[Van der Kloot]: First of all, I love the historical research and I personally think that is a contender for the name. I don't think we should limit our name only to people. I think just going ahead and voting on that tonight, we would not be following any of our policies. We wouldn't be following our naming policy, which there is actually a naming policy. I think we've kind of set people up for expecting that there might be a process for naming. There's a whole lot of me which would like to say yes, but you know, let's just vote it now and over with. I will tell you that from all the letters we've received and the discussions we've had, there will certainly still be part of our population which disagrees with the change altogether, no matter what we say or do. And that is because they feel that something is being taken away from them. And of course, all of my efforts have this point have been trying to move us in a direction where we could in fact choose a name, which is good for everybody. And I do think your suggestion hits that. Now, as vice chair, I need to report that there were more than 100 letters in the school committee account. Many of those letters, and if I read all 100, we will literally be here for hours and hours. We could just turn off this and I could read for the next five hours and start our discussion at midnight. So I want to mention, right now that we had 96 people asking us to supporting the name change and we received one petition from our resolution with 391 Medford residents signing. The other last time we did receive a petition from Medford United, which also had, I think it was close to 600 Medford residents signing. And I did read that. If I need to go back, I can find that and read it into, all of this will be put into the record though. A little tricky because in this particular time, we only have three communications opposed to the name change. I mean, and we know that there are far more letters. Some of the letters have come into my private account as opposed to the school committee account. We did receive one letter from Mr. Petrella, which I'm just going to mention because he said that he had his hand raised or was, and he didn't get to speak at our last meeting. So I want to make sure that we're not overlooking anybody.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Van der Kloot, if I may, I did get that email as well. And I did respond because Dr. Cushing and I, we were going by the raised hand function. So I did respond that we called on everybody, including two people twice. So I wanted to confirm with him that he wasn't physically raising his hand, make sure his camera was on, because I'm very cognizant of that as are all the committee members.
[Van der Kloot]: Yes, and I would personally like to ask, if people are speaking, please turn on your cameras so we can see you. It's just, I know you're not mandated to, but it is much easier for us. So if you can, that's a personal request. If you don't want to, that's your option, I guess. Anyway, so that's the letters received up to this point, and they've been coming in pretty consistently. At this point, I'll just give it as report. They'll be all put into the record. And if anybody wishes me to do anything differently, I can. I'm at the it's at the will of the committee.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I think putting them in the record is the best option for right now, because I know a number of people want to speak as well. Thank you, Member Van der Kloot. Member Kreatz?
[Kreatz]: I just wanted to thank Ms. Stone for sharing that history with us. And I concur with Ms. Vanderkoot. You know, I'm not ready to make a decision, and I do feel that this process should be a public process. You know, from many of the community members that I've heard, you know, since June of 2020, You know, we, we've been waiting for this meeting, so that we could have the public engage and, you know, ask questions and share their opinions, but I do think that that name is, you know, would be is a good suggestion. Um, once we come up with the plans for choosing the names process. Um, so I just wanted to share that information and I just want to ask the mayor a question. So mayor, I just had a question because I had a motion, you know, in regards to the two resolutions. Should I hold off and wait till we get to that part of the meeting?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Well, I think you must, I think you may have amendments to the, to the resolution. So I think we should take it the resolution in sections. So you would make, I would ask that you make the amendments or we discuss each section one at a time and whether we, main thing we need to decide which one we're gonna go off of. So that's, it's completely up to you, but I would say we do a section by section.
[Kreatz]: So I have a motion that is in regards to the entire timeline. So I'm wondering if I should just read that now and if it could be considered, you know, as a, you know, in a recommendation. It should probably take me about two minutes. So, in my opinion, the deadlines in the meeting dates that were outlined in both resolutions are too tight. The original resolution on June 15 stated specific dates. You know July 121 was when the school was going to be renamed, and then there was supposed to be a committee of the whole on September 1, and that's where we are right now we're, we're at the committee of the whole. And after that, October 1. the advisory committee was supposed to be formed, and then they would have been meeting October, November, December, January, and they would have submitted a new name to us by January 1st. Because we're in the global pandemic, three of the four deadlines were missed. So I think we should take a step back today. Today marks one year into the coronavirus pandemic. And the Commissioner of Education has stated that the schools must be open for full-time in-person learning on April 5, while middle school will be required to do so on April 28. Our paramount focus should be planning to get the children, teachers, and staff back to school safely to receive the best education, having a budget to accommodate those things. I think that this should be our priority right now. Also, due to the magnitude of the change, I have recommended a slightly different timeline because in the original resolution, it was stated that the advisory committee should have a term of six months. So if I go back to the original timeline, the dates were September 1st, October 1st, November, December, January, February. So that was the six months. So here we are today on April, I'm sorry, not April, March 10th, and we are meeting for the rescheduled September 1st meeting, which was the committee of the whole to plan the structure. And we're still in the global pandemic. So then the next meeting, which would be the advisory committee would have been formed would be in April this coming April, which was, you know, according to the original resolution was exactly one month after the committee of the whole meeting. So that would bring us to April 10th. But I happen to think that April 10th is a little too soon to form the advisory committee, so I was thinking like April 30th would be a good time to form the advisory committee. And then that would give the advisory committee April, then May, June, July and August are summer months, so we have to exclude those months, September, October happens to be Italian American Heritage Month, and we celebrate, you know, Columbus Day, which is a federal holiday, so I'm not sure if we want to include that month for the research or not. And then that would put our timeline up to November 2021, where the advisory committee would have the full six months, not including the summer months. It could be shorter if the committee wanted to meet during the summer months of July and August. It all depends on whether or not they would meet, which would mean the advisory committee would be coming to us either if we include the summer months they would be coming to us September to bring the new research name or November to bring the new research name and this would give ample time and you know for the advisory committee to have a thoughtful reflective discussions to thoroughly research a new name. So this is the motion that I'm making to extend the timeline that was detailed in the in the The plan that we're working on right now is still working off of the dates that were in the original resolution, but the three dates have already been missed. So that's my resolution. My motion is to extend the timeline detailed in forming the advisory committee and pushing out the dates a little further so that the advisory committee can have six months as detailed in the original resolution.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you member Kreatz.
[Van der Kloot]: So a couple of different things. Mayor, like you, I went down and I distilled from both member Rousseau's and my own resolution key talking points. And I asked Peter if he would put them up. I think they're similar to yours. There may be one difference. Because I don't really think it's a choice between mine and Paul's so much. I think that member Rousseau, because he was dedicated to doing this, sort of got out and laid out a process and giving us all the opportunity to say, yep, that works for me. No, it doesn't. And so I wrote mine down because it was pretty convoluted. But the six key talking points really covers the most important things. Now, I had mentioned the other day at our meeting on Monday that I do have concerns about the timeline. And my concerns about the timeline are because not in the first part, not the, you know, application process, We actually have, member Kretsch suggested April 30th, the meeting is on April 26th, which both member Ruseau and myself put as the date to choose the advisory committee. But it's the time, how much time does the advisory committee have to work? And part of that is asking, what are we asking them to do? So these are the key talking points that I put forward that you're seeing on the screen right now. One is how is the advisory committee chosen? And by the way, the application, I had one additional thing about availability and time, but otherwise mine and member Rousseau's, I think we're pretty close. and not particularly complicated. But point number two is what is the makeup of the advisory committee? Three, once names are submitted for consideration, what is the next step in the process? Four, what is the charge to the advisory committee? What are we asking them to do? Five is how is the chair or co-chairs chosen? And six, does the advisory committee bring one choice to the school committee for confirmation or up to three for our selection? Those are really the key points that member Brousseau and myself look at in different ways. So that's just, I put that out. I know there are many hands raised now, so I'm just gonna lay that out right now.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yep, we're gonna do public participation, and then we will, mine are similar to yours, Member Van der Kloot, we'll work off of one, maybe Paul's, where you know yours best, and we'll go through it one section at a time, knowing those are the key issues. Anne-Marie?
[Anna Maria]: Could you hear me now?
[SPEAKER_64]: Yes.
[Anna Maria]: Man, you can hear me. Okay, so I do understand where everyone is coming from. I know you have two motions actually on the table, I believe. One was from Ms. Mostone and the other one is from Ms. Kreatz. But again, I will reiterate it from my standpoint. And my standpoint is that with the commissioner of education coming out and giving us all, or giving you guys, the schedule of when our children are supposed to be going back to school, there is so much to be really considered. You need to look at your budget, you need to look at, you know, custodians, are you gonna be getting contractors to come in to do it? Yes, they've been doing a great job up until today, but that is comparing two, three days a week compared to students that are going in five days a week. I do know that there's already other cities that have already have responded to the commissioner. I know Burlington has actually stated that they might start earlier than the deadlines that he has given. I believe there's another city that has also mentioned the same. So again, I will reiterate the name change or no name change. precedence. We need to get our kids in school and time is of the essence. Could someone at least explain how many more meetings are going to be invested into this advisory committee? From the school committee also, not just the advisory committee, because school committee has to be some part of that.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Right, that's what we're here to figure out tonight, Anne-Marie. this will outline as best we can how many meetings it will take for the school committee, the advisory committee and create a timeline for that.
[Anna Maria]: Okay, because again, as one of your members had posted, you know, you have a really contagious budget that you have to deal with. And that's coming, that should have already been started. And the discussion is already should have already started. I'm not aware if it has. But I also do know that right around the corner, we hit June. And at the end of June, school committee has to present the budget, has to be accepted by the city council. A lot of people go on vacation. Sorry. So it's all right.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Anne-Marie. That was it. We have, I don't know the name, iPhone X.
