back and forth movement. And that was, the amount of movement was concerning because we're trying to keep accurate attendance records and we need to be able to plan accordingly And even from instructional perspectives, where the teachers were expecting a cohort to be one size, and there were X amount of students one week, and then the following week, you're left with very, very small numbers of students. And they said, this particular week, I'm going to be a fully remote student. So there was too much fluctuation going back and forth, and we truly needed to have consistency and parents to also be notified and aware that this fluctuation was taking place. So by parents making the declaration for us on this Friday, effective Monday, March 15th, when attendance is being documented and recorded, we're gonna be using that new data to have it properly reflected.
[McLaughlin]: HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, she-her, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she- For example, you know, I just noticed, say, five absences on the last quarter, and it was like, that was a surprise. And so previously, obviously, pre-pandemic, families would get robocalls home. Your students are not in school today. I understand that's not happening right now for a number of reasons. You know, the process is part of it, I think. So if I'm understanding correctly, the way that attendance is happening now, it's a period attendance, so whether you attend HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, City of Boulder, COB.: : An individual period. So that's the first part of the question for the unpacking and the second part of the question is that HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, City of Boulder, COB.: : Looking towards the commissioners new HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, City of Boulder, COB.: : Mandate, for lack of a better word of students going in person in April five days a week. Does that mean that cohorts that were currently in person will be required to go five days a week if they were at two days a week or if they are two days a week currently
[Edouard-Vincent]: Can you say that there are two days a week currently?
[McLaughlin]: So in other words, if you're in person currently in a hybrid program, and the commissioner says that students need to come back in person five days a week, will we be eliminating the hybrid program, making those in-person students five days a week? So therefore, whatever decision parents make, Friday, February 12th, is going to be essentially not necessarily a hybrid, but an all or nothing at some point, five days or no days. Is that accurate?
[Edouard-Vincent]: once it is in place, once we receive the final guidance, because Friday evening's decision from the board meeting, we were watching it in real time as were most people when that came forward. So once we get to the high school level, it will be the five days a week. Right.
[McLaughlin]: The high school that is making HAB-Charlotte Pitts, moderator, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her.
[Edouard-Vincent]: From an accounting perspective of being able to know who's supposed to be in the building and who is not. We took a lot, it took a lot of time to set up the schedule to set up the cohorts to try to keep the numbers manageable and the the flip flopping that was taking place. it just wasn't being done in a consistent, from an operational perspective, it was very difficult with accountability, I would say, even if they were showing up online. And so again, from accurately documenting the attendance, knowing who's in the building, who was not in the building, and again, parents also saying my child's in school, cohort B or cohort C, but that not happening on a consistent basis as well. And Dr. Cushing or Mr. Murphy, either of you could speak to the need to have this clearly documented.
[Cushing]: So one of the things too is we've known for about a week and a half to two weeks that the- Amber McLaughlin, then do you have a supposition?
[McLaughlin]: Yeah, just a point of privilege if I might first. So I appreciate that, Dr. Edwin-Vincent, and I just want to clarify so that we don't have to spend a lot of time talking about the need for the consistency because I do very much understand that and I very much understand the attendance protocol that needs to be put in place and the issues with flexibility, not having the flexibility so that there's accountability. What I don't think is necessarily made clear to families and what I want to ensure is made clear to families and caregivers is that choosing in-person is not just choosing in-person two days a week. It is choosing, it is leaving the option open for your five days a week in-person because that's where we're headed based on what Desi was saying. So that part I feel like has not been made clear to families. And I think that that's really important because it's not just a matter of, you know, making a choice to go hybrid or full-on or remote. It's, you know, there's nuance there. And I think we have to really be able to articulate that to families in a way that is useful so that they understand that if they're making a decision for two days a week, they are making a decision for full-time in-person as well based on what DESE is currently recommending. And again, it may be staggered. I understand that we won't all be coming back potentially all at once, that that needs to be made fully clear. So thank you, Dr. Cushing, for letting me have that point of privilege. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Member McLaughlin. Dr. Cushing, did you have anything you wanted to add?
[Cushing]: We've known for about a week and a half looking at where the commissioner was inferencing and the vote before the board. And so looking at the fact that we are probably going to be told at some point this week, there was the vote that he has the authority to do this now. All right, that has not been exercised yet, but we anticipate that on April 5th, we will be told that hybrid is no longer an option for elementary. And then at some point after that, hybrid will no longer be an option for the other grades moving forward. There's speculation as to the timetable, but there's nothing concrete at this time. And so in preparation for that, that move back to five days a week, what we were hoping to do is to get students into their cohorts, get them into the routine of coming in. We've tried to be amazingly flexible with students being able to go remote because of their health situations, family health situations, whatever it may be. But as we come back to some sort of normalcy, and I say that loosely, that we wanted to give our students that sense of commitment to the cohort days, realizing that moving forward, we might be pushing to five days. Now, remote is being left on the table at this time. We've been told that. But again, the vote on Friday gives the commission of the power to remove these options as structured learning time at any point moving forward. And so I also defer to Mr. Murphy, he's been on the calls and if anyone wants to speak as well.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, I know this is coming up on our agenda, item number five. So Mr. Murphy, do you wanna talk now?
[Murphy]: No, I appreciate the teaser for item number five, and I hope everyone stays tuned. And we'll try to keep it concise when number five does come around.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you.
[Van der Kloot]: Mayor? Yes, Member Van der Kloot. So I do need to let you know that we received a letter on this topic. I can hold it until the presentation, if that would be preferable.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Please, for number five. That'd be great. OK. Number two, we just have a COVID-19 public health update and Medford Public School COVID-19 testing summary and update and vaccine update from nurse supervisor, Ms. Toni Ray. And also Mr. Murphy's here to speak on this as well.
[Wray]: Good evening, everyone. I'm happy to report positive information from the city of Medford's COVID data. Our average daily incidence rate has been decreasing steadily. And this week we are down to 16.7 cases per 100,000. So this rate maintains us in the yellow zone with a percent positivity rate of 0.78%. So we are very excited about that. Our school data reflects that decrease. We've administered over 5,300 COVID tests since February 22nd, when we returned from vacation. And we have had all negative test pools. I'd like to thank all students and staff for their continued vigilance and adherence to the public health protocols of mask wearing, frequent hand washing, and maintaining the six feet physical distancing. And I'd also like to thank parents for supporting our efforts by keeping their children home when they are feeling ill and heeding the guidance that's provided by the school nurses for quarantine and isolation. Last week, Governor Baker announced that teachers may now sign up for vaccines at one of three sites, either a state vaccination site, such as Fenway Park or the Danvers Hotel sites, retail pharmacies, such as CVS and Walgreens, and for some patients through their network healthcare providers, such as Lahey Health. Veterans of the armed forces who are registered with the Veterans Administration may have opportunities to obtain a vaccine through their local VA programs. I'm reminding our school staff that at this time, the Medford Board of Health does not expect to receive a shipment of vaccine and therefore will not be able to vaccinate school staff at school. So I encourage everyone to access the state vaccination registration site at vaxfinder.mass.gov, the CVS site at www.cvs.com backslash immunizations, and the Walgreens site at www.walgreens.com backslash topic. backsplash promotion, backsplash COVID vaccine. Supplies are limited and wait times may be long. To enroll in the Veterans Vaccination Program for educators, please call 877-222-8387. Lastly, in preparation for return to in-person learning, I am reassessing our PPE needs, and we will be placing orders for needed materials. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Ms. Ray. Mr. Murphy, anything to add?
[Murphy]: Thank you, Mayor. Just a quick update from the laity in the public health realm. We've met twice with our bargaining partners as part of the Health and Safety Committee that was part of the MOA. that the school committee approved in January. As part of that meeting, we've got an ongoing dialogue with our teachers union and now our paraprofessional union as well. And we're looking to identify as we continue to have increased in-person instruction, what are the additional things that we need to tighten or where we need to be responsive with regard to concerns around COVID-19. As part of that, we'll be rolling out a easy to use Google form that will allow staff to more easily identify their needs with respect to additional PPE or other materials that are part of our obligation to keep the buildings as safe as possible. As Mr. Ray said, our testing program continues, our numbers are reflective of what we would expect to see based on the declining positivity within the community. And I'll just reaffirm what Tony said about our gratitude for people's vigilance and their continued participation in the testing program.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Mr. Murphy. And if I can just piggyback, I know Ms. Ray, you mentioned to go on mass backs. site or CVS to get tested because of the lack of vaccine that the city's receiving. I just want to let everybody know about 10 days ago, we did put in a regional application to hopefully get some vaccines. That was with Somerville CHA and another number of surrounding communities to hopefully do some sort of clinic regional site at Tufts University with a few satellite sites. So we are trying. Thank you all. Next up, we have some fun. Number three, announcement of winners of the Unity Poetry Contest. I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Edouard Vincent.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Yeah, so I'm so excited that March 8th is finally here and we are able to really recognize our young poets. So I'm really happy. Again, what birthed this was after listening to Amanda Gorman's speech at the inauguration. I was inspired members of my team to give our students an opportunity to showcase their poetry skill sets. And I am pleased to announce that we had close to 120 students. submit poems, and we wanted to make sure for this particular assignment that we not only recognized our hybrid students, but we wanted to recognize our fully remote students as well at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. We had participation from our EL classes and we had one section that we know some of the teachers supported students. We also encourage students to create poetry in any format or language. And so we have a special video presentation today for us as well. So I'm happy to see that, share it with the larger community. So I want to welcome our poets who are on the call tonight. I also want to welcome and congratulate, once again, Ms. Shelby Espinola, who was our grade one student who entered our first poem. And she was from Mrs. Fargo's classroom at the Brooks School. And so I just wanted to recognize Shelby being the first person to submit her poem. We really appreciated that. And then I want to recognize who our poetry students are. So this time in reverse order, starting at the high school, we're going to be hearing from Rakita BK, who's a grade 10 vocational student remote. We're gonna hear from Anna Casey, who is a grade 10 student at the high school on the hybrid side. At the middle school level, we're gonna hear from Abdallah Abdelhamid, who is a seventh grade student from the McGlynn and is a remote student. And we're also going to hear from Kevin Azizi, who is a seventh grade student from the McGlynn, who is a hybrid student. We'll also hear today from Lyndon Wise, who is a fourth grade fully remote student at the Roberts Elementary School. And we're going to hear from Joe Hogan, our fourth grade student also at the Roberts, who is a hybrid student. We will hear from Grace McLaughlin, who has provided us with a video, and she is part of our McGlynn hybrid program, and Ronaldo Pereira, who is a 10th grade student at the high school in our hybrid program. I do wanna share with the team that as the poems came in with students' names on them, They were separated by whether the student was hybrid or if the student was remote. So we did separate them into those categories. But we removed the names of the poets. So we had help to score the poems. And I want to send a special thank you to Dr. Chiesa and our humanities team. We had Max Heinig helping. We had Doug Bone Flynn helping. We had Ms. Sanford from the high school also helping to score. We had Mr. Rich Trotter. We had members of our senior leadership team who looked at it. We had Ms. Susie Weiss and Lisa Evangelista. And we did have other people who were looking and reading the poetry so that, you know, If you were at the secondary level, like if you were a high school staff person, you looked at elementary and middle school and the reverse. So we did not want people to be biased or pick students that they already knew the quality of work that they would do. So it really was done blindly. It was just based on how the poems um uh touched the people who were judging and scoring um there were a lot of great poems and I do want to say that because as part of um The expectation, we really wanted to have poems that were about 10 lines long. So there were poems that were very, very beautiful poems, but some of them were significantly longer. And so in trying to be consistent that we had asked for it to be a certain length, those things were taken into consideration when they were being scored. I also want to thank CCSR because our winners will be receiving gift cards, Amazon gift cards donated to the district from CCSR. And so we're very thankful for that. And we will be getting those gift cards out to the winners. I want to say they are $50 gift cards, I believe. So congratulations. And I hope you get some nice poetry books from Amazon or something fun that you all deserve. So I am going to have us do the poets. And Dr. Cushing, I'm going to need your support. But I was going to start with Rakita BK. And I know we have 150 people on the call.