[SPEAKER_40]: I'm trying to unmute you.
[SPEAKER_59]: Hold on one second.
[SPEAKER_40]: There you go.
[McKillop]: Can you hear me? Yes. Can you hear me? Okay. Good evening. Under the guise that I'm in a time sensitive issue here, I just wanted to go back and revisit the thought process behind why this is so sentimental to the Italian American community and others as well. And I was doing some homework and doing some research and found an article that was printed in June 18th 2020. It was printed by a Louis Navier and I just want to read a portion of it because it is very very lengthy and I don't want to take everyone through it but it's certainly something that everyone can either look up or I can certainly send it to you. So this portion is based off of why the Columbus, it's basically more about Columbus Day but why the name Columbus is important or at least in the psyche. In New Orleans in 1891, back in March of 1891, a gentleman named David Hennessey was murdered. He was a police chief and he was murdered by people of Italian descent. So there were 11 Italians that were brought up on trial and were acquitted, come to find out they weren't even part of what happened. But back then, because the Italians were hated so much by the United States as such as Mark Twain would likely predict, an extrajudicial killing and an Italian accused of murder as the outcome more likely than a trial by jury. Twain was not being provocative. He was inspired by true events. And this was one of those events. These 11 Italian Americans, which were dock workers, cobblers, food vendors, tin smith, one was even a laborer on a plantation, were all round up after that and they were lynched.
[Lisa Evangelista]: They were murdered.
[McKillop]: Okay. So in a nutshell, I just want to let you know that this was something that was brought out back in 1891 and President Harrison in 1891 created Columbus Day in recognition of the Italian community. I wish I could finish this because it is very, very important to understand the context of this. And this was something that was created that really is very, very important. And I hope that everybody can get in touch with me to understand this better. The Italian community deserves to hear about this.
[Lungo-Koehn]: that you'll have more time to speak on each issue. Dave, I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_64]: Okay.
[Kreatz]: Mayor, I just wanted to... Mayor, I just heard from iPhone X, and I guess he was trying to unmute, but he couldn't unmute. Would you be able to try him again?
[Lungo-Koehn]: It was the iPhone X. Okay, we'll have... Yep, he's in queue, or she. He or she is in queue. I just unmuted Nadine, and then we'll go...
[Miguel Aguiso]: Madam Mayor, can you hear me?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, Nadine, hold off one second. Yes, go ahead, sir. What's your name?
[Miguel Aguiso]: My name is Miguel Aguiso, 61 Forest Street. I just wanted to say off the record, I'm in total opposition of the Columbus School being changed. But I just had a quick question. I heard earlier that there was 300 and some odd people that were in, that were, For the change, for the record, how many people were against it? I miss Vanderdijk, I believe her name is. She said that there were some sort of people in the 600 name. And then second part, how much is a name change going to cost us in Medford, if you don't mind me asking?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, the two petitions we received, one was in favor, that was $350,000. 96 people, and then the petition we were given on Monday was from a different group, Medford United, and that was, oh, I think 650 Medford residents.
[Miguel Aguiso]: 650 for an opposition of the change? An opposition, correct. Thank you, Madam Mayor, I appreciate that. And you have a number on how much this is gonna cost? I don't have a number. Okay, thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Nadine, are you unmuted?
[Moretti]: I think I am now, Mayor, can you hear me?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, yes, there you go.
[Moretti]: Great, thank you. Nadine Moretti, 126 Burgett Ave. Thank you, Mayor, and good evening, everyone. My intent isn't to make this a personal attack, but it is certainly a personal attack on everyone you have listened to about how this is affecting them, our city, and that ultimately their voices, opinions, and feelings mean nothing. You've listened to so many people but are you truly hearing us? As of Monday night, it still appears the school committee will move forward regardless of the speakers who so eloquently asked you to reconsider. Do right by Medford's residents and in light of the workload ahead of you after Desi's recommendations. Wondering if any of that resonated with you. To quote member Rousseau back in June 2020, I would make this decision and put this forward if literally every person wrote to me and said, do not change the name and I wouldn't bat an eyelash. This statement certainly resonated with a myriad of registered voters and parents. My children, along with Paul's, attended Columbus Elementary for nine years. We went on field trips together, were on the PTO, hung at the school yard daily. I volunteered in my children's classrooms, at events within the school, Never once hearing or heard a word, excuse me, uttered that it was a bothersome or offensive name because it is not. Renaming any school is bigger than just the school committee. It doesn't matter that an advisory committee was slated to be formed because as we recently learned, those deadlines have passed and more importantly, without proper input or inclusion of the residents of Medford. But we're still in a pandemic. You now have been tasked with figuring out how to get, at the very least, K-5 back in school, per the latest guidance from DESE. In light of so many requests to table it for these reasons, there shouldn't be a rush to complete this unless it's personally driven. You are voted in to be the voice of all the parents, not only the ones that agree about the Columbus school name being changed after 90 years. This proposal is part of an agenda to change and cancel what they see fit or render offensive and unhealthy culture being driven by our evolution. So in closing, you're well aware that I'm 100% against renaming Columbus Elementary, but I'm more against the school- Time's up, Nadine. Making it a priority over normal learning environment for our children during the pandemic. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Nadine.
[Moretti]: Bill?
[Giglio]: Hello?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Bill, yes.
[Giglio]: Can you hear me? I'm sorry, okay.
[Lungo-Koehn]: A little bit.
[Giglio]: Can you hear me okay? Hello?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Giglio]: You can hear me fine? Okay, my name's Bill Giglio. My statement is for Paul, and this is not to pick on Paul or anything. Paul, you're in your second term, but yet this has never been an issue with you in the past. Your platform or anyone else on the committee's platform has never ran on the name change being such a high priority. Since becoming a member just before the 2019 election of an extreme left progressive group called the Our Revolution, this seems to fall right in line with their ideology of changing history and the national narrative of cancel culture. So your resolution to change the name of the Columbus School seems a little sketchy, suspicious, and disingenuous. Plus we all know this opens up the floodgates for everything else to be renamed. That's just my first half. But my second half is actually a question. This was obviously a go. So like the other gentleman had said, what is going to be the cost for this? When can we expect the breakdown of who's going to be doing such work, such as the lawyers, contractors, state filing fees, and what they're going to be getting paid to do their work? If this is being funded by some sort of donations, when can we expect a list of who's donating? And should a group such as the Our Revolution be allowed to donate? Because I can tell you, a lot of us do not want this coming out of school money or tax funded money.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay. I will work on getting a breakdown of how much this will cost. I'm not sure as of tonight.
[Giglio]: I'll ask at this point, why if, if the, if the date would have been July, how come there's none of that is even thought of or, or, you know, research. I mean, that's, that's a, that's a huge factor.
[Lungo-Koehn]: The school committee has the authority to change the name of a school. That's the only answer I can give you.
[SPEAKER_40]: Mayor. Can anybody else? Member Van der Kloot.
[Van der Kloot]: I would like to address one thing. Many people are speaking about all the different things that the school committee faces, and that's absolutely true. We have a lot of work ahead of us. However, and part of this is being brought about, well, you need more time to hear us. We have heard strongly from the community, and I myself have gone and spoken to some members who are very anti the change. And it's very, very difficult. But to say you don't have enough time, well, frankly, we're a pretty dedicated bunch all across. And I don't think that once we get through the process and work it out. And there will be some things that I speak to, like removing one piece, we'll get to it later, off of a school committee onto a committee of the whole instead. You know, so I do, and the other thing which I think is key for me to say as the longest serving school committee member is, and when this first came up, I spoke to it. Now, when this first came up, I will tell you, and I've said to other people, I wasn't happy with the process, okay? Because at that first meeting, I felt confident in that, yes, I did feel there was a reason to change it. You must remember that there was in light of a very a spring of great reckoning and understanding of what was going on in our world and the racism that exists that we all saw with our own eyes. And there is a context to this. But 20 years ago, when we built the new schools, I can absolutely tell you that there was a discussion in the committee, in the Building the Future Committee of which I was part, about the naming of the schools. And at that time, we were well aware that there were people who would much prefer it not to be the Columbus School. I've kicked myself sometimes because I let that go, partially in deference to a community member who I had great respect for and who didn't want it to change. But it's been a recurring You know, maybe you haven't heard it, but I have over and over again. I've heard it, I've had discussions down at the Columbus School with parents. So it's not that this just popped up and there's been, it's not been part of our discussion. It has been particularly for parents whose children attend the Columbus School. And that certainly isn't to say that everybody agrees, but it's certainly been there.
[Giglio]: So if you're saying you don't have, if you're saying that there was plenty, there was ample time and there's still ample time, then why is Kathy Creeds then asking for more time?
[Van der Kloot]: So the time has to do with the timeline that she's suggesting is part of the discussion that we'll have. We're sort of talking two different things. I too, after I worked out my resolution, believes that it would be great to have more time, which is to say a number of weeks more to come to the conclusion of this. I've built in and will talk to my committee about saying that I think that once we put the advisory council together and they begin their work, that they are the ones who will need to be able to say to us, hey, we need eight more weeks, or we need 12 more weeks, or we think this has to be the timeline. But that's a discussion that as we work out the particulars of this. The other thing is the reality of it is, and we just have to say this, and it's just blunt. When people are saying they haven't been heard, we have heard them. But unfortunately, we don't necessarily agree with them. We are not agreeing to change, to not change the name. So people keep on saying, you haven't heard us. Well, we are hearing you. And quite honestly, I mean, I had some great discussions and I was really moved at one point by one person who told me what Columbus Day meant in his family. And I listened and I heard that. I've heard other people say we're erasing history. We're still going to teach our kids about Columbus. It is part of our education strands. It's not like we're just saying, and Columbus had, hey, there were some things that were good about him. What we're saying is, is he, is this name the one we want to represent this educational facility in our community? You have voted for. the committee, six members plus the mayor, this community voted for us to do what we think is best. This is not an easy job. It is painful, it is tough. One of my committee members said to me, you know, Paulette, the problem with you is you wanna make everybody happy. And that's absolutely true. I don't wanna piss anybody off. And no matter what I do, I'm going to make some people unhappy in this. I am being true to myself, I've worked, spent hours and hours. And by the way, those hours were not conflicting with the other work that I do, talking to administration, saying, hey, can we work on this? Hey, what about that? Okay, I've got lots of hours in my day. But trying to say, how does this process work? And is there a way that the process can help bring this community together? I listened on Monday when Mr. McKillop suggested that we start all over. And for a while back, I was there. I was wondering about that. But I came, thought deeply and said, you know what? At this point, we have had lots of opportunity. People in Medford are aware of this. I walked my dog this afternoon with someone I didn't know. She's not particularly involved at all in the politics. I said, wow, I've got a heavy meeting tonight. And she said, oh yeah, it's the Columbus naming issue. People know. Anyway.
[Giglio]: Well, and again, you know, I'm not trying to hit below the belt, but you say that, you know, we vote for you and make the decision. But I mean, it was also a time, don't forget, where a lot of people in the city did not know Paul is a convicted felon. Now they know. Do we kick him off the board? He still has a chance.
[SPEAKER_40]: Okay, please. No.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member van de Kloot. Is two minutes up? Yes. We have Marie.
[Marie Levey-Pabst]: Hi, can you hear me all right? Yes. Awesome, thank you. I can't even find myself on the screen. I'll be quick, thank you. I'm a parent of children at the currently named Columbus School and I am so grateful that we hopefully are now talking about, the name change is happening. Just to clarify, the name change is happening. The question now is how does that process happen? So I hope I'm getting that right. And I also just wanna say this, I just wanna push for this name change to happen as soon as possible. It is long overdue. I have a third grader and a fifth grader and I'd had high hopes that my fifth grader would leave the school knowing that it was no longer going to be the Columbus and have a different name that better represented the Medford that I know and love. And so I just want to throw that out that I hope I understand what the pandemic everything's changed with timelines, but I just want to say I hope that we don't put this off too long because as we can see, it's causing fractures and it's causing I just want to say I am so grateful for Paul Rousseau and all of you who have stood up for this, but I just know you've had to work so hard and do so much and put so much out there, and I think it's time for us to finish this job. And I also just want to put in a plug there for having the students involved at that school, and I think that that would be just an amazing community project. So I appreciate all the research everyone else has done, but I think it'd be really nice to have some student involvement here. And I just really wanted to come on and say, I'm very excited about the name change and I'm excited to see it move forward. And I'd be thrilled if my fourth grader starts at that school next year with a brand new name to celebrate.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Marie. I'm going to go down the list, but I'm just, I did see somebody physically raising their hand. So we just, on the bottom of your screen, there's a raise hand button. If not, I do see you Carol. So I will get to you, but let's just go and order Seth.
[Hill]: Thank you. My name is Seth Hill. My daughter attends the school. She's 10. Christopher Columbus would abduct girls her age for his crew to rape. He was a slave trader and committed genocide against the indigenous population. We are not erasing history and choosing a new name. We are choosing to better represent who we hold up as heroes. Columbus brutality was seen as egregious by his contemporaries. He was imprisoned and stripped of his titles. I want to make that clear. Those that honored him at the time decided he was no longer worthy of that honor. All of the school committee members recognized the need for the name change. I don't want Columbus name never to be spoken of again. of a fuller history, one that hasn't been erased. The school was named to raise up our Italian American community. Italian Americans faced religious discrimination, fear over their politics, belief that they would crowd out others for jobs. Is this sounding familiar? These are prejudices that we see expressed today towards other marginalized communities. Medford is a, excuse me, Medford is a wonderful melting pot. Let's find someone who's emblematic of that and lift up those that might be marginalized today. My daughter and I would be happy to help.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Seth. Brenna.
[Brenna Kristiansen]: Thank you, Mayor, members of the school committee. I submitted a letter to the previous meeting, and I just have a question. Is there a plan moving forward to also rename the Columbus Park as well?
[Lungo-Koehn]: That's not on the table now. Tonight's discussion is about a process for the renaming of the Columbus School. Mayor?
[Ruseau]: Member Ruseau? Thank you. Thank you for the question. I do know from the previous administration, I asked the question about the Columbus School because I thought that it, even before getting your email, that Crystal Campbell would be an excellent name for the park, which was when I read your letter, I thought that was sort of serendipitous. And my understanding is that it's actually a city-side only issue in that it is not a school or school committee related matter. So I don't believe we have the authority to make that change. And I doubt I doubt Mayor Langeau-Kern has had a chance to look into that necessarily. So, but I just wanted to confirm that I don't believe that based on the previous city solicitor, it is not within our authority.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Member Ruseau. Thank you, Brenna. Mr. Carbone.
[Christopher Carbone]: Thank you very much for allowing me to speak. I, as I said, when this issue came up back in June. I support changing the name of the school, because Christopher Columbus does not share my values I don't believe he shares any Italian Americans values living in America today. I want to say that I find it a little bit disingenuous for this committee to say, well, you know, it just so happened that the same within a few weeks of George Floyd being killed, it just so happens that was the week we decided to change the name of the school. I don't find that particularly compelling. I think that's not just a coincidence. It doesn't change my opinion, though, and I hope it wouldn't change anyone else's opinion. Just as it doesn't change my opinion is I don't care how tough your job is. I do not care how tough the school committee thinks their job is. And I don't want to, I don't particularly care to hear it again. You are elected to do this job, please do it. I think we have to put this committee together sooner rather than later, that the people who should be given priority are people like myself, whose children have either gone to the Columbus School or are currently going to the Columbus School, that their voices be heard, that before we decide how lovely the Mystic River is and how we should name the school after the mystic, that instead we should get their input, that that's actually important. I think these discussions should be around one thing. We've decided to change the name of the school. Most people likely support it. Then we should get people who want to be on this committee so they can actually get about changing the name of this school. Let's do it. And let's stop the pick the bickering and the petty infighting, which I know at times even I can be a part of. Thank you very much for listening to me. That was under two minutes.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you.
[Cadee Stefani]: Um, hi, it's Katie. Um, hi, I'm sorry, my mask. I'm at work. But um, I just wanted to say like, while renaming something is like large, as a school is like a really like incredible task to kind of take on. I feel like it's important to not delay the vote on renaming. I think like people have mentioned it, but schools are the foundation of a community they build, like future citizens, and like, they're really important. And Like while we aren't like we're not changing history by renaming, but we're kind of bringing a history that has been like often overlooked into like a new light. I think a strong community like Medford, somewhere I'm proud to be from, somewhere I'm proud to have gone to school in, shouldn't celebrate such a horrendous historical figure by giving him like the honor of the names of one of our schools. um, by doing this, like we, I, like I said, like we're looking at our true history. And I think also we just have so many more heroes in our community that we like deserve this type of honor. Um, like I was thinking like Amelia Earhart has a house in Medford. She moved in Medford. She lived in Medford. Like we, I think there are more important historical figures that we can honor in, um, Medford. And yeah, I just wanted to say that, like, I think it's just important to not delay this vote. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Katie. I know Carol had her hand up. Carol, are you still on? I don't want to miss you, and you would be next if I went in order.
[SPEAKER_59]: Give me one second.
[Carol Delaney]: Can you hear me?
[Lungo-Koehn]: I just unmuted you, Carol, yes.
[Carol Delaney]: Oh, good. I don't live in Medford. But I have written a book about Columbus. I spent years doing research and most people know nothing about him. He's not the people that people are accusing him of being. He never had slaves. He was against it. Read my book, Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem. It won some awards and everything. And he's not the man that everybody is claiming that he is. And I would be very, I mean, I don't live there. I'd be opposed to the name change until, I think you should be educating people about Columbus because he's not the person that everybody seems to be thinking he is, was.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Carol. Okay, that's it. Ms. Rocha? Ms. Rocha, I just want to meet with you.
[Rocha]: Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. So I'm here to express my wholehearted support in the establishment of this advisory committee to rename the Columbus Elementary School. The bottom line is that every day that the Columbus name persists is a day where Medford is honoring genocide and white supremacy. Many of those who are opposed to the renaming claim that it's a way to honor Italian heritage, but this is a profoundly ahistorical and whitewashing take that really is equivalent to those who defend the existence of Confederate flags and statues. There are many figures in Italian history that are deserving of being honored and held up as an example to Medford students because their accomplishments did not amount to one of the most atrocious and barbaric periods of human history. The tradition that Medford has to name, to highlight Medford figures is also of great value to the education of our children and should be maintained. The bottom line is as last summer's explosion of students coming forward with discriminatory experiences revealed very clearly, Medford has its own racist history and present to reckon with. Renaming the Columbus School is one of the many steps against white supremacy that Medford must take to begin repairing the harm that has been inflicted in this district. And while those opposed to the renaming have expressed that other matters should be prioritized at this time, The creation of this committee is long overdue. The school should have never bore that name, and this is centuries worth of harm finally being put to a stop. The change needs to happen as soon as possible. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Anthony?