[Cushing]: If the students could just start their video, that'll help me to find them.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Raquita, if you're on the call, can you raise your hand using the reactions? And that will help us be able to find you quickly.
[SPEAKER_29]: I did look for the name. I couldn't find.
[Edouard-Vincent]: OK.
[SPEAKER_29]: How about Anna Casey?
[Edouard-Vincent]: If you hear your name, raise your hand. Yes. Hi, I'm here. Okay, let us find you Anna. Wonderful. Congratulations. Thank you so much for this opportunity, Superintendent. You're welcome. You deserve it. You did the writing. So we are very excited to hear you share your poem with us. So thank you. You take it away, Anna.
[Anna Casey]: OK. The title of my poem is called The Ally. The origin of one's name is salient, but it won't always be the common one. They can be rare and may seem different. Diversity is a beautiful thing. Names reflect the colors of one's culture. They open doors to new ideas and thoughts. Embrace someone who doesn't look like you. Diversity is a beautiful thing. Be the ally who takes time to listen and unites us with love and happiness.
[Clerk]: Thank you so much. Thank you.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Wonderful job. Really, really great job. Thank you so much for sharing with us. I know we have quite a few poets to go through, but thank you. And I know it takes a lot of courage to get up here and share your poem, but we appreciate it. I'm going to see is Abdallah Abdelhamid on grade seven McGlynn remote.
[SPEAKER_29]: I am here. Wonderful. Welcome.
[SPEAKER_00]: My poem is called Us. I'm going to get started. We stand together, united as one. What we do affects all. We show who we are. We fight for freedom. We fight for equal rights. We fight to be known as one. We fight to be united. What we have fought for represents us. It represents our family. It represents our country. that presents us as one.
[SPEAKER_29]: Thank you, Abdallah. Wonderful job. Thank you so much. I want to ask for Kevin Azizi, McGlynn Hybrid. Do you see? I don't see the name. Do you? Raised hand. We need to Unmute. Got it. Perfect.
[Azizi]: Oh, hello. Hey. Sorry for that. That was just a bit of a mistake there. Thank you so much for letting me do this. And thank you, Miss Superintendent. So the title of my poem is The Meaning of Unity. And it's like this. One person can do many great things alone. But there are still limits. And even a genius can't break those limits on his own. When we unite together, achieving great things becomes easier. Because if ants wouldn't make colonies, they wouldn't be able to survive for long. They wouldn't have such great qualities. And their kingdom wouldn't be much stronger. We gather to help each other, to learn from each other, to make friends and strong connections. Weak things become strong and smart together. That's a rule of the universe. And however big a problem can be, in order to solve it, unity is always the key. Thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_29]: Thank you. Thank you so much, Kevin. I'm going to ask for Linden Wise, grade four, Roberts.
[SPEAKER_07]: The name of my poem is called,
[SPEAKER_29]: Lyndon, can you... Lyndon, I... Can you hear us?
[Edouard-Vincent]: I got a shaky signal. Would you be able to say your poem one more time, Lyndon?
[SPEAKER_29]: Lyndon, can you hear me? He's muted again.
[Clerk]: Okay.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Can you hear him? That's a little better. We can hear you a little better. Try one more time.
[SPEAKER_07]: We are all fractions of stardust. The world is the whole. We are tiny by ourselves.
[Ruseau]: China's brighter than the sun. Unity makes the world a better place than it ever was. Unity is making things better.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I heard the line, when we unite, we shine as bright as the sun. That was a great line. Thank you so much, Lyndon.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Thank you, Lyndon. And I want to say that I know that Bikita, no, let me see. Rikita BK is on the call. Rikita, if you can hear me, can you raise your hand so we can find you? Makita?
[Lungo-Koehn]: He doesn't mute it again. Hold on one second.
[Ruseau]: Oh, gosh.
[SPEAKER_22]: Okay, can you try now, Rikita?
[SPEAKER_03]: Can you hear me clearly?
[Edouard-Vincent]: It's a little shaky. It's a little shaky. Can you try saying it again, Rikita?
[SPEAKER_03]: Can you hear me clearly?
[SPEAKER_29]: Not very clearly.
[SPEAKER_03]: Try saying it again. Sure. Can you guys... My internet connection isn't really the best, so please let me know if you guys... I can hear you now.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I can hear you now.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you. So first, I'd like to start by talking about what motivated me to write my poem. So my motivation to write my poem was the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. After I learned about their murders, I was devastated. I saw many people express their feelings about the situations and racism as a whole. But I myself didn't really have the chance to do anything to express how I was affected by the tragic events that happened. When I heard about the poetry contest, I saw it as an opportunity to express how I feel and to show that I cared. That I cared about the importance of being there for each other when we are going through rough times. I care about the problems that are present in our world today. and that I care about the importance of unity. So here's a poem that slipped from my heart regarding the topic of unity. I can't breathe, those eight minutes, 15 seconds he spent in agony. Say her name, left untouched, pouring warm red, those bitter minutes. Their throats dry, their silent cries, their wishes gone, this cruel reality. Freedom makes an appearance, but equality is still limited. Those fights against fear, those weepings for freedom, let's not let them go in vain. Let's finish building that world of love. Can we change this void into the world that they had dreamed of? My brothers and sisters from the city of waters and the land of tomorrow to the place of the Great Hill, help prevent the repeat of our collided history. Our strongest weapon against the storms of despair and inhumanity is our unity. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_21]: Thank you, Rikita. Thank you very much. That was beautiful, Rikita. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_29]: I would like to now introduce Joe Hogan.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Joe Hogan, grade four, Roberts.
[SPEAKER_35]: Hi, that's me. Thank you for letting me be here. Oh wait, my video's off.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, let's turn that video on.
[SPEAKER_35]: Okay, it's on now. Okay, so here's my poem. I do not want to inherit a world that does not stay united. The world is like blocks. Every time you unite them, they fall down again. If we can unite, the world will be like Legos. They stay together. Then I want to inherit that world because it is united. So what world are we? a Lego or building block. We cannot be both.
[SPEAKER_29]: Thank you so much. Great job. Great job. Thank you for sharing your poem tonight. I think we have Lyndon back. He's going to try one more time. Yes. Thank you. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Can you hear us now? A little bit better. Give it a try, Lyndon.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Sometimes if, if you turn the camera, I was going to say, if you temporarily turn the camera off, sometimes that improves the audio. Um, so we can hear Lyndon's words.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay, go ahead. We are all fractions of stardust. The world is the whole. We are tiny by ourselves, floating and waiting to come together. When we unite, we can shine as bright as the sun. Unity makes the world warm and happy, and we can start right where we are. You can do English muffins from scratch with my grandmother. Unity is making leaves with my neighbors. Unity is playing chair with my classmates. Unity is cleaning up the fells with my friends. Do not forget each other. The earth is still blooming with love.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Wonderful.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Thank you, Lyndon, for coming back on and sharing with us. Thank you so much. So we have a video right now, and this video is by Grace McLaughlin, and we're very happy. Dr. Cushing, are you able to queue the video up for us?
[Cushing]: One moment, attempting to figure out the audio. Just one moment.
[SPEAKER_22]: Here we go, Gracie.
[Cushing]: Madam Mayor, would you go on to another person while I fix the audio? Yes, absolutely.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Presenter is Ronaldo Pereira. And I do want to thank Mr. Paul Texera, who helped considerably in reading through our poem submitted by our EL students. So Ronaldo Pereira, and I believe there may be a few other students helping to recite that poem. Ronaldo, are you on the call?
[SPEAKER_15]: Yes, indeed I am.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Yes, wonderful.
[SPEAKER_15]: I need my classmates.
[Edouard-Vincent]: You need your classmates. Can you tell me the name of your classmates? So we can find them.
[SPEAKER_15]: Mark Oli, Dakayel, and Jeannie.
[Edouard-Vincent]: OK, Dakayel Lemos. Yes.
[SPEAKER_29]: OK, and Jeannie.
[SPEAKER_21]: Hi. You're on. Hey, Ronaldo.
[SPEAKER_09]: Good evening. First of all, I want to thank you all of them. And I want to thank Ms. Saul-Nido for this opportunity. It's our pleasure to introduce ourselves One moment.
[SPEAKER_19]: Rinaldo, can you hear us? This is Nasonye.
[Ruseau]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_19]: All right, here we go. So you have I will help you find the poem. We're not going to interrupt superintendent because I think he's working on another technical aspect. But here is your poem. Did you want to introduce it first, Ronaldo? Or would you like to just go ahead and start?
[SPEAKER_15]: I must start this poem. I'm gonna read it all. And then I'm gonna talk a little bit about it. Okay, so. Face of the same face, brothers and sisters of very other age and race. We're all one and we all come from and we all return home. to the same internal place. So while I was writing this poem, I was with my classmates and I didn't really know what the definition of unity was. So I looked for help and my friends was there and I saw all of the poems and I was getting examples and I see the team the theme of all of this, unity, it's unity. So I took a little bit of everyone and I wrote it. So you wanna talk about a little bit, Jenny?
[SPEAKER_19]: So Ronaldo, why don't we have the people who wrote the lines of the poem help you read the poem one last time and we'll let Jenny start.
[SPEAKER_10]: The title of our poem is called, Unity. Face of the same face.