[D'Antonio]: Brianna, is that you? Yes. Is everyone on? OK. I am really upset with hearing some of these people talk about Columbus, okay? He did this, he did that, he did this, he did that. Were these people there 500 years ago? No, they're looking at history. I mean, the last person up there, I'm sick and tired of hearing this white supremacy baloney, okay? The name Columbus should stay because it was an Italian. It's a discrimination against the Italians. You can try to whitewash anything you want, but it's wrong. And I'm tired of hearing some of the committee members bloviate about, oh, I did this and I tried that and we're busy and this and that. It's discrimination, pure and simple. And it may be changed, but it's not going to be changed for long. And I hate to say that, but I'm sick and tired of it. Because we as Italians have been put down for many years, and it stops now. Christ, thank you.
[SPEAKER_40]: Galaxy S10 plus.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Dr. Cushing, if you could try to unmute too. It doesn't work for me all the time.
[U1EIl_L-LWc_SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying as well.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay. Here we go. There you go. You have two minutes.
[SPEAKER_40]: Galaxy, are you there? Did you have anything to say? Okay, maybe it's a bad connection.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Is that I'm sorry. It's okay. We can hear you now if you want to go ahead.
[Debra Daly]: Oh, thank you. Sorry. Hi, I'm Debra Daly. And I've been a resident method for 2043 years. So I'm just first of all, Madam Mayor, what you've inherited. I just I you you've done a great job and I don't envy what you've had to do the past year and a half. I am against the change. I just wanna let you know that.
[Lungo-Koehn]: We're losing you again.
[Debra Daly]: 300 signatures and another 600 signatures. And then we don't even know what the cost is going to be. And after the school, is it a bridge? Is it a square? I just don't know where things are, what's going to change. So that's really bad. Would the children back to school and then revisit this a little bit more before definitive decisions are made about the name change and really get a vote in Medford, a good vote. see how many people actually want to change it and invest money there. And that's all I need to say. And thank you and keep up the good work. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Jean Nouza. Jean, you should be unmuted now.
[Nuzzo]: Can you hear me now? Yes, Jean. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I appreciate the time. A few thoughts. First, I wanna just recall for the school committee that in June of 2020, we had an initial response of 180 names. I think you have those on file. I have the receipt of email that you do. So those names still connect with those 600. I'd like to say that I think that it's important that folks consider that affect an impact of a change. Yes, we voted to do it, but we aren't really doing very good change management here. This is really being shoved through. It is painful on both sides of the situation, both for people of color who have been impacted and for the Italian American community. And it does a disservice when people dismiss either side's positions, thoughts, and feelings. And I find that really troubling. And I think that's what folks are saying when they're saying it's too fast, we need to slow down and we need to talk about it. You know, it goes beyond this being an election cycle. People will remember, people are going to be impacted and simply changing the name isn't going to make it go away. Change is a process. Historically, we haven't done a good job of it here in Medford, regardless of what the topic is. And this smacks of being another situation where things are just being pushed through for expediency because that's what a handful of people want. Really, I think you need to be careful about how a committee is selected. And I think we need to be careful about how people are treated overall. After all, the whole point of the argument of the name change is because this individual allegedly has treated people- And you have 15 seconds, 15 seconds. And so I wanna just implore people to consider not only their own perspective, but others as well, and let's try to move forward in a way that's positive to folks. But I really think we do have more important things to be dealing with at the moment in the middle of a pandemic. Thank you for your time.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. I know we said two minutes per person, but you could speak as we go through the policy. So Anne-Marie, David, and Nadine, you'll be the first to speak. I think we were gonna take it section by section, so. The first section of the policy is with regards to the application form for membership in the advisory committee. We have a date here. that the application form will be done by this Friday, the 12th at 5 p.m. I'm just gonna read what the form will include so we can discuss that in its entirety and then obviously have people comment if they'd like. I do have a question on something myself on this one. On the form will be the full name, address, contact information. Why do you wanna be on the advisory committee? Suggested new name for the school, including the following name, brief explanation for why you think the name should be considered relationship of the suggestion to Medford. Are you a current or former member of the Columbus Elementary School community? Are you related to a school committee member? And if so, how will you require an interpreter? Do you have access to a computer and an internet connection to participate in Zoom meetings? Demographics information includes age, gender, sexual orientation, household income, educational attainment. What language do you mainly speak at home? Racial ethnic identity. And the superintendent will create a name. Okay, so that is the name chain. That is the form. Does anybody have any questions on that form? Member Kreatz, member Van der Kloot, I'm going to let the school committee ask questions first, then we're going to go to Anne-Marie, Nadine, David, Nicole, and Kristen.
[Kreatz]: member Kreatz. Yes, thank you. Um, yep. So I wanted to amend that date because I know that the superintendent we are meeting tonight and the superintendent does her weekly updates every Friday. So and she's meeting this week in particular, um, with Jesse, you know, to gather the information, um, you know, and provide updates to the community on you know, what's going to be, you know, details for reopening schools and getting the children back into school safely. So I feel as though two days from now is a little too soon. So I wanted to amend that date to at the earliest if possible, like Monday or the following Friday, so that that's my amendment, either Monday the 15th, I believe, or Friday the 19th.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, member Kreatz. Member van de Kloot? Just unmute yourself, member van de Kloot, please.
[Van der Kloot]: When member Rousseau created the form, he had on his form that someone applying for the advisory council committee, sorry, would also be submitting a name on the same form. I have severed the forms. I have you apply for the advisory committee or you're putting in a name. Anybody who is a member of the advisory committee on the advisory committee can certainly put in a name, but they're two different forms. It'll just be more easy to organize. Here's the list of names. Here's the list who's applying. The other difference in our form is I also asked on the one for the advisory committee, I asked when they were available. So there's a line that says, you know, can you tell us when you're available? Because I think we need to know if people are only available one day a week, that might not be sufficient. If they're only available between four and six on Tuesdays, that may be difficult, and so that's why I asked that question. The other thing is when I wrote mine, I put a statement in it as opposed to a question, and member Rousseau knows about this, a statement saying that if people needed interpretation services or computers, whatever, that that would be supplied. So it's a statement rather than asking them if they it's just makes it clear.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, I agree. I believe E, which is the suggested names for the school should be removed from this form. We're gonna make sure Susie's taking good notes on this. Okay, so you wanna add the availability. What is the availability onto this form?
[Van der Kloot]: Can I ask the question differently, Mayor? Instead of adding it on Member Ruseau's, could we just use mine instead? Because I've already written it all out. And since Member Ruseau submitted the other one, I'd like to hear if he's, you know, these are my suggestions. It would just be easier unless there's a lot of controversy about it.
[Ruseau]: Member Ruseau? Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Member Van der Kloot, for your resolution. It certainly helps to move us somewhere so that there's actual movement. I completely agree that E should be removed and the form should be severed, so that's, I think there's probably nobody who would disagree with that. I do think it's important to have a statement in there that, on the application form, that if somebody gets picked for the advisory committee, they don't get to show up with their names. that they think that, you know, that was sort of the logic I had was when you're applying, if you have some names you wanna do to suggest, you do it in line as you go. I just worry somebody will apply to the advisory committee thinking when they get picked, that they get to show up to the advisory committee and then start suggesting names, which is not at all what either of these resolutions puts forth. And so I just wanna be careful that we have some language in there to prevent somebody who went through the effort of applying got selected and shows up at the advisory committee and is devastated to find out their names aren't even on the list. And it's too late. By the time the advisory committee is meeting with the list, it's too late. So I am fine with removing E. As for whether we should work from one or the other, I'm not really sure. I mean, there's a lot of preamble stuff that's different. that I think we also have to kind of discuss. But the, sorry, go ahead.
[Van der Kloot]: So instead of working from either resolution, can we work from the list of questions that either you or I put forward? Because that then is going to, we can, one of those is addressed in that list of what I said were the key questions. Um, so if we if we worked from the key questions, then we would be, then we would have the discussion about each of our different approaches.
[Ruseau]: May I just respond? Member Ruseau, then Member Graham. Thank you. I do agree that that makes the most sense. I just want to be careful that we understand that we need to leave this room with the actual language and the approved resolution, not you know, we're gonna have another meeting after Susie reads these minutes and tries to cobble together from our conversation what we think that the resolution should look like. So then we're another two weeks away from now. I mean, the exact text that is the resolution that we'll vote on, I think needs to be actually written down in this meeting. And so I agree we should take them by the questions, but at the end, we're not gonna, I mean, I certainly feel weird about voting for a resolution that's like 35 amendments that nobody has actually seen the text of. Because one of the main reasons I wrote this was to prevent confusion, errors, and internal conflicts in the actual instructions that we're giving. To tell people to do something, and then in another place, make it so they can't do it, that's not a good look. So I agree we should do it in order like you suggested, but I wanna have the exact words before we vote on it.
[Graham]: member Graham. Just a couple thoughts. I feel like somebody needs to build this as we are talking so that at the end it can be read in its entirety. Um and I don't know if Susie is able to do that or prepared to do that in a Google Doc. If she's not, I'm happy to do it. Um I am fine with the two applications being severed, but I am not on board with any date delays. So I do not, I'm not on board with date delays and I would be happy to lend my assistance to create the Google form if that's what it takes to get the forms out the door by Friday.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I think the best way to have one of us have a working document to make these changes is to start with one, either member Bandiclute's or member Ruseau's and make the changes right on shared access. Agree. And if I may ask a question, because I know that you put the motion forward, Dr. Edouard-Vincent or the admin team, what is the timeframe? for you. I know it's only a few days, so I'm not opposed to a few days extra if you need it. I just wanted to hear from you first.