[SPEAKER_19]: Go ahead, Mark.
[SPEAKER_15]: Of every other age and race, we are all one.
[eOruUd5h8M4_SPEAKER_08]: And we all come from?
[SPEAKER_15]: and we all come from and we all return home.
[SPEAKER_19]: To the same eternal place. Nice job.
[SPEAKER_29]: Amazing job. Well, thank you. Thank you so much for that collaborative group effort.
[Edouard-Vincent]: I want to thank, again, all of our poets who participated in submitting poems. We are going to be posting all the poems that were submitted and recognizing everyone. We know that we can't formally We're going to have a bracelet and other ways to acknowledge the students that participated in the unity poem and they will be receiving that. But we wanted to specifically call out those who were selected as winners. And so Dr. Cushing has our final poetry piece to present from us from Grace McLaughlin. Dr. Cushing.
[SPEAKER_16]: What does unity mean? Unity means what? All a group together. A group together, right? No matter if you're white or black or if you have Down syndrome. Unity means all are together. No matter what. No matter what. Right? Yeah.
[SPEAKER_29]: Thank you and congratulations.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Did you have your hand up?
[Van der Kloot]: No, I just, these were just great. I really, really liked seeing them.
[McLaughlin]: Yes, I just wanted to say thank you. Those are beautiful and good medicine. So thank you very much to the students.
[Clerk]: Sorry about that. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry, Democrats. I think we got under control.
[Kreatz]: Okay, did you hear me? Okay, I'll say it again. Thank you to all the students. All the poems were beautifully written and inspirational. You're all talented poets. Incredible job to everyone. Thank you all.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Wonderful job, everybody. Thank you. And thank you to our superintendent for having the idea. It was wonderful. Next, we have number four report on the McGlynn Middle School by Principal Nick Tucci. You have five minutes, Nick.
[Tucci]: Hi, good evening, Medford School Committee. What a difficult act to follow there. Wonderful poets here in our Medford Public Schools communities. Great job, everyone. Last year, our school site council made up of students, teachers, caregivers, and administrators worked diligently to develop our school's mission statement. And it reads as follows. The McGlynn Middle School's mission is to provide all students with an education and a safe and respectful learning environment that meets the needs of the whole child, empowering them to reach their potential as learners. In a collaborative and rigorous learning environment, students are challenged to be critical thinkers. The McGlynn Middle School celebrates diversity in an inclusive and equitable learning environment designed to foster student growth and achievements. Our school strives to develop engaged, contributing citizens in society by emphasizing the importance of personal integrity and a drive to become lifelong learners. Well, as leader of our school in the midst of the most challenging of years, I can truthfully state that we've held ourselves to this mission and will continue to strive towards meeting and exceeding our mission in the future. I give a tremendous amount of credit to our students, families, and staff that have stepped up to meet the demands and challenges of this school year. Let me first begin by acknowledging our middle school students and families. Our 444 students have proven to be resilient in adapting to the expectations of this year. Currently, we have 171 students learning remotely, while 273 students participate in our hybrid learning track. As you all know, all students started off learning remotely for the first few weeks of the school year in September. But after just a few weeks of remote learning, we welcomed back students in cohort A, At the McGlynn Middle School, this was a sizable amount of students made up of groups of special education students, level one and two English language learners, and homeless students. Shortly thereafter, we transitioned back our sixth graders to hybrid learning, followed by our seventh and eighth graders. As a result of strategic scheduling, we designed a system that enabled students and families to choose between remote learning or hybrid learning. And we've been supportive and flexible in honoring the decisions of families to move between the remote or hybrid learning models depending upon their unique needs. Students have been scheduled in cohorts and pods and have traveled from class to class in the same pods in order to prevent cross-contamination and to contain a potential outbreak of COVID related cases. Students have had to adapt to new routines and expectations for participating and engaging in their hybrid and remote learning. Collectively, they've done amazing work. Our levels of student engagement with both hybrid and remote learning have improved tremendously as a result of the structures and systems that have been put in place. In fact, the number of students earning the distinction of being an honor roll student grew exponentially from first quarter to second quarter at the school as a result of the hard work by students staff and support of their parents and caretakers. I'd like to publicly thank the middle school parents guardians and caretakers for all their support of their children's education this year. More so than ever, we've been dependent on families to collaborate with us at the school to support their students' education. And we found our families to be very supportive of our efforts and willing to work with us to develop tailored action plans for students that might require interventions. I would be remiss if I didn't publicly thank the staff at the McGlynn Middle School for their dedication, flexibility, hard work, resilience, attention to detail, and care for our students. Educators have had to adapt to a significant evolution in the profession over the past year. Educators have engaged in countless hours of professional development to evolve as a practitioner, to meet the needs of our students who are learning both in-person and remotely. In addition, our educators have been focused on targeted professional development throughout the year, on topics of racial equity, cultural proficiency, integration of new technology resources in the classroom, and supporting students who present with anxiety. Educators have been able to successfully integrate multiple technology platforms into their classrooms to support them and meet the needs of our learners. Educators have upheld the rituals, routines, and practices in our building to maintain the safety-related protocols that have been put in place in order to keep everybody safe from the spread of COVID. Our custodians, they work diligently over the summertime in order to reorient the building to respond to the nature of operating schools under the constraints of six feet of physical distancing. Custodians consistently clean, disinfect and sanitize every square foot of the building while in operation and during times when students and staff are not in the building to help prevent the spread of disease. Our team of nurses have gone above and beyond this school year to prevent the spread of disease and to respond to the challenges associated with contact tracing, implementing COVID testing for both elementary and middle school students at our school and supporting the health needs of our students on a daily basis. It's not uncommon for me to be in contact with our team of nurses seven days a week to respond to COVID related impacts on our school community. And I'm happy to report that we have not had a COVID positive case at the McGlynn Middle School in the past six weeks plus. I commend our team of nurses for their knowledge, precision, and care of our students and staff. They've been top notch. The tireless hard work of our support staff at the McGlynn Middle School made up of administrators, administrative assistants, and Councilors have also been commendable. Many of these individuals spend much of their time supporting students to make progress towards their growth as a learner while supporting their social and emotional needs. The McGlynn Middle School has continued to engage our students in our tradition of having school-wide and grade-level wind block assemblies on a regular basis. Due to COVID, these assemblies have all taken place virtually this school year. These wind block assemblies have been important in delivering educational presentations to students on relevant topics that pertain to school and life. And here is a list of some of the virtual wind block presentations this school year that our students have participated in. One on mental health awareness, cyber safety, dangers associated with vaping, an assembly titled what's up with bullying. We had our virtual club and activities fair about five, six weeks ago, a Mustang Way assembly, a presentation from top youth speaker, Dr. John Gaines. A few weeks ago, we had a presentation on tales from African traditions. Principal DeLeva and Principal Fallon just did an assembly for our eighth grade students on the eighth to ninth grade transition to high school. We also have had several grade level assemblies to support students transitioning to in-person learning. And we also look forward to two upcoming presentations in the next few weeks, one on substance abuse led by Dr. Randy Schuster of Harvard University and Mass General Hospital, and actually an upcoming assembly this Wednesday from a NASA engineer who will present on the topic of her ongoing work associated with the Mars exploration. So the McGlynn Middle School, we've continued also our tradition of publicly honoring students who exemplify the Mustang way. And over the course of the past several years, students have been challenged to strive toward living the Mustang way every day. And this means that they bring their best attitude, concentration, and effort to their day. We instill in our students the expectation that they're respectful and lead by example. This philosophy fits in with our mission of creating contributing citizens in society, while emphasizing that importance on personal integrity. Our eighth grade students are in the process of designing and implementing their civic engagement projects, working with their social studies teachers. And I look forward to seeing these student-driven projects come to fruition, as they'll impact our students and our Medford community in a very positive way. Throughout the course of the school year, the Middle School Center for Citizenship and Social Responsibility has led the way in developing projects that have made our community stronger, while instilling important values in our student leaders along the way. Our National Junior Honors Society have begun virtual tutoring sessions to help fellow peers academically after school and also on the asynchronous Wednesdays. We're also very excited to support eighth grader Daviana Viega, who is our project 351 representative and her leadership role in implementing the cradles to crayons project that all the 351 project ambassadors carry into their community to make a difference. Daviana just participated in launch day yesterday, and I had the pleasure of speaking with her this afternoon, and she's really excited about making that difference in Medford. So in conclusion, despite the inherent challenges associated with the school year due to COVID-19 and the pandemic, the McGlynn Middle School students, families, and staff have stepped up to the plate to accomplish our collective goals while staying true to our mission. I thank you for your time, and I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you so much, Mr. Tucci. Very detailed. There are no questions. We will go on to number five, deadline for secondary cohort Boarding Assignments, March 12, 2021. Mr. David Murphy.
[Murphy]: Thank you, Mayor. So we spoke about this earlier in the meeting in response to the superintendent's presentation and some questions from the committee. So the committee and for the members of the community watching this meeting may already be familiar with this just from that discussion. So I will keep this brief. The district announced a week ago this past Friday So I think that would have been February 26th, that for students at the secondary level, there would be an expectation of a commitment to a specific cohort by March 12th with attendance implications taking effect on Monday, March 15th. There are several reasons for this that Dr. Cushing and others have touched upon earlier this evening with regard to attempting to create the conditions that would be most conducive to robust student engagement and regular student attendance in person for those families who have chosen to attend school in person. The logistical and operational basis for this deadline is because of the likelihood of potential increased in-person instruction for the remainder of the school year. In order to operationalize increased in-person instruction, we need to have an accurate understanding as to the numbers behind each cohort. So that is the basis for the deadline that is now in effect and will be in effect as of Friday, March 12th. And with regard to the decision that was made by the Board of Education last week, as Dr. Cushing referenced earlier, that decision by the board gives the commissioner authority to define structured learning time. as in-person instruction unless a family has chosen to be fully remote. So all that's happened so far is that the commission, the board has conferred upon the commissioner the authority to impose that requirement on districts. That requirement has not yet been imposed. We have every expectation that it will be starting at the elementary level in the very near future, taking effect in April. What that timeline will look like at the secondary level and exactly what implementation will look like at the secondary level, we don't know yet, but that's something that we are actively working on and will continue to communicate regularly with both staff and families and students who I'm sure are interested as well. There will be obligations that we will have with regard to conversations with our bargaining partners. Our memorandum of agreement contemplates that scenario. And we will engage in those discussions as we're obligated to do and as we look forward to doing always. And so that's where we're at right now in terms of what's been decided and what has not yet been decided. And so there is a bit of a runway that we'll be continuing to move down. But I think for purposes of clarity for tonight, what people should know is that we do anticipate increased in-person instruction at all grade levels at some point throughout the remainder of the school year. but exactly how and when are things that still have to be worked out. But we know we wouldn't be able to do it, and we wouldn't be able to establish a timeline or a way to do it if we don't have more certainty with regard to students' cohorts. The last thing I will say is that while it's not explicitly referenced in our communications, we know that there will be extenuating circumstances. And as is always the case, we will look at those extenuating circumstances and try to respond in the way that serves students' best interests. That would include situations, obviously, when if students are sick, if they have symptoms, things of that nature, we're going to try to keep students engaged. So there could be situations in which students have committed to cohorts B or C. They're quarantined. They're not going to be told that they cannot participate in school since their peers in cohort D will be participating remotely. So there'll still be flexibility with regard to those situations. So I see just about every single committee member's hand is up, which means my attempt to provide clarity may or may not have succeeded, but I'm happy to answer any questions.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I'm gonna go with what I saw. I saw member Stone, do you have a question? Nope, okay. And then I saw member McLaughlin, member Ruseau, member Van der Kloot.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mr. Murphy. So I want to know also some clarification on the sports contingency. So was it that you had to have, you have to be in attendance to participate in sports, meaning you are in attendance either remotely or in attendance in person and you're remaining to your cohort, or as some people, I think mistakenly thought, do you have to be an in-person student to participate in sports?