[Edouard-Vincent]: With creating a new document, we are working on a specific communication for schools. I think Monday would be more reasonable if I continue with the original communication that I'm doing for this Friday. If I could have until Monday to send out all communications regarding the advisory council, I should be able to get it done. and let it be a separate freestanding communication. I could do it by Monday.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Dr. Edward-Vincent. So first member Van der Kloot and member Rousseau. Jenny, can you send it to Jenny or I, the word, it in words, so one of us can type this up, please. Member Graham?
[Graham]: Yeah, so superintendent I'm fine with Monday, provided that it doesn't change the next date, the next day, it has to stay in place. So I'm not I am I am willing to go along for a change that makes the superintendent's life easier. but I am not willing to slide the date, slide the date, slide the date, slide the date. So I'm just saying that right now, as long as we feel like that's adequate time for people to apply with that shift of the first deadline from Friday to Monday, I am absolutely fine with that, but I am not on board for a slow shift of all of these dates.
[Edouard-Vincent]: No, that would be my only request. If we could let this be a freestanding communication and give us till Monday to send it out and the remaining dates can remain.
[Graham]: Thank you, Debra Vincent. So, Mayor, are you do you want me to do this or are you going to do it? I just, we probably can't both do it.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Would you mind doing it only so that while you're typing, I can let the residents speak and I'll keep track of that. And you can type whether you share it at the end or not. And which one am I working from? Member Van der Kloot, we were going to do yours because you severed the two forms. So let's start there. Let's start with Member Van der Kloot. Kathy has a motion on the floor. Before that motion is called to change the date, we're going to let the residents speak on this issue. So Anne-Marie.
[Anna Maria]: hold on um i am here except to get myself okay so i do have a couple of things that i want to address and that is with all due respect i know it was brought up that this was a um topic that came up 20 years ago and even though it might be a topic that other people might know is a new topic it's been 20 years for a lot of people that are involved now that's one And as far as, we're gonna be debating this forever, but as far as people thinking that when people were saying that they weren't heard, I believe, just to clarify, is the night of the meeting in June, when there were people that unfortunately were cut off because they weren't able to say what they wanted to say. And from what I understand, the motion went basically more in regards to 50 emails. And it wasn't open to everybody else. I just want to clarify that. The other thing is, is that we're sitting here and you guys are talking about a timeline. So if I'm understanding this correctly, you're going to have this out by Monday. And how long do the people have to fill out and complete them and return them?
[Lungo-Koehn]: We're working on that tonight so that there's proposals, we don't have that set in stone.
[Anna Maria]: Okay, because at this point here you have a member who's saying that they don't want to delay any other days or dates, and it's really not fair to ever applies to this, that if it's postponed at the beginning, that it shouldn't be postponed in the other dates because it's a domino effect. The other thing is, is that once the applications are in, since people don't think it's going to be cut time consuming, and again, time is of the essence unless people don't want their kids in school. The fact remains is who's going to be interviewing. the people that apply. Who is selecting the applications? Has the diversity director seen the application before it goes out? Has the city solicitor seen the application before it goes out to make sure that it's live on?
[Lisa Evangelista]: 15 seconds.
[Anna Maria]: Okay. And I have had a lot of questions of not to be disrespectful to anyone, but why is it so important to put down our sex orientation to find out if you want to be on a committee or not? Because I don't think when you go and apply for a job, you're able to do that. Because that is, it's okay.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, good, good questions. And I think we're here to hash a lot of those out. But thank you for the questions. Nadine.
[SPEAKER_59]: Thank you very much.
[Moretti]: It's not so much a question, just part of what I really didn't get to finish saying before. So I'm reading it. That's why I'm not even on video because it's just easier to do it this way. Bear with me. It was mentioned that the school committee has full authority to change the name, which I guess I fully don't understand. But it's not just about, say, at least six of you, OK, or about the seven. It's about a whole city, which I know you keep hearing. I know this is set in stone that it's changed, but the problem is the name Columbus Elementary for the last 90 years represents the people of Medford of all races. And by pushing to change it, you're taking that away from everybody. If I'm gonna make this more personal aside from being a former Columbus parent, I'm half Puerto Rican, half Sicilian. Puerto Rican bloodlines and culture evolved through a mix of Spanish, African, and indigenous Taino, I think that's how you pronounce it, and Caribbean Indian races. And as a result of my mixed heritage, Columbus still has no negative effect on me. It was 500 years ago. I think if this was chosen 90 years ago, there was all different races back then, and it would have been an issue you know, probably back then. We live in the cancel culture right now. And I think this is just a product of that. And I think it's being rushed. I think that there's more important things to deal with. You know, we have children that have been out of school for one year, especially vocational students suffering because they're not in there enough. This is just not a priority. And I hope you really think about that. Thank you for your time.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. David McKillop.
[McKillop]: Hi. So to finish my point, this letter that I was reading was basically talking about exactly what people brought up, which was racism. Back in 1891, the systematic racism against Italians was horrific, just as it was everywhere else in every other situation. But President Harrison created the Columbus Day holiday to end that, to bring people into the fold. And I think that to sit there and talk about racism and white supremacy, I don't think President Harrison was a white supremacist when he was thinking about this. In fact, the Italian consulate in Italy itself Sent over a statue of christopher columbus to forge a union between the two countries And this is why it is so important to the italian culture. It's not just Christopher columbus and is in the history of the man. It is a symbol of a way to in to include the italian american community and that's when it was created in 1892 And it was created and after 13 I don't know, generations of people celebrating Christopher Columbus and it morphed into a symbol more so than the name and the person. It's a symbol of inclusiveness and to take that away without anybody being able to vocalize it is taking away that symbol. So again, I say to you, like I said to you on Monday, people's perceptions are their reality, and you are taking away that reality. Please, I implore you, please do not drive the stake further. The jury is out on the history of Christopher Columbus, as Carol pointed out, and I think there has to be more conversation. I just want to leave you there. I implore that you think about it, and I applaud Ms. Van der Kloot for even thinking about it after Monday's conversation.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, David. Nicole.
[Muzo]: Hello, how are you? Thank you for letting me speak. I just wanted to ask one thing, and this is the major thing that is going around Medford. Does anyone care about the division that this is causing Medford right now? That's what I really want you council members to actually think about is what this is doing to Medford. This isn't just actually a Medford thing. This goes way above Medford. This is now a state thing where other people are speaking about this. Have you thought about that at all?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Personally, very much so, yes.
[Muzo]: Okay. So I'm not, none of you really know me, but I come from, I'm an Italian American. My parents and my great grandparents are all, you know, I'm the first to come over here. And the thing that Columbus is so important to us, it's not the person, as David said, it's what it is to Italian Americans. South Medford is a very Italian-American community, just like a lot of Medford. You are basically taking that away and stomping on all our traditions, everything that we care about. A lot of people that are against this, as you say, they're not really from Medford. They might now live in Medford, but they don't know the culture. No one on the committee is actually Italian-American. So you don't know how we actually feel about this. I have a son. He's in the second grade. He came home to me, he doesn't know anything. And he said that Italians are bad. And I said, what are you talking about? Columbus is bad. He's a bad person. Nobody, you don't know what you're talking about. So this is my, my nine year old child is coming home saying this. And he said that someone told him this in recess. So you have to think about not only what you're doing to the Italian community, but what you're doing to our children. Nicole, you have 15 seconds. So that's what I just want you to think about is that what this means to time community and what we feel about is not about the person. I don't think Columbus is bad, but it's about what the meeting is, why Columbus was even brought up as David has discussed. It has nothing to do about him. It's made you Nicole. Okay. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Nicole.
[Deanne]: Kristen.
[Kristin Scalisi]: Hi, am I unmuted? Yes. Okay, great. I just felt like I needed to make a very specific point that even though some of my fellow Italian Americans here keep acting as if the Italian American community is united on this matter, I just want to say on the record that this is not the case. I am 100% Italian descent. And I have been arguing against honoring Columbus since the 90s when I refused to apply for a Knights of Columbus scholarship, which made my grandpa not speak to me for a week since he was the grand knight of his chapter at the time. And also, despite what some people want us to think, the horror at Columbus's acts is not a modern day phenomenon. There are writings. contemporary writings at the time in the 1500s by people like Bartolomé de las Casas, who was a colonizer, was so horrified by the treatment of the natives that he renounced his land grant, freed his slaves, became a priest, and went back to Hispaniola to try to help the natives. He was not a perfect man himself because it was the 1500s, but he did not believe that people deserve to be tortured and enslaved. He wrote contemporary accounts of the torture that the natives under the Spanish and the colonizers. And these acts are so diabolically and disgustingly violent that I couldn't even feel comfortable discussing them in front of children. So why should they go to a school that honors the person who spearheaded them? And if, frankly, as a culture, if we insist on sticking with Columbus to name the school, a man who didn't even set foot in the United States, just says to me that members of our community can't think of any other Italians or Italian-Americans who have done great things for our country. And to me, that's just sad. I think we can do better. We can honor Italians at the same time if we want to. I can think of plenty of people off the top of my head who would deserve to be honored as Italian-Americans without having to, you know, name a school after a man who did terrible things that I wouldn't even talk about in front of a kid. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Jean. Jean, you're unmuted.