[Murphy]: That's a great question. And if that is a piece of confusion, it's something that we can double down on with regard to the communication. But if a student chooses cohort D, meaning they are fully remote, then they can still participate in sports contingent upon being in attendance remotely in class and participating in the COVID-19 testing program. But provided those two conditions are met, then the students are welcome to participate in all extracurricular activities, including athletics.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you both. Member Ruseau, then Member Van der Kloot.
[Ruseau]: I know that this decision is barely one business day old. So I don't expect that many of these questions have answers yet, but two questions. One, Somerville is finally bringing their students back and they are mandating if you wanna come back, you will be getting COVID tests. And their attorneys have said that that is legal. And as we approach the scenario where One, most of our students are not getting COVID tests, and we may have got quite as many students packed in or more into the same spaces. Have we contemplated mandating tests if you want to remain in any kind of in-person instruction? That's my first question, and I'll ask my second once you answer that.
[Murphy]: Sure. So here's what I would say to that, Mr. So. I think that the question as to whether it's been contemplated uh, is yes, but we contemplate a lot of things. A lot of things get discussed. I can say that I I've been in conversation. I've been present in conversations, uh, both with representatives from Desi and represented in our legal console, which we've discussed that, um, there are some variables that do distinguish our situation from Somerville. One of which is that the, our families, while they, there's some flexibility with regard to what, um, making a firm commitment by March 12th, by and large, the families of the Medford public schools have already made a commitment and a decision with regard to which cohort that they would be in. And so I think that the defensibility of a ex post facto condition on cohorts that families have committed to, I think does distinguish us from the Somerville example. I'm not going to I'll pine myself as to whether what I think would be legal or not legal, but I will just say that that variable would be a significant challenge in and of itself.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. I just want to sort of play that out a bit. I know families, and they've reached out to me and probably many members, that they selected hybrid after much deliberation around the risks that they're willing to accept and the benefit that they get by sending their kid in. That is a completely unrelated to many families, a completely unrelated deliberation to going full-time with all the kids in the classroom. So I would just say that while I understand the need to solve the cohorting problem as described around attendance, and of course that makes sense to me, frankly, you know, the challenges around attendance we've been talking about since before even school started and the fact the systems couldn't handle a lot of the coding that we needed. But I will say that there are going to be families who will confirm hybrid. And then the day we are told that they have to be full time, you can fully expect they will be in Court D or they will be waiting for the police to show up to take their kid to school. And I literally saw that and heard that exact sentiment on Facebook. You know, families that were willing to deal with the risk of being in a class with two or three other kids, because some of those classes at the high school, you know, you've all looked around, sometimes it looks like there's nobody in there at all. It's not the same as being in a classroom with twice or more kids. And I just, I think we need to be prepared that we're going to be looking at a huge bump in cohort D. Yes, a huge bump in cohort D and be prepared for that because I think as certainly as a member, I will support families in their desire to do that because the decision to be hybrid is unrelated to the decision to be full-time in-person with all the classes. That's just really a statement which runs upon my second question, probably easier.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, Mr. Murphy.
[Murphy]: I may have lost Mr. says audio there at the very end. I'm not sure if that was just mine or not, but I think I heard enough of it to respond very briefly. I think there's a couple of, first of all, families, as the commissioner said, still have the right to choose the fully remote option and the sort of operational necessity of seeking cohort commitments at this stage. I hope is not viewed in any way as either being disrespectful or insensitive to the difficult decisions that families needed to make at the beginning of the school year and now need to make in terms of having a firm commitment for the final couple months of the school year. That's the first piece. The second piece, and I think this was referenced earlier by either the superintendent or Dr. Cushing, but this commitment that's being asked for by Friday, March 12th is not an indication that within the next week, secondary is going to be going more than two days a week. So there's still time in which the model will still be the same. The third thing I would say is that at no time, by and large, and there may be some exceptions, there always are, and I suspect there are within certain programs, but by and large, no one that made a commitment to cohort B or C should, generally speaking, should have expected to be in a room only with two students because 65% of thereabouts chose the hybrid option. The two or three students in a classroom is occurring in part because we have allowed for valid reasons, I think, a porousness amongst those cohorts because the instruction is concurrent. And so to a certain degree, you're not losing the exposure to instructional content if you're choosing to be remote for a day. So the need for stability is in part because we don't really want too many classrooms with only two or three students. And the final thing I would say is that, well, it's a two-parter. I'll make it quick, I promise, Mayor. One, you're not gonna be, no one's gonna be in a class with all of the students because we're still gonna have a cohort D with somewhere between 30 and 40% of the students. So there is a constituency of students that are not in person, which is good for occupancy restrictions, but also to the point that Mr. Rousseau was making about not necessarily wanting to be in a full room, that sort of, flexibility is still there as a result of that. And since I lost the second point there, I'm just going to end there. But those are, oh, the virus, there is a, I do think there's a variable with regard to the positivity in the community. Again, I'm not telling anyone what they should be worried about or not worried about. I think we have to be very respectful as to, you know, there's a variety of reasons that people's concern can be at a certain level. But it is, I do think a fact that we're at a different stage in the virus now than we were in September or August really. And I think my hope is that to some degree, while the risk is still there and we have to take it very seriously, hopefully there is a slightly higher degree of peace of mind that's coming with these decisions.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. And my second question, whatever it was, was a super easy one, I hope. And as we anticipate having to send more kids in. I heard today from two different parents who send their kids into the high school with their own personal hotspots because the internet is just not capable. So whether it's one and a half or two and a half times as many students that are all gonna be on the internet at the same time, I hope we are already freaking out frankly to figure out how we can have sufficient internet for I mean, you know, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean
[Murphy]: I think I got it. It was it was chopping him and I'm pretty sure I was able to get enough of it.
[McLaughlin]: Mr. Murphy. That's very impressive.
[Murphy]: I live in reading lips. I think the issue is with regard to as increased students come in, are we going to have more problems or challenges with regard to our technology infrastructure. Our issue should not be a capacity one. There are additional risks that come in as we change those variables. And it's a greater impact, obviously, if the network shuts down in a building and there are more students in the building. So it's proportional in that sense. But due to the increased cabling and the increased capacity that we've experienced, the more students alone should not be a variable that exacerbates that risk. I don't know if Dr. Cushing wants to add anything on or if I've mischaracterized that.
[Cushing]: No, actually it's a great characterization. I would ask that if anyone is having internet issues to have them contact the principal, myself. And the reason why I ask that is we've really been able to see that a lot of the issues are with students who are bringing their personal devices that are then on the guest network. guest network in the event that there is some type of a problem. The guest network is the first thing that we cut loose and we maintain the district-owned Chromebooks, the district-owned MacBooks that teachers are using, and those types of devices to maintain the integrity and security of the network. A significant amount of resources have gone into upgrading the wireless network both in expanded hotspots and Cat6 wiring at the high school. So I would ask that those people reach out to us. And if it is a student device, then maybe we can swap out the student device, meaning the district-owned student device with a newer model.
[Lungo-Koehn]: And yes, member Ruseau, I think you said you wanna follow up.
[Ruseau]: Are we saying that, you know, over the summer as the entire planet tried to buy Chromebooks and other devices, and those of us that had the resources went out and spent $1,000 on a MacBook Air for our kids, so that there were in fact enough devices available for everybody else, that $1,000 investment, if I send my kids a Chromebook to dad, here's a $300 Chromebook instead? I mean, that's really, can't be the message, because I'll be angry as a parent.
[SPEAKER_22]: I didn't catch all that. That one I didn't get, I'm sorry. Yeah, I didn't catch that.
[Ruseau]: Is my audio really audible?
[Murphy]: That one, it was some key words that were missing. So if I try to respond to that one, I'm pretty sure I'm going to respond to the wrong question. But if it's that, we feel confident with regard to the investments we made. And to Dr. Cushing's point, given those investments, the district-owned devices should not be an issue with regard to the network, we don't think. And that has been the case thus far. Is that?
[Cushing]: We did also, I mean, to part of the point, we did expand the guest network's capacity I think, I don't wanna say specifically, but I know that in conversations, I forget how we expanded it, but we did widen the bandwidth significantly to allow for student devices that students were bringing in personally. What I am saying is when the network suffers a security threat, generally speaking, that threat is coming through the guest network And generally speaking, that is where we will eliminate the opportunity for a threat in order to preserve academic operations for mainly for our teachers who are then broadcasting out remote to those students who are at home. So it's a multifaceted problem that we've discovered that the primary source of any type of a security risk is through the Guest Network, which we expanded and opened up to give students, like you said, who bought their own devices the opportunity to be able to use them.
[Murphy]: And just with regard to that multifaceted effort, we've also added security features to the Guest Network and are increasing that, essentially the screens or firewalls that are around that network so that we can have even less exposure than we have had currently, because that is where we've identified the most of those challenges.
[Van der Kloot]: Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member van de Kloot.