[Nuzzo]: Can you hear me now? Yes. Great, thank you. I'll be brief. So I think these conversations and the things that people are talking about illustrate very well what I alluded to earlier, and the fact that the change management process is not a process that needs to be jammed through for expediency. for political optics in an election year. And I think that's why looking at these conversations, that's why this needs to be a more longer term conversation, right? I think people are still overlooking that for a lot of Italian Americans, it's not about Columbus and what he did in his life. It is about what he became to Italian Americans who used that opportunity under Harris to lift themselves up and stop being lynched and beaten and prosecuted. Although I will say as someone of Italian descent, Italians are still treated badly in certain circles and people still lock down on them. And there is stereotypical issues that occur specifically in Hollywood and the way Italians are projected and portrayed on television. So this idea that Italian Americans don't suffer anything isn't true. but it's not in the same regard as what's going on in other areas of our culture right now. And so there's a great opportunity here as we move forward to create healing, but that's done over time. It's not done by a three week effort to put together a random committee and decide on a name out of people submit. It's more than that. And I agree with the previous speaker, but there are many Italian icons that could be selected instead. But again, that's something that Italian Americans should be picking. We shouldn't be told again, like we were told originally. And you have 15 seconds. So again, I would urge you with someone who is a certified project management, change management consultant, and have been doing this type of work for 25 years, that it needs to be measured or it's going to create a deeper rift. It won't be something that will be forgotten. Thank you.
[Clerk]: Thank you, Jean.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Mr. Carbone?
[Christopher Carbone]: Yes, thank you. Christopher Carbone, my daughter Sarah actually attends the Columbus. With regards to the application, which is what this segment of the meeting was supposed to be about, I think the application should have a section in there, not just for their address, a party, a person living in Medford at a certain address could still send their children to another school. I think there should be a section in there that says, have you or any of your children attended the Columbus School? How many? When they something along those lines. And the reason for that is because I think the people who are most proximate to the school who send their children there or have sent their children there should have a larger voice in this discussion. I think that that I mentioned my first set of comments and I think it's true now because we're going to be the people going to be most affected by the school's name case because we are most proximate to it. And how else do I know that? Well, I know that because when Mr. Rousseau first brought up this issue back in June, the first thing he said was, I sent my kids to Columbus or something to the effect of I couldn't believe they still had the name Columbus. That's saying something important. I think the people who send their children to that school should have a greater voice. Now, how will that greater voice be? I don't think there should be a certain number of people on the committee who attended it, but I think it should be something on the effect of a tiebreaker or something along those lines. So I believe that the application should be amended to include people who, so that you say, how many, do you live in, do you send your children to Columbus? And if so, when? So that can be part of it. I think that if we're going to ask people, and I strongly oppose asking people their sexual orientation, I think that is, there's no reason for that. But if you were to ask that, I don't want a straight person I don't know why a straight person who lives in West Medford should have a greater voice than a gay couple who send their kids to the Columbus. I think those people should get priority, and I think that's remarkable.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Mr. Carboni, we do have the question. Are you a current or former member of the Columbus Elementary School community? If so, how so we can potentially make that a question mark if we should ask for the date of when they attended or worked there. So thank you. Martha? Dr. Cushing, you might be muting them and unmuting them. I think we're both playing around. There we go, Martha.
[Andrus]: I am now unmuted, I guess. Thank you very much. I am in favor of changing the name of the school. Columbus doesn't represent Medford particularly appropriately, and I don't think he represents the Italian American community for that matter. I would like to endorse the application process. I think you can separate the, I know I, in my work as a, in a foundation, I often have applications submitted where the, the demographic information, the race and, sexual orientation are put in a separate document. So those do not become part of the application decision. They are simply tracked for reasons that the city wants to know the makeup of its participants. And I think that's, excuse my dog. She's pretty restless right now. But I think the, process should be a good one. I don't think it needs to be. I think delaying it or claiming that there are other things that are more important are essentially diversion tactics. And I think we need to address this. It's been a long time coming. Thank you. Thank you, Martha. Philippe?
[Lungo-Koehn]: I will unmute you. Or try.
[SPEAKER_10]: OK. Can you hear me now?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_10]: Okay, thank you. So good evening everyone. So I've heard for the past hour and a half people arguing on both sides, right? And everyone's kind of making their own case. And so for me, I don't have a horse in the game as Mr. Carbone had mentioned, but my son will be going to Columbus in a couple of years. So we have been kind of looking at the school system. And one of the things that I was more concerned about is just kind of looking at this objectively is I was a little bit surprised to hear that we still don't have an estimate as to how much this costs. So for example, like if I'm doing work on my house, I'll get you know estimates to figure out how much it is to figure out if I can get into the budget right before I go ahead and do something. But given that I've kind of heard that we've been like $3 million. below the budget for 2020. And again, you guys will have a better idea, just I've heard. But for 2021, we'll have to come up with a new budget. So I'm kind of just wondering, like, you know, where does this money come from? Does it have to come from other programs, other materials that we can't give to our students? If it's not that much money, okay, well, you know, whatever the decision is fine. But if it's something that's like, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and obviously that becomes cost prohibitive. So i'm just trying to understand like how that how those decisions made right because at the end of the day we're trying to get the best education for our kids and now it's the best environment as well so all these things need to come into consideration so just trying to get a better idea of how that how that stuff works and that's it for me thanks thank you remember russo then we'll go to kelly
[Ruseau]: Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to comment on the demographics question. As with the superintendent search, and it's true that it's not actually set in the, it's not in the resolution, and that's a failure of my own because I, having done the superintendent search survey, that is exactly what we did. There was, you'd finish the whole survey, and at the end, there was a button that says, you know, there would be a demographics survey you could fill out. It was completely unrelated to your, actual application and we could not correlate or collate those things. So, and the reason was described by Ms. Andres about, you know, getting a sense for, so who in the community are we reaching most importantly, so we can figure out who we're not reaching is the purpose of that. It's certainly not to decide that we want to have a gay person on the committee and, you know, that's not the purpose of that at all. But it does read that way, so I totally own that. I would say about the cost, I don't have a clue what the cost is. I think there are probably many options around cost. And like the Columbus apparently right now, they need new envelopes for their letters, a new letterhead, like they need to order them because they are out. So there's no additional cost to order them with a new name. If they were throwing away 10 years worth of envelopes, then of course, That's totally a different conversation. And then I also wanted, Mayor, there's also a member of the public who has been trying to get attention, and now I don't see her. And I don't remember her name, because she's been there waving her hand. And it was David, I believe, was the first name, although there was a woman in the video. And I just wanted to make sure we could get I'm afraid I don't remember the name, but if they could come back on and I see them, I'll raise that again. But they've been waving for quite a long time and I think they're just getting this.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Just let me know. Thank you.
[Cunha]: Kelly. Hi, my name is Kelly Cooney. I'm sorry I'm late. I was at the Human Rights Commission meeting and I didn't intend to speak, but after hearing what I heard when I came on, I felt compelled to as an Italian American and I don't know I implore this belief that you have to live in Medford for a long time to have your opinion be matter but my mom bought a house my parents bought a house here when I was five so I think 30 years counts but I'm not sure, and I just wanted to kind of speak to Kristen's point as someone who is a long, you know, someone who's lived here a long time and is Italian American that I fully support the name change. I think that it is, you know, my daughter's three and a half and she already knows that Columbus wasn't a good guy and that doesn't take away from my pride in my heritage and my ethnicity and my, you know, my 92-year-old grandmother who I just lost in January who's Italian. She had a lot of pride in being Italian too and also knew that Columbus is not somebody that we really needed to uphold and I keep hearing repeatedly, it's not about Columbus, it's not about Columbus. So if it's not about Columbus, then why do we care about changing the name? And let's move on. And we can still talk about Columbus in context. It doesn't mean that he's gone forever. We can still talk about him. We can still learn about him. There is lots to be discussed in historical context that is important, but that doesn't mean that he needs to be lauded on a school name. Thank you. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Bri?
[Bri Brothers]: Hi, can everyone hear me? Yes. Great. I haven't lived in Medford for very long, and I just want to say I really appreciate all the work and all the discussion that everyone has put into this. I wanted to offer a perspective to maybe consider how this looks to our children, specifically the children who attend the Columbus School. In that I think kids today are growing up in a time of immense racial racial tension Information is more readily available to them than it was even to me when I was in school and These kids are smart. They ask about this stuff and I think it's important that we show our kids that when we know better we do better and I don't, I don't think it's any of this is meant to detract from what Columbus means to Italian Americans, but it's, you know, when we learn things, I think it's important that our children see that we adapt to new incoming data and that we learn from history. People keep saying, I don't want to erase history. This name change is erasing history, but why would we also continue to ignore it? And, um, you know, I just, I think it's just, In terms of, and then my second point was around the monetary concerns that folks have been bringing up. And to that point, I wanted to say, truth be told, there is never a right time to bring about true systemic change. There's never a right time to confront inconvenient truths and do the right thing. The right thing is usually the most painful thing. And if there was a fundraising effort, you know, to make this change happen, I would contribute to it. And I'll come out and say, my kid, when she's school age, is not going to go to the Columbus school. Great. You have 15 seconds. Thank you. But I don't care. Medford is my home. I would gladly contribute to see us know better and do better for our kids. Thanks.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Eunice?
[Eunice Browne]: OK, thanks. Caught me off guard there. Thank you very much for your time. I just wanted to say that I think this whole process would have gone a lot better if it had been handled better back in June. To me, this is not a school issue. It is a community issue. There's a difference. and you're renaming a city building in a neighborhood that affects an awful lot of people. The entire community should have been notified far ahead of that June meeting, not 48 hours early to meet the letter of the law. What about all the people who are not regularly on social media or perhaps not at all? Notification had been done primarily on the Medford Public Schools site. What about people without kids in the system? They don't check the MPS site because they have no need to. I realize how hard it is to reach people these days, but a far better effort needed to be made for a community issue of this magnitude. It should have been in the transcript and notification made in other ways. I take exception to it being said that the community was heard. We have not. You gave 48 hours notice over a weekend and made a decision for which you will not reverse, and that's why the community is irate. And at least one of the school committee members states he would make this change even if everyone said not to. That is arrogant, and that person is not listening to all constituents. and notification of this particular meeting was no better. The patch posted notification of tonight's meeting exactly 37 minutes before the meeting began at 5.07 this evening. How is that right? If we had a couple of June 15th meeting, we'd be in a better place right now. A wedge has been driven in this community that is probably irreversible. And as others have stated, you have far more pressing issues going on right now. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_59]: Thank you.
[Lisa Evangelista]: Eileen. If I may? Yes, yes, Lisa. I just want to give everybody clarification. It's up to Medford Patch, Medford Transcript, what they want to print, and when they want to print it, they're private companies. Thank you, Lisa. You get the information at the same time everybody else does. Thank you. Eileen.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Sorry, Aline. Hold on one second. Trying to unmute you. Oh my gosh.
[Clerk]: Dr. Cushing, are you trying?
[Lerner]: There you go. There we go. I just want to say, it's so sad that so many people are looking at this as an attack on Italian Americans, who certainly have just, you know, suffered discrimination and oppression. And even to this day, probably experienced some of that. It's not about hurting Italian Americans, you know, it's about moving forward. And I just want to laud all the people that spoke in favor of the name change. And I wanted to add a historical fact to what others have said. Even if we don't look at Columbus and say, oh, he did this and he did that. If we just look at the funding for the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, where did the money come from that funded those three ships that set out on those voyages? It came from the confiscated estates of Jews and Muslims in Spain who were hunted by the Inquisition who either had to convert to Christianity or leave the country or be burned at the stake. So we can see even the voyage of Columbus was tainted from the start with the spoils of oppression. And we see how all oppression is linked to each other. And there is white supremacy and Italians have been subjected to that white supremacy, just like black people, people of color, Jews, Muslims. And I just want to say to the Italian community or some of the Italian community that doesn't understand or wanna
[Lisa Evangelista]: want to progress. 15 seconds.
[Lerner]: Join with us. Join with the oppressed and fight against oppression for everybody.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Tony. Then we'll go to Robert. I apologize.
[Tony Puccio]: You're on.
[Lungo-Koehn]: You're on Tony. Yes.
[Tony Puccio]: So I just wanted to say, um, I was going to read something tonight, but just listening to the meeting and picking up all the different conversations just turned into my list has turned into a bunch of points. And, um, sorry if it sounds that way, but I just want to start by saying I can solve this problem right now. This is what we do. Let's start by renaming every school in the district, okay? School A, school B, school C, school D. Let's just have a stale district. No culture, no nothing for anyone, okay? That way they will just solve all the problems for everyone. We'll wipe this right off the board. We can be the most boring city in the universe, okay? And we'll move along to the city streets and we'll move on to the buildings and all the corners that we name after all the people who have done so much for this city. Let's just go ahead and cancel it all right out, okay? And that way we can all live equally and no one will have any problems with anything. The next thing I wanted to say is the woman, I'm sorry, I don't know her name, who spoke for the Medford Mercury, it is up to the Medford Mercury and Patch the Patch to post those things, but it's also the responsibility of the city to make sure that those things reach those papers in time so people have the appropriate notification. 37 minutes is not acceptable. Does anyone considered it's more than just taking some chisels to a concrete building and changing a name. You have to think about all the paperwork that goes into it, changing the all the letterheads and the websites and whatnot. There's a lot more to this than just putting a sign up, you know, and tying it to the building. This is pretty elaborate. This is really something that needs to have more thought go into it. Paula, I'm sorry, Mia, thank you so much for finding that book. Some of us already have that book. We know that book. And what that book really states is the city has already spoken. They've already voted on it.
[Lisa Evangelista]: They chose that name, okay?
[Tony Puccio]: They wanted that name. That's why it was selected 90 years ago. Just please consider all these things and consider how many people that this is affecting because it really does affect people and people are irate. Thank you for letting me speak. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Robert Galasso. Yeah, Paul, you mentioned he was waving. Let me just... Okay, I don't see that he's on actually anymore. So, Amy and Mariana.
[SPEAKER_31]: Hi, everyone. I just wanted to respond to a few things. One thing is, you know, going back to what council committee member said, this name change way back when was the result of the community coming together and wanting a name that had some more social justice and progressive consideration in it today. And that's all people today are asking for. I'm sure at the time people were, there were plenty of people opposed. Plenty of people who had anti-Italian sentiments were opposed to the name change. They were wrong then, just the way I would say that people who are opposed to more inclusion and social justice today are wrong today. Segregation wasn't popular in its time. It divided communities. People who wanted their schools to stay white felt they weren't heard. And we look back now and they were totally wrong. I can think of a number of cultural figures from my cultural background that I wouldn't want to name a school after. I have Romanian relatives. I don't want to send my kids to Kočescu High School or Middle School. Not everyone from your culture is worth elevating. And if we're going to elevate heroes, I want to pick them carefully. And my last point to this guy who said, let's name all the schools by numbers and have no culture. New York City has PS1 through, I don't know, 200. And I would highly challenge anyone to say that New York City doesn't have any culture because of how they named their schools. Anyway, that's it.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Dan?
[Dan]: Can you hear me?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, Dan.
[Dan]: Yeah. I just want to say, Mayor, this is not directed at you or member Kreatz, but to the other members of the school committee, it's pretty obvious by the signs of the petitions where the citizens of the city stand. This is an election year. And let me make it clear. You have awoken a sleeping giant in this city and be prepared to suffer the consequences at the next election. We will vote yous out. Everyone yous. So be prepared for that. That's all I have to say.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Melissa?
[Melissa Dubuc]: Hi, how are you? I joined the meeting late, so I apologize if things have been brought up that I didn't hear.
[Melissa]: I know that this has been passionate on both sides whether we are for the change of the school or not. My suggestion would be, because this is really taking a toll on the city, people are writing nasty comments back and forth to each other on Facebook and other things. I think it's doing a disservice to our community as a whole. Why can't the school committee take a step back and allow the community themselves to vote on it? Because I think if the community gets to vote, whichever way it goes, at least everybody will feel like they have input and they've actually been heard. And I think it will be a little bit easier to digest if it was done properly by a vote for the people in the community, they have the opportunity to vote whether they're for or not for the change of the school in the city that they live in. And then at that point, if it is voted at the name of the school get changed, then we can move on and maybe think of a different name. But I think this is sort of being done in a not so great way. I think this is an opportunity to show the city that we care about what everybody has to say and not push it one way or the other. So thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Melissa. Member Graham, I'm not sure if you want to screen share so we can ask over the amendments and changes. I think we're changing the date of the 12th to the 15th for when the application form for membership in the advisory committee will be prepared. We're moving the suggestion, E on Paul's at least, the suggestion new name for the school, including the following. while we move to the naming form proposals. We're gonna add the availability of those applying to be on the advisory committee to the form. Yeah, that's already there. Okay, and then we have questions about the demographics, including, and I know it's been discussed, so we're gonna take out Number three, sexual orientation.
[Graham]: So can I just step back and tell you what we have accomplished so far before we go forward? I think you should screen share it so we could all just take it. I'm happy to do that. Thanks. I just want to point out this is a five-page resolution and we have addressed one paragraph of the five-page resolution. So cover page one, at least. Nope, not even. We're sort of in the middle. So this started from Paulette's and I will cobble them together as we talk. But what we have covered is the application committee, the advisory committee application. I added a bullet here that says the superintendent will create a form no later than Monday, March 15th. The form will be translated in a manner consistent with all district communications. The availability is listed already. I made this update to clarify when we ask, which was already on the form, if you're a member of the Columbus School community, if so, how and when, student, family, staff, and in what year. The demographics information, I added a clause that said will be collected but separated from the main body of the application. I am not in favor of removing sexual orientation because again, the goal of collecting these demographics is to understand who we are reaching and who we are not reaching. And that is a common best practice question that is put in surveys all the time now because we want to know that we are reaching all members of our community and they are an important portion of the community.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, thank you, Member Graham. So we'll just, if anybody has questions on this or any additional changes, we could comment. I see Member Ruseau's hand. Go ahead.
[Ruseau]: Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to comment on the demographics. I know that it is sometimes a problem for some people. These lists of not only the options, but the actual categories within each of the options, but I may have these backwards, sorry, are from the federal government's list. This work to get this stuff together and what we are tracking as a district for participation in our surveys. was something we did for the superintendent search. So this isn't like I just made it up. This is from the federal government and the best practice that I believe member Graham mentioned. So I too would be opposed to removing any of these.
[Graham]: They are all optional though. You're not obligated to answer any of the demographic questions.
[Lungo-Koehn]: They're all optional. Okay, so if there's any other amendments, any members, would like to make to this section, please let us know now. Otherwise we can do an all-inclusive motion to amend this section so that it will, or we can do it at the end as well and move on, but.
[Kreatz]: Can we just go back up a little bit? I can't see some of the screen.
[Lungo-Koehn]: We can, maybe Memogram could increase the.
[Kreatz]: Yes, if you could maybe just try to increase it up to 125 maybe. Perfect, thank you. I'm just taking a few more moments to read it. Sorry, I'll be right there. Take your time, Member Kreatz. I do have a question. Mayor, I just have a question. Yes, Member Kreatz. Yes, I know I'm looking at Paulette's, you know, her, her resolution, and she does have the application form and suggestion will be posted and communicated out to usual mechanisms. including translations. Okay, that's number two. I'm sorry, I'm just reading the wrong paragraph. The application will clearly state that interpretation services will be available to any community member who so requests and technology, laptop, camera, microphone will also be provided. I'm not seeing that. Okay, so there, okay, there it is. Okay.