[Van der Kloot]: Yes. Please let me know if my audio starts going bad. I noted tonight we've had more audio problems than usual. So let me know. I am reading, received a letter to the school committee account from a parent, Adrianne Preby. I'm going to paraphrase it since many of the things were answered, but I think it's important for you to hear her viewpoint. She says, my name is Adrienne Preby of 61 Locust Street. I sent this to school administrators but did not receive a reply, so I'm sending it here. The decision to take away a family's choice in switching back and forth from hybrid to remote as they feel is safest for them due to the ever-shifting nature of COVID case counts as a clear breach of trust of families. How exactly do you intend to enforce this policy after March 18th? She does ask whether we have considered asking a waiver. I think most importantly, though, the thing I want to mention is she says, additionally, all communications about this new policy only add that families will be able to remain fully remote as an afterthought, barely emphasizing this crucial fact. And she feels that this is trying to pressure families into choosing the in-person learning model. So I'm not certain, I don't, I know what exactly, you know, whether that was the last thing said or the first, but I just wanna make it clear that to parents that they can choose the remote model and we're anticipating that they could stay in the remote model to the end of this year, is that correct?
[Murphy]: That's what the commissioner said and that's our position as well.
[Van der Kloot]: Okay, thank you.
[Cushing]: Member van de Kloot, I would also say that at no time this year have we pressured anybody. We have maintained that these are family choices dependent upon family situations, dependent on the medical situations. And at no time have we pressured anyone to do anything other than hopefully get tested through the school's program, please do that. But it is your choice. And I guess the best way to say it is it's a menu option that the state provided to us. They are now removing potentially that menu option. And so if you want to order off menu, there could be consequences for a district that expressly allows hybrid moving forward. And so we are not forcing anyone to make a choice.
[Van der Kloot]: Yeah, so I really think that what she's saying is that because maybe in our communication, she saw the emphasis on yes, you can stay fully remote as maybe not front and center at the beginning.
[Murphy]: But I think we've made it clear tonight. I would just say respectfully, it's not front and center because the folks that have chosen cohorts B or C are having this variable, a significant variable changed from how they're currently operating. And so as Dr. Cushing said, and as we've said, I think in every presentation we've made, yes, they definitely have the option. And it's an option that we as an organization respect to remain in cohort D. This communication, and I think the subsequent communications, including to the robocalls and letters that went out today or on Friday, are emphasizing the changed variable for the constituency that we know is affected. It may very well be the case that some individuals and cohorts B and C choose as a result of the deadline in the prospect of being in more than two days a week, choose to go remote. Again, that's a choice that- I understand all this.
[Van der Kloot]: I'm just relaying that the parent feels that this change is not something she's happy with. And she did not feel that it was emphasized that she could stay. That's all I'm saying.
[Murphy]: I agree. I don't think it was.
[Van der Kloot]: It's not a point of- Her words, not mine.
[Murphy]: That is not a point of emphasis in this communication. That is a true statement. Thank you, both.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Number six, we have recommendation to approve memorandum of agreement between the Medford Public Schools and the Medford Paraprofessionals Association governing working conditions for the 2020-2021 school year. Dr. Marice Edouard-Vincent.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Yes, so similar to our teachers MOA, the paraprofessional MOA is finally being ratified or to officially announce the working conditions that the paras have been working under since the school year began. And so this is really a request to approve the MOA and just to confirm the work that has been taking place all year.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you very much, Dr. Edward-Vincent. Is there a motion?
[SPEAKER_21]: Motion to approve.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion to approve by Member Ruseau, seconded by Member Graham. Roll call.
[Lungo-Koehn]: unmute yourself member van de Koop, please. Yes. Thank you. Mayor Lungo-Koehn. Yes, seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Motion passes. Number seven, update on Medford High School restroom renovation project. Mr. David Murphy.
[Murphy]: Thank you, Mayor. Just to tack on to that last agenda, we do want to extend our gratitude to the Paraprofessional Association for their work on negotiating the MOA. It's not uncommon for the units with fewer members to sometimes have to sort of wait in a queue. And their patience and their work on this and their team, I just do want to say that we're grateful to them for their work, both in the classroom on a daily basis, but also in finalizing that agreement. With regard to the restrooms renovation project, we touched upon this at our previous meeting and it was a subject of conversation at the Buildings and Grounds Subcommittee. We have made progress in that we've scheduled a meeting with the architect who provided the initial specifications and have met with the city's procurement office. We'll be meeting with the architect in person here at the high school on Wednesday, both to take a walkthrough of the relevant restrooms and to spell out the additional specification that we need and that we've been advised needs to be included in the invitation to bid under chapter 149 that we're hopeful will be issued within the next, I'm gonna say a week, although I may be getting a little ahead of the procurement office and I don't wanna do that. So within the next one to two weeks, we expect that invitation to bid will be issued. There are a few other strategic decisions that need to be made, including whether the architect will be retained to provide a degree of project oversight with regard to that. And as I believe was referenced at the previous meeting, there will be decisions for the school committee likely in the near future with regard to whether the scope of the project should be expanded to encompass additional restrooms. Right now, the quote that was received when this project began last spring Harmon Zuckerman, PB — He, Him, His): Was with regard to a set of restrooms on the second floor of see building. That's what the quote was for. That's what as of today, the invitation to bid under Chapter 149 would be based on Harmon Zuckerman, PB — He, Him, His): And we're going to include in our conversations with the architect this week as to what variables, if any, would have to be modified if the scope of that bid were to expand the The likelihood, those of us that have looked at the project and have been digging through the specifications, is that the bathrooms are nearly identical. And so we have a general sense. The question is really whether, if scaled up, there could be some savings realized through efficiency. But that's a decision that we'll come back to the committee with to discuss sometime in the coming weeks.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you very much, Mr. Murphy. Thank you, Mr. McLaughlin. And I know the Buildings and Grounds Committee through Membercrats worked on this as well. Thank you. We have number eight report on user fees for athletics, Dr. Peter Cushing and Mr. Bob Maloney.
[Cushing]: Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the school committee. Thank you for allowing us to speak on this issue. As you may or may not be aware, within the state athletics, there was a shift This year, while many well most I shouldn't say many well most high schools athletics programs have participated in some manner shape or form, this year, the greater Boston League is only beginning play, as of this past weekend. We had several of our member schools were in the red and some of those school districts have not returned students to any in person learning at this time. So the league chose to stick together and we are currently operating on three six week seasons. Currently, we are in the winter season. Girls hockey and girls gymnastics, I'm sorry, gymnastics and girls hockey have participated because they're part of statewide leagues. And so if we had waited for them to play, they would have essentially missed their opportunity to have any competition, as other schools are currently moving to what is called spring to Given the variables that we were facing this year, and not knowing whether or not students would even have an opportunity to participate in athletics, and our student athletes are facing significantly reduced opportunities to play. As one example in the report, girls hockey would typically have 20 games, two scrimmages, and the opportunity for multiple games in post-season play, depending on how well they move forward. This year they participated in 14 games and their ice time was reduced from five days per week to three days per week. Mr. Maloney has another example to share with our girls JV basketball players.
[Robert Maloney]: Yeah, we just started basketball last week at this time, girls junior varsity basketball program at a game schedule. This week we were notified that Revere, Walden, Somerville, Lynn Classical, Lynn English, they do not have enough girls to have two teams. So currently right now our girls junior varsity basketball team has only three games on their schedule. We're going to try to do everything in our power to double up and get them some more games. But as everybody knows on this call, it's a moving target. Things are changing every day. And the athletes, we're going to try to give them some kind of sense of a season this year, but it's not a normal season.
[Cushing]: So we're requesting, given the significantly reduced schedules, normally your seasons would be about 12 weeks. We're down to six week schedules. We're asking for the school committee to waive the user fee for our student athletes.
[Van der Kloot]: Member van de Kloot. Yes. So the question is, um, uh, I think this is great. Uh, I'd like to be able to wave them all the time. What's the financial impact and how are we going to cover the loss?
[Cushing]: So we have, um, there will be significantly reduced, um, costs in transportation, um, due to the number of games that are not being played. There's a substantial reduction in the amount of ice time that is available to students and therefore that we are paying for. There will be cost savings when we look at reconditioning of equipment. For football, there will not be a need to recondition the equipment given the shortened season. There will be certain equipment that was purchased last year for last year's spring sports that will be carried over into this year and will need to be purchased. Mr. Maloney, other ideas?
[Robert Maloney]: Yeah, we're gonna save officials across the board site workers, probably police details, because we're not gonna have any fans that game. So there's gonna be a savings across the board. And we're confident that the budget that you gave the athletic department in July will cover this.
[Van der Kloot]: Okay, that's, that's great. I make a motion to approve the recommendation.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion for approval by member van de Kloot seconded by Ms. Stone. Ms. Stone, roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Yes. Member Mustone.
[Clerk]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot. Yes.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn. Yes. Seven the affirmative, zero the negative. Number eight passes. Thank you.
[Clerk]: Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: We have old business. Number one, the annual reports and presentations schedule policy will be amended to change the frequency of the tiered focus monitoring presentation in section three, scheduled from annually to every three years offered by member Ruseau. Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: Mayor, I believe this is self-evident. It was just an error in the original policy we approved. So there's no conversation.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion for approval by member Ruseau, seconded by member- Second. Graham, roll call, please.
[SPEAKER_21]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Prentz.
[Kreatz]: Sorry, my dog was barking, yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, yes. Member McDowell. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn. Yes, seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Motion passes. Number nine, communications. And number 10, we have new business. First up member McLaughlin motion to include the school committee voting tally sheet as part of the regular school committee public record with posting to website. To the website on a regular basis. Motion for approval, or would you like to speak on it? Motion for approval by member McLaughlin, seconded by.
[Ruseau]: I have a question. I'm happy to second it to actually member Ruseau. I'm I'm. I'm understanding this to be the you know the what we did in person, the pieces of paper, where you would write the motion and say who voted for what.
[Lungo-Koehn]: May I, ma'am? Yes, Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Yes, this is a tally sheet, Excel spreadsheet. I've been sending it for the past couple of meetings. If you haven't gotten it, let me know. I sent it through Google share. So it's actually a Google spreadsheet, not Excel, and it's a list of the motions and how each member voted on the motion, whether the motion was approved.
[Ruseau]: Good second that. Oh, sorry, a quick, sorry, more quick question. I just want to make sure we, are we keeping a separate sheet for executive session votes so that we don't accidentally post that to the public?
[McLaughlin]: That was actually what I had asked during the executive session when we were in session. And so I can amend that motion. I mean, yeah, I can amend this motion to keep a separate tally for executive session.
[Lungo-Koehn]: approval by member McLaughlin, seconded by member Ruseau, amended by member McLaughlin. Roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Please. Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz.
[Clerk]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone.
[Clerk]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, seven the affirmative, zero the negative, paper passes. Our next two are pretty lengthy, so bear with me, please. Motion to use the following guidelines at the March 10th, 2021 Committee of the Whole meeting with purpose of forming an advisory committee to rename the Columbus Elementary School. First up is offered by Member Ruseau. Yes, Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: In light of the fact that the resolutions are actually on the agenda, I would motion to skip the reading, if there's interest in that.
[Lungo-Koehn]: How does the committee feel? I know there's a lot of people on, we have 120 people, so I'm sure if- Mayor. Emails, yes, Member Vandekloot.
[Van der Kloot]: So first, I do want to, we held off some letters from the beginning. And so I do want to comment on those. However, before I read those, I'm just going to say, I understood the purposes of putting the, that member Rousseau told me was that his purpose was to send his resolution to the committee of the whole on Wednesday. And so I submitted mine as well, so that it would go to the committee of the whole. Resolutions that are put forth just to explain to our viewers are to work out, hammer out a procedure for an advisory council and also a timeline for the renaming of the Columbus School, which was voted on back in June. They are very lengthy because there are many important issues in this. in the question. So my intent was that it was not going to be discussed line by line tonight, but that I wanted everybody to get a chance to see it. I do have great concerns about the timing. I mentioned that tonight, but I'm sure we'll be talking about that on Wednesday. Now, we received some letters regarding the Columbus issue I'm going to, the first one received was from Betsy Lister and long time resident. I thought I saw Betsy on. She actually did not put her address on here. Is Betsy on?
[Lungo-Koehn]: You can still summarize her comments.
[Van der Kloot]: She is a long time, four decades, Medford resident, a business owner in town for over 20 years.
[SPEAKER_21]: Member Ruseau?
[Ruseau]: I believe that it's really appropriate to read all of the text. I'm concerned that the summarization. Okay, I will do that.
[Van der Kloot]: Member Vidikul, how many emails do you have? I think there's three now, but another one on a different topic has come in.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, so let's read the three in the Columbus School.
[Van der Kloot]: Okay, to all. I've been a long time, four decades, Medford resident, business owner in town for over 28 years. I'm a past president of what was known as the Salem Street Business Association for three years, a past board member of Temple Shalom here in the city, and my son went to the Columbus School. The direction I see the city going in is one that will hold terrible consequences for the children and grandchildren of future generations, of the city. This Marxist-communistic leftist agenda that's being forced down the throats of parents and children is heinous, contains so much hatred and racial divide, it's out and outright despicable and has no business in the city, never mind the school system. Why on earth are children not being taught the important things that will get them through life? Why are they being indoctrinated into a narrative that's full of hate and divides people by color and social status? Why are they being taught about BLM and Antifa? Why not teach them our history as it happens so that they will know not to repeat it in the future to be learning from the past? All men are created equal, says the Constitution. So that's what we should be taught in school, period. Not divide by skin color or ethnic background. They are all children and children love unless they are taught otherwise. And teaching hatred in school has no business being there at all. Teach the children they are all equal and to love one another and their neighbors, not to put a line of division between themselves and others. I'm disgusted with the new rev, that and they all need to go. In fact, I'm thinking the entire school committee needs to be dissolved immediately because it's harming the children by dividing the community unnecessarily. We're better than that. I doubt that the majority of Medford parents want their children brought up with Marxist beliefs. We already know that academia consists of 98% liberals and the rest conservatives, so that should be addressed as well so that children's minds are not poisoned any further. It's a very long letter. Sorry, that was my own comment. Recently, I heard an audio clip of an eighth grade class with their teacher. He asked them if they knew who Helen Keller was. The response ranged from a man and a German spy. Only one child in the entire classroom said, oh, that was that blind person. By the way, she's not referring to a Medford classroom. The teacher then required if any of the children knew who Hitler was and they were clueless, no idea, and couldn't respond at all. Imagine not knowing who Hitler was in the eighth grade. And finally, he asked, do you know what D-Day is? And the answer was a rapper. Think about that for a minute. What are our kids being taught? Items of importance or a leftist Marxist agenda? I'm not a perfect person. I've sinned in my life and I have enough sense to know what I'm seeing being pushed through in Medford schools is just wrong. And although I'm not a Christian, I believe that most parents would agree that what's being taught in the Medford school system doesn't go along with their Christian or Judaic values. Seems the leftist took God out of the schools to shame. And as for the Columbus School renaming goes, there's no reason at all to change the name. I know Andrea Bocelli is quite the performer, but he means nothing to me at all. Nor do I think who he is makes any sense to plaster his name on an educational building. This is not Disney, nor is it Hollywood. And the name Columbus has served the school very well for decades upon decades. For all of his sins, he's the reason most of us are here for crying out loud. This is the senseless and waste our time and poses a distraction to the real issue. What's being taught to the children in the direction that the city is going. We have elected a mayor who has turned her back on the people who elected her and chooses to do her personal bidding. Yeah. You know, there's a level of, yeah. Not on our own political stance. Take a knee for BLM, but do not support your own police. Hmm. How many want to see this divide that's happening? I doubt not the majority. Hell, if I'm wrong, let me know. I was the support the police rally, and when you have children screaming, blank the police, and creating a scene and spewing hatred everywhere, it was disgusting, and everybody was shocked. These were schoolchildren telling us to go. yeah, and ourselves and the police and worse. I got hit off the head with a sign by a teenager who teaches these kids this. Common sense has left the city and needs to be brought back. If we don't teach our true history as it was, the kids will go back thinking D-Day is a rapper. Stop destroying the city's monuments and institutions by bringing a divide. Rather instead, take a step back and start trying to love one another and want better for our children. And stop this absolute nonsense and pay attention to what the kids are being taught and worry about their future as opposed to the name of the building of where they get their education. Sign me more than mad in Medford that it's come to this juncture, Betsy Lister. OK, so that's the first letter. Yep, two more. The second letter on this topic comes from Medford United and Eunice Brown. And she's transmitted to us a packet of information So it says, dear May Lungo current school committee members and superintendent Edouard-Vincent, as concerned citizens of Medford, Massachusetts, we submit the documentation to support our position. The name of the Columbus school should remain unchanged. We strongly believe in the proposed name, believe the proposed name change is unnecessary. This packet includes several components, this cover letter, a hard copy of the petition description that was circulated, online and hard copy petitions that have been signed by current and former Medford residents who oppose the name change. Total signatures 2,100. Medford residents signatures 650 plus. Differential in signatures, individuals who may not currently resign in Medford, but who have grown up in the city and who continue to have family ties or business interests in Medford. Regarding the handwritten sheets of petitions collected, in some case, the signer signed for him or herself. In other cases, written permission was received to sign for them. That is why you will see signatures with the same handwriting. One petition site that we use required that we email the URL to the results to you. That is the GO petition site, and that was the most recent petition circled and has thus far netted us 21 names, 15 of which are Medford residents. Those results will be sent email to the official school committee email. Information regarding Christopher Columbus is point number four. I think that must be in the packet. Number five, information regarding the Italian-American alliance. We believe that it is a strong sampling of the true sentiments of the Medford community. We want our voices to be heard. It is disturbing that such a monumental decision that changes the fabric of our city was decided with a sheer lack of transparency and community input. A decision of this magnitude should have been advertised far and wide across all media platforms and far in advance of a meeting. It should not have been advertised only to meet the letter of the law. This is unconscionable. We are deeply disappointed that any steps taken to move forward on this matter are considered ethnically biased, disrespectful, and thoughtless, insulting multiple generations of Italian-Americans who grew up, lived in, attended, and supported and contributed to the Columbus School as well as the city of Medford. For Italian Americans, this school name has and will always be a source of pride and history. This is a passionate and personal issue for many on. on both sides and with other urgent matters much higher on the priority list that our city is facing, we are putting forth our best efforts to stop the Medford School Committee from changing the name of the Columbus School. On Friday, March 5th, Educational Commissioner Riley ordered all elementary school students must return to in-person learning effective April 5th. This should be the school committee's only priority at this time. To quote a school committee member and their, And there is a budget, quite possibly the most contentious budget ever, that we will be attempting to craft at the same time as replanning this year and planning next year. It would be a gross abdication of responsibility to the children of Medford to spend time right now on the renaming of a school when issues directly related to the well-being of our children are smack in front of them. We request that our discussion regarding changing the name of the Columbus School be tabled at this time until our children have returned to school safely for the remainder of the academic year. Budget issues are managed and there is a plan in place to return our children to the academic year 21-22. Thank you for your consideration, sincerely concerned citizens of Medford. And then I have one more. on this subject. This was submitted by Brenna Christensen. Dear Mayor Lungo-Koehn and members of the Medford School Committee, my name is Brenna Christensen and I am a graduate of the class of 2020 from Medford High School and a former captain of the varsity softball team. I write to you today to request a name change to Columbus Memorial Park the Crystal Campbell Field and to incorporate the name changing of the field to the future name change committee. So she's recommending that we change the name of the Columbus School to the Crystal Campbell School. Crystal Campbell was a Medford native, a victim of the Boston Marathon bombings. She was an active member in our Mustang community and was in the band along with the softball team. Crystal Campbell was known to light up any room she walked into and she loved sunflowers. She is an inspiration to our city, our home, our residents, and our athletes. Since 2013, the varsity softball team has held the Crystal Campbell Softball Tournament in mid-April at the Columbus Park Softball Field. During the two-day tournament, us Mustangs competed against Boricua, Swampscott, and Arlington Catholic High School. We actively fundraised during the tournament and throughout our season to donate to the Crystal Campbell Scholarship Fund. On this day, our community comes together as one and united. We are truly Medford strong. Although this tournament may only be two days out of the year, during our entire season, we wear her name on our jersey. And we wear it with immense pride. It's a day when we give back to the community and honor Crystal's legacy. Not only is the Columbus Park field home to our high school Mustang softball team, we share this field with our youth softball program and baseball as well. We meet our forever friends, learn sportsmanship along with the importance of responsibility. But for all of that, we make memories that will last a lifetime. Each and every play on that field, we keep crystal close to our hearts and play in our honor. I respectfully ask that we use our Medford strength, come together as one and rename our fields. Let's continue the pride we feel when we wear Campbell on our jerseys and with a positive change to our city, the city we all love and with gratitude get to call home. Thank you. Kind regards, Brenda Christensen, 80 Fern Road. So excuse me, she may be asking just for the fields to carry the name and we would do that under a separate consideration, but we might forward her email to the advisory council anyway.
[Lungo-Koehn]: All right. I appreciate it. So we have two resolutions, one by member Rousseau and by member. Van der Kloot, both of which are going to be moved to Committee of the Whole for a further discussion on Wednesday. That meeting starts at 5.45 PM. Mayor Van der Kloot.
[Van der Kloot]: Yes, can I just, there's a curriculum subcommittee meeting from 4 to 5.30. I think originally people thought this meeting, our Committee of the Whole was going to be at 5.30, so just to repeat, it starts at 5.45. Correct.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, 545 on Wednesday, March 10th, to discuss the two resolutions. Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor, I also just wanted to mention that I had a previous commitment to talk on a panel for the Special Education Parent Advisory Council that meets the second Wednesday of every month. So I have to excuse myself from the meeting for one hour, six to seven, but I will be there from 545 to six, and then I will return at seven o'clock. So my apologies, please excuse me, It had been a long time commitment that I need to keep. Thank you. Thank you.
[Eunice Browne]: Eunice. Yeah. Thank you very much, Madam Mayor. So I just have a question about the meeting on Wednesday night. Can you tell me, either yourself through the chair or to the superintendent or whomever is the appropriate person, Tell me what the first date it was that you publicized the meeting this coming Wednesday night and across what platforms it was published.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I can't hear you. Dr. Edward-Vincent, do we have Ms. Wise on the call? I can look back and see when it was posted.
[Edouard-Vincent]: We announced the committee of the whole at one of the previous school committee meetings back. It was announced that it would be March 10. that that committee of the whole would be. So I want to say it was a February meeting. And then at that time we said it would be a 5.30 p.m. start meeting. We also put it in our Friday communication. that went out on Friday, that we have the Committee of the Whole meeting scheduled for next week. And following the 48 hours, it was posted today, it was posted for Wednesday's meeting for the clerk's office. Okay. It is officially posted and that's following the open meeting law. It was posted for the school on the school side. It went out in our Friday communication and it was announced at our February 22nd meeting that the committee of the whole would be on Wednesday, March 10th.
[Eunice Browne]: OK. I distinctly remember you saying, and it's on video, of course, that the meeting would be publicized early and across multiple media platforms. I took that to mean that Early, not the Friday before, or I did see it posted this afternoon. So you met the letter of the law, of course. Early to me means a couple of weeks before, across multiple media platforms, plastered all over social media, perhaps on Medford Patch, on the local transcript. I picked up a transcript last Thursday. I didn't see anything there. Much of the community is not on social media, so they wouldn't have known about this. I find it completely disingenuous that you basically publicized it on your usual platforms, Medford Public Schools, which for some people who don't have children don't necessarily look there, but have a vested interest in this particular issue. So, I would have assumed and would have hoped that you would have publicized this far and wide through our newspaper outlets, across a number of different social media sites and so forth. So I find that at best, lazy, negligent, and neglectful, and at worst, a bit of a lie. And the second thing that I'll ask.
[Edouard-Vincent]: I do take offense. I don't consider myself a liar. And I published it. to the letter of the law. Open meeting law. I published it in my communication. We have our school committee meetings posted on the website. So please do not call me a liar. I'm not going to take that lightly. I'm not lying to you or anyone in the community. We are having a committee of the whole so that people will be allowed to speak at regarding the Columbus school renaming. This was something that was asked approved last school year, and this is an opportunity for anyone from the community to be able to speak.
[Eunice Browne]: you wouldn't think that there are plenty of people in this community. And you can see that from the 2,100 signatures we got, 650 of them from Medford alone, that there are an awful lot of people that don't necessarily follow the Medford Public Schools website, but this topic is of great interest to basically the entire city. And the second thing that I'll ask is that at that same meeting back in February, member Kreatz requested that there be participation from the NAACP director, the diversity director, the Italian-American community, the South Medford community, and you also said yourself that anyone who had emailed regarding the topic would also be notified of the meeting. I'm wondering, was any of that done? Were those invitations to those individuals that Ms. Kreatz wanted extended to those people?
[Edouard-Vincent]: We have a list of some of the restaurants for South Medford businesses. In addition to that, we have been in contact with Neil Osborne, the director of diversity. And he was working collaboratively with Lisa Evangelista to get additional communications out to specific groups that were listed. It was posted on the blog, the website, Twitter, and Facebook. Lisa Evangelista sent me that. She said the local press does choose to print. When we send communications out, it is sent to them, but we're not able to dictate what it is that they choose to print.
[Eunice Browne]: So was a communication about this meeting sent to the transcript and the patch?
[Edouard-Vincent]: I will wait for her to send me a response because she just sent me that right now. But she said she does forward her communications to them. So I will wait to receive an update regarding that.
[Eunice Browne]: OK. You know, I'd appreciate it if you would get back to me on that. The mayor has my email. Thank you. Curious about that.
[Lungo-Koehn]: We're going to we have Anne-Marie, if you could limit your comments. I'm not sure how many people want to speak, but we have 125 people on, so we're going to limit to about two minutes each like we've done in the past. But please, let me unmute you.
[eOruUd5h8M4_SPEAKER_08]: Okay, am I all set?
[Lungo-Koehn]: All set.
[eOruUd5h8M4_SPEAKER_08]: Okay, thank you. First of all, I've been listening to the meeting tonight, and I know you said give me two minutes, but I'm gonna try my best. I've been listening to the meeting tonight. As some of you might know or not know, I am a former school committee member. And I try to listen with fair ears and to listen to all sides. It seems like listening to all the subcommittee meetings that you've had, and with the mandate of, let's say, the commissioner, there's a lot on everyone's plate. And there has to be a president's, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I can't get this out. We're talking about process, we're talking about priorities and looking at what you have on your plate, you have budgets coming, you have the, you know, you have parents that really don't know if they want to select hybrid if they do want to select hybrid if they want to have their students in school, there's a lot of questions. With all due respect, you guys have spent a lot of time on this, but I can guarantee you there's going to be a lot more phone calls from a lot of people right now, asking about the differences between, you know, what they choose what they don't choose. I guess, from what I've been hearing. It's not the fact of, do you want to name change of the Columbus? Don't you want the name change of the Columbus? I guess what I'm respectfully asking is asking the school committee and you, the mayor, as the chair, to really consider putting the priority of putting our children back into school. I know you've been working diligently on trying to do that. But when you have the commissioner of the state of Massachusetts, who is going to start putting mandates and putting his own spin on certain things, even though it might not seem fair, it's going to have to happen. And listening to the results of the decrease of the positive COVID tests, I mean, listening to a lot of the people that have already called and made decisions to the school system, to let them know if their children are going hybrid and stuff, you do have a lot of positives going down. So when the commissioner looks at something like that, he's going to know that here's a city who is going to be positive, and he's going to be putting more pressure on that because the numbers that decrease in COVID are huge as far as the lesser we have, the better opportunity to get back into the school. They are going to look at that. And so I know there's a lot of you know, high passionate people out there for or against this situation. But honestly, at this point, I really just ask the school committee to please put your priorities intact as far as this just came up the pipe. You need to look at that.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Anne-Marie. Is there a motion on the floor Member van de Kloot?
[Van der Kloot]: Yes, so the one thing I just want to say is that the resolution that I'm sending to the Committee of the Whole talks about timeline as does Member Ruseau's. This is quite separate from and different from discussing the key issue. We've already made a decision that the school would be renamed. I understand that there are very feelings about this and I certainly understand that there are people who are very angry about the process that was used right at the beginning. In terms of the timing and us concentrating on what we need to, it was my intent after spending a great deal of time working out the potential for the advisory council to discuss the timeline with the committee at that point. To do so tonight without having reviewed the resolutions just simply won't make any sense. It'll be random. So while I appreciate hearing from my former colleague, the intent was to send the resolution to the subcommittee to discuss timelines and processes.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. and then we have another resident that would like to speak.
[Ruseau]: Thank you, ma'am. I just wanted to, I sent this out to the committee a week ago, which is not the normal procedure, but I wanted everybody to have a chance to actually look it over. I also did wanna say that this resolution that I wrote was an attempt to give us something to work from or to react to, rather than getting us together with a blank piece of paper and trying to draft a frankly technical document from thin air. Many of the elements of this are not things that I feel strongly about and are in fact meant to get us to deliberate and to get to a place where we're comfortable with a final product. So I appreciate Member van der Kloet's alternate version, which takes a different approach to many of the elements. And I look forward to the conversations around how to bring them together. I guess this is what conference committees are like between the Senate and the House. We have to work these two together in one resolution. And obviously all the members will have all the opportunity to tear them both apart or whatever, so we can get to something we like. So I thank you all for your effort to your work to be through it. I know it was like three or four pages long. So, and my hearing apparently Paulette is making the sound that my audio is crappy again, my apologies. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_22]: David McKillop.
[McKillop]: Good evening, everybody. It's nice to see some faces in this crazy time. This is certainly a challenge for you guys and I honestly don't have any words of comfort. My question is in listening to you. Actually, it's more of an assumption at this point that even though everyone here is looking to have their voices heard, am I clear in hearing that the decision has already been made and you're just at the point of procedure, from what I'm hearing from Ms. Van der Kloot and Mr. Rousseau, that sounds to me like it's more about procedure now that the decision has already been made. Is that correct or incorrect?
[Lungo-Koehn]: That's correct, Mr. McKillop.
[McKillop]: So the unfortunate part is there are a tremendous amount of people that feel like their voices have not been heard. And my question to you as a committee, is there an opportunity to pull this back and really give the community a chance to absorb this conversation?
[Lungo-Koehn]: That would be up to the committee. In June, there was a motion to table this to allow for more comment and that motion had failed. And then we moved on, obviously trying to get our kids back through the pandemic and trying to outline a process now, a fair process that will end sometime probably in June.
[McKillop]: So I would just like to speak to that for a second, Mayor, if I could. I think, you know, being able to process this as a community and understand you know, in its totality, why the decision was made, how we came to the decision, was it a jump decision? Was it following an agenda that's national? What was the real purpose? And can we take a step back to take a step forward so everyone can get behind whatever the decision may be? I employ the committee to really think about that because this is a community of 60,000 people. and not a small community of very vocal, very active. There are a lot of people that work in this community morning, noon, and night that aren't really as exposed to some of the things that we're exposed to in today's world. that would like the opportunity to be able to discuss this. And I'm just asking you to really kind of look at this in the situation that we're in, the fact that we've been in this COVID situation for a year now and we're all in COVID fatigue. We all agree there. And I think putting this out there just really kind of drives a stake into the community without giving them the opportunity to speak. That's really all I wanted to speak to.
[Graham]: Thank you.
[McKillop]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_22]: Kelly.
[Catalo]: Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just can you hear me.
[Clerk]: Yes.
[Catalo]: Okay. I just want to echo and follow up with Dave just said, because this entire thing about renaming the schools reminds me when the city was going to sell the old schools and they were going to build the new ones. And, you know, if anybody didn't live in the city at that time, this was done in a very careful manner. In fact, Madam Mayor, you were on that committee. that went from neighborhood to neighborhood, and the neighbors were allowed to have a voice. And this isn't about whether or not the school gets renamed in the end. It's about allowing the community to go through the process so that they all still feel like they are part of the community. This renaming of a school and the way that this was handled was not very professional and it's ripped people in part. Neighbors who used to like each other are fighting over the name of a school and it's a really sad day in Medford. You do have the opportunity to just step back a moment and let the community be heard. Let their voice be heard. When they elected you, they trusted that you were going to let their voices be heard. And I almost feel like as somebody who watched that meeting go on in June, I felt like a couple of people really didn't care what 60,000 people thought. Nobody cared that people felt like they got to go through the process. And when you think about your daily life, when you get up in the morning and you get your kids breakfast and you get them to school, you follow a process because it allows you as a human to be able to get through life in a very comfortable way. What if you didn't have that process? How would that feel? This isn't, I don't feel like this is something that can't be stepped back. There's no urgency to push it forward. I'd really like to echo it. And I really like you to just allow the people to be heard, just to let them speak on it. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Kelly. Is there a motion on the floor either way? Member Kreatz?
[Kreatz]: Yes, I was just trying to unmute. Yes, so, you know, I would like to ask my colleagues, you know, if they would consider, respectfully consider, you know, in advance of the meeting, reviewing the timeline that has been put forth in both resolutions and consider expanding the dates I mean, I just went back and I read the original resolution. So the, the, the original resolution states, be it resolved that the Christopher Columbus elementary school be renamed effective July one 2021 in advisory committee shall be created. with a term of six months. So the advisory committee was supposed to have six months beginning no later than October 1st and provide a recommendation to the committee no later than February 1st, 2021. So in that original resolution, it was given ample time to come up with a new name, have that committee formed, have a new name discussed, thoroughly vetted, and that the school committee would reconvene the Committee of the Whole before September 1st. Now, I'm just pointing out the dates. all of those dates have already been passed. We missed all those deadline dates and we missed all those deadline dates because we're in a pandemic. And as we've seen in the pandemic, all the dates had to slide for everything we were doing, everywhere. It's just all the dates had to slide. So, I am just respectfully asking if my colleagues could think, In preparation of Wednesday's meeting, you know if we can maybe try to come up with a different timeline, so that there can be a thoughtful respective. I'm sorry not respective reflective discussions. for that advisory committee once they're formed to thoroughly research a new name, have public meetings, listening sessions. You know, I feel like we're rushing this to make that deadline. and we're still in a pandemic. So I just feel that it's such an enormous, you know, task and it just, it requires time, thoughtful time consideration in hearing from all community members.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, member Kreatz. Member van de Kloot.
[Van der Kloot]: I referenced this earlier. I very much in good faith went through the process of looking in detail with thanks to my colleague who I used his as a basis to work through all of the issues that I think the advisory council has. Who's going to be on the advisory council? What are they going to do? How are they going to report it out? Who's going to pick the names, et cetera? Um, My concern is having done that exercise is while in it, I kept the dates except for one week of that Paul had originally put in his, I don't think it's real. I just don't think there's enough time to have a good reflective process, a thorough process for the advisory council. I'm not saying that we should overturn our decision about Columbus, which I know many in the community would like. For me, the most important thing is to try and figure a path forward, which brings us unity. Earlier this evening, we heard those voices of our kids. And as I was listening to the voices of our kids, I was thinking about this discussion that we were gonna have here. which has been feeling such division. And in our kids, we hear the hope and the desire for unity. I think that the advisory council needs time to do its job well and not rushed. As I've gotten older, I have more and more of appreciation for that word reflection. Okay, getting a chance to think about what we're doing and what name. I have put in mind a chance for a public hearing, not to debate the issue of Columbus, but to look at the new names. All along, I've been hopeful that we could come up with something that would honor our Italian heritage in this community, but also bring the community together. We're not gonna do that fast. It's not a slam dunk. I know that there's much pain with the thought of even prolonging the process a minute longer. I know that I don't really want it to go through this for month after month, but I am very, very concerned that in our short term, we do have a lot to do. My feeling is, and again, we can go through, I think going through the process of looking at the process outlined for the advisory council is instructive in terms of saying, whoa, what are you doing? How are we gonna set this advisory council together? So that it is really a strong and works to bring the community together. Anyway, that's my two cents. I expected to have this discussion on Wednesday.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Member van de Kloet. Member Kreatz?
[Kreatz]: Yes, I just had one more, because I've been hearing, you know, over the last couple of days, and I did not read it in the original resolution, but I've been hearing that if The deadline wasn't met by July 1 2021 that the Columbus school would would then be renamed the no name school, but I'm not seeing that in the original resolution so I'm just, you know, I'm just wondering, you know, is that something that I'm. missing or overlooking if um one of the committee members who wrote that resolution if you could let us know because I have been hearing a lot about that and I just want to you know kind of get an answer on that because I don't know and I didn't know anything about that.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah I don't I don't believe that's in any minutes
[Kreatz]: Okay, so that just might have been something that got kind of overheard somewhere. Somewhere, yeah. Okay, all right, I just wanted to confirm that.
[Lungo-Koehn]: And I agree with Member Kreatz and Member Van der Kloot with regards to, and whether we discuss it now or on Wednesday, the potential of expanding that timeline due to the fact that we have a tough budget or a good budget coming forward. It's gonna be very time consuming and trying to get our kids back to school full time. That's my number one priority. But I'll leave it up to the rest of the committee to decide that either tonight or Wednesday as a whole. I know member Rousseau and then we have Anne Marie and David like to speak again for a minute or two each.
[Ruseau]: I'm confused if we're going to start doing this now or not. I mean, Wednesday's whole meeting was dedicated to this. So either we do it all now or we do it all Wednesday, but if we're going to dig a little now, then I'm going to keep digging and let's make a motion to send both of these to the to the committee of the whole on Wednesday. Okay.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion by Member Ruseau, seconded by Member Graham, let the two presidents speak and we'll call the roll. Annemarie.
[U1EIl_L-LWc_SPEAKER_00]: You're muted, Anne-Marie. Anne-Marie, we can't hear you.
[eOruUd5h8M4_SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, I'm here. So basically, listening to everyone, again, I mean, what everybody's put on the table is extremely important. I totally agree about the non-rushing. I know that even with that being said, there might be members that don't believe that it's a rushed decision, but I think member credits for bringing up the no name situation, because I know that that's been out there and people were concerned about that. But again, you know it's time is of the essence, and you have so much going on that now you're here this evening, you've already spoken about it, I understand how the rules go. But now you're going to spend Wednesday night discussing this all over again and going into it in more depth and detail. I guess stepping back and looking at what's going on and what's being asked of from cities and towns all over the state. It just seems that that time that you're spending on this. No one is saying that, at least, I'm not saying that it's never going to happen. I'm just saying the priority of the dates and the time that you have and what you need to spend it on. I'm sorry. I truly believe that the time should be spent on getting the kids back in school, what the game plan is, how much money is it going to cost? You have custodians that are going to have to be cleaning a lot more than what they're doing now. You know, what do you have in the budget set aside? I mean, there's a lot going on. So I respectfully just say, you know, it's really to look at your timeframe.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Mr. McKillop. And then we will call the roll.
[McKillop]: Thank you really quick. I just want to kind of go back to my suggestion because I, unless I missed it, I don't think anybody really answered whether they wanted to come together as a committee and decide to maybe possibly pull this back and have more conversation. I am just looking at this committee as a whole in this time. You have to look at it in this time and what everyone has been going through in this city and be committee be a committee that will pull the community together. And if this is the one issue that they need time to absorb and understand, whether it be one way or the other, I say be the bold initiative, take the bold initiative and step back and really give everybody the opportunity to understand what it is that we're doing and why we're doing it. I think that the decision was made, I get it, but decisions can be changed. You have to understand, and I always teach my people, that a person's perception is their reality. So if you think, oh, that's their perception, they didn't, we did communicate, but that's their perception. That's their reality. They live that reality that they feel like they haven't been communicated with. And you folks are the leaders. You're the team leaders. You're the team spirit. We talk about school and Ms. Van der Kloot talked about these young people. This is an opportunity to show that we can change our minds. We can move the needle. And you folks have the opportunity to do that. And I really, really hope you think about it. Think hard. Think long. If you move this resolution through without taking any of that into consideration, It's just disappointing to see which way this may go. So just really think about that, folks. You're the team. You're the team leaders. You're the ones that can really motivate this city to move forward. And really just, in my eyes, ignore what else is going on. This is Medford. You're Medford. You're the team. And I wish you well with it. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member McLaughlin, will you call the roll?
[McLaughlin]: Yes, on the motion to move the motions to our committee of the whole on Wednesday. Let me just get my, sorry, my handy sheet. Oops, sorry, bear with me. Member Kreatz. Yes. I'm sorry, Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Unmute yourself, please, Member Van der Kloot, sorry.
[McLaughlin]: Yes. Member, I mean, Marilyn Gokern.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. These two resolutions will be moved to the Committee of the Whole, which is this Wednesday the 10th at 545 to be discussed.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor? Member McLaughlin? Can we make a motion also that this is, or can we, I guess it doesn't need to be a motion, it could just be a request that the Committee of the Whole is put into the patch tonight or tomorrow so that people are made aware of it, and on the Medford Community Media Education channel, please.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, I think Ms. Wise was going to do that anyway, so she worked on spreading the word. Thank you, Ms. Wise. Motion to, I'm sorry, we're not. Condolences, sorry. The Medford School Committee expresses its sincere condolences to the family of Herbert Edward Wells, a longtime teacher and assistant principal at the Brooks Hobbs Complex and former assistant football coach at Medford High School. The Medford School Committee expresses its sincere condolences to the family of Anne Marie Medeiros, mother of Lisa Maloney and an administrative assistant for the Office of Pupil Services. Also, the Medford School Committee expresses its sincere condolences to the family of John C. Fator, father-in-law of Medford High School science teacher, Audrey, I hope I'm pronouncing this right, Fator, and father of former Medford High School band director, John R. Fator. Fator. Fator. Fator. Thank you. The Medford School Committee expresses its sincere condolences to the family of Robert Van Winkle, husband of former Brooks Elementary School para, Lisa Van Winkle.
[McLaughlin]: Yeah.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: It's Melanie member McLaughlin made. Can we just add for the condolences for the Van Winkle family also to, um. Maddie and Katie Madeline Catherine, former, um. Medford public school students who were Scott Van Winkle's Children are are Scott Van Winkle's Children as well. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Member McLaughlin. If we may just take a moment of silence.
[SPEAKER_22]: Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn by Member McLaughlin, seconded by Member Graham. Roll call. Member Graham?
[McLaughlin]: Yes. Member Krex? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone?
[Clerk]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau?
[Ruseau]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Van de Kloop? Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn? Yes. Seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative.
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