[Lungo-Koehn]: And if we can all read number four as well to make sure there's no questions on number four can just work our way down to application timeline next. If there's no further questions, we can go on to the name selection form details. And I'll read out loud. I mean, I can read out loud as well. I read from Paul's for the first section. I'll read from Paul S for the second. It's submission of names for consideration. The school committee will request the superintendent or her designee to develop a form to be used to submit names for consideration. The form will include the following name, full name, address, contact information. Are you a current or former member of the Columbus Elementary School community? We will add, and if so, when. Name you are suggesting and a brief explanation of why you think the name should be considered. Relationship of the suggestion to Medford are related to the name you submitted, if so, how. Any other information that you can provide to the advisory committee for their consideration. Individuals applying to be on the advisory committee may submit names. Each name submitted for consideration should be listed on separate forms. the name of Christopher Columbus will not be considered a valid submission. Mayor? Yes, Member Van der Kloot.
[Van der Kloot]: Just so you know, on this, as this differs from Paul's in just two ways. I added the sentence about, are you related to the name you submitted? And I also asked that each name be submitted on a different form. Otherwise, mine and Paul's are the same.
[Lungo-Koehn]: The same. And then I just want to make sure there's a timeline so that people have more than enough time to do research and submit names. So do we want to put a timeline here?
[Graham]: So Mayor, I put all the timelines in a separate section. So just because the timelines were sort of commingled. Yep. That's fine. That's OK. We'll do that separately.
[Ruseau]: So if there's any other questions, Member Ruseau? Thank you, Mayor. I also have a number, I'm trying to figure out if it's actually a different place in Member Van der Kloots about paper versions of the application form being available. It's number six on mine. Is that anywhere in Member Van der Kloots, and if not?
[Van der Kloot]: I forgot to add that, Paul. It should be added.
[Ruseau]: So, I mean, I don't, I think it's for both the applications and for the, the names, so I don't care where it gets added, if it gets added twice or not, but it's just saying that there will be paper forms for those. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Any other questions or comments from the school committee? the submission of names for consideration. I will see if there's any. Nadine? Nadine? Did you want to speak? Did you want to speak on submission of names for consideration?
[Moretti]: Well, I just had a quick question about the whole process. And forgive me if someone answered it already, because I may have missed it. So is there no possibility of this being tabled, this resolution, or it was speeding up the process? Am I understanding that correct, I guess? I'm trying to wonder why it's being sped up. This isn't gonna help figuring out how our kids are gonna get back to school or a healthy learning environment. I guess I'm just lost. So Kathy had brought up changing the timeline, is that being considered? I'm just curious.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, we didn't get to the timeline section yet. The only timeline we've got to was when the form would be complete, which will be, we changed that from this Friday to Monday. Okay, but- Timeline hasn't been discussed yet, and there's no motion on the table to table the matter. No motion on the floor to table the matter right now.
[Moretti]: Can residents do that?
[Lungo-Koehn]: No, I'm sorry.
[Moretti]: Thanks. I figured I'd ask. Thank you. That's all. You're welcome.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Ann Marie?
[Anna Maria]: I'm here. I'm just getting it ready. I guess I'm the only one banging my head on a wall here. I asked a few questions before, and that was, The reason that the question on the application came up is because I know legally you can't do that on your sexual orientation on an employee application. So I was wondering and I was asking that question on a legal base. But as of right now, there's still no question, there's still no answers to did the city solicitor see it? Has the diversity director seen it? You know, I understand that people are saying, you know, people knew about it, people didn't know about it. Again, we're talking the priority of the school committee. If there are people right now, on the committee that feel that the name should be changed. I don't understand why it is such an urgency that if they have the name change done, whether you do it next month or in two months or in four months, it's going to be there. The change is going to come. So I don't understand why that's happening. Second of all, Again, I don't know if I'm gonna get any answers, but people keep on saying this isn't gonna be time consuming. You have just mentioned, Madam Mayor, that you're only on the first section of five, and we have been on for close to two hours. Being involved in the system, I know how much time it takes. But again, we still have no answers to how much is it gonna cost? How much time is gonna be put into it? Who are the ones that are gonna be selecting these applications? How are you going to put everyone on the same schedule? More importantly, everyone now is going to be looking at their screen to observe what they're voting on within 10, 15 minutes. I don't know about anybody else, but I hope to God the budget doesn't you guys don't work on the budget like that.
[Lisa Evangelista]: I am Murray. Thank you.
[Anna Maria]: I'm sorry, Lisa.
[SPEAKER_40]: Don't be sorry, Ingrid.
[Ingrid Moncada]: Hi, I have a question. I think I missed if this was answered already, but I want to know who is eligible to apply for the committee. Is it all methamphetamines? Are we going to check that it's a methamphetamine or can it be anyone? And also, Also, the same with the application for the name change, are we going to ask for residents only or is other people that don't even know if we're going to be have a chance to, to apply and then the other question is what about Columbus kids, or, well, any kids but, um, What's the, are they gonna, will they be able to give ideas? Is the Columbus School gonna have like a different way to submit names, a different process that is gonna involve more their opinions? I think that will be important. There's just, I don't know.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Ingrid. Yes, you do have to be a Metro resident is what we have on our sheet right now. So if this is approved, you'd have to be a Medford resident. And we are down the line going to discuss who will be eligible and definitely want to give some, there's section 10, at least in Paul's and I believe Paulette's has it as well. That's why we ask on the application, if you're a parent or teacher at the Columbus school, so we can discuss that as we go. Member van de Kloot.
[Van der Kloot]: On mine, I have a separate paragraph devoted to the Columbus School. Now, the original intent was to have a very lengthy process with students being involved. The time frame makes it shorter. and certainly will not be as we intended when the original motion was drawn up. But there is a piece that's dedicated to it.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, thank you.
[Graham]: Mayor, I can share my screen for the... Thank you. For this section. which is I've titled Application Timelines and Submission Guidelines for Advisory Committee and Name Suggestions. So the application form and suggestion form will be posted and communicated out through usual mechanisms the district uses, including translations to prominent languages on Monday, March 15th. And again, on Monday, March 22nd, the application and submission period will open Monday, March 15th and close on Friday, April 16th. at 5 p.m. A paper version of both applications will be created by the superintendent's office. Residents may request a paper version by contacting the superintendent's office at this phone number.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Mayor? Yeah, Jenny, Member Graham, it's not screen sharing, so maybe, sorry, thank you. Sorry, sorry. Member Vanderlew, will we screen share?
[Van der Kloot]: Yes, so I think that there was a difference in Paul and mine about the date that the applications were due. And part of it is that there's a vacation week built in there. So he had them due on the Friday of vacation week. So which, Paul, if I recall, originally it was April 26th, 24th, 23rd, right on yours? Is that correct? I pushed it.
[Ruseau]: I have been the 23rd. Yes.
[Van der Kloot]: Right. So that's the Friday. So that's the Friday of vacation week. And that's usually the day when we're then getting our packets of information. So I gave more time, less time to apply. I have it done on Friday, April 16th. which does cut off time, but it's because of vacation week. I wanted to make sure that our office staff had enough time to collect all the applications, to collect the names, and to prepare them to give them to us as appropriate. So that was the reason why Paul and I had a different time. I just wanted to be clear on that.
[Lungo-Koehn]: And what your date was, what member of it include?
[Van der Kloot]: April 16th. So in essence, people have four weeks to apply.
[Lungo-Koehn]: To apply in name change.
[Van der Kloot]: Yeah. Again, it just had to do with the vacation week issue.
[Lungo-Koehn]: And just if you're applying to be on this committee and you have to submit your application, by April 16th that you're interested in being on the committee. Couldn't we open it up to suggested names a little longer?
[Van der Kloot]: You could, I just didn't know who was gonna be, since it's vacation week, who was gonna be in the office and they need to be collated and sent out to us. So you could, but just realize whatever office staff is in the superintendent's office or whatever.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Well, name changes would be going to the committee, not necessarily to us. So people could have all of April vacation and then be able to submit a name after that.
[Van der Kloot]: Wait, say that again.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Mayor? This is with regards to timeline for the advisory committee and the name suggestions. So my question is, advisory committee will have to submit by April 16th. And then the proposed name changes, I'm asking, should we give people a little bit more time, even if it's through April vacation, to have the ability to do some research and write up what name that they are suggesting? And the name suggestions would then go to the advisory committee.
[Van der Kloot]: So Mayor, Paul and I, and this is one of those key talking points that I mentioned to you earlier, we have a big difference between us on the process of what happens to the name submissions. I have them all going, if we receive 50, I have all 50 going immediately to the advisory committee once it's formed. Paul has a process where we wheedle them down. What happens is we would, at our school committee meeting on April 26, which is what he designated, and Paul, if you wanna speak to this, because I'm speaking for you, But he had it that the school committee would wheedle down the number. So let's say we got 100, we would each pick four. And he has a fairly involved process where they're weighted. And I found that confusing. And I thought that the whole intent of the advisory committee was, in fact, to vet the names. I did not feel that I could receive the names on a Friday, April 23, and in our Monday meeting, April 26. be willing or able to then only send to the committee my top four choices. It's a very significant difference on how we approach this question.
[Ruseau]: Member Ruseau. Thank you, Mayor. And I agree, Paula, that Member Van Der Kooten and I did approach this issue. Can you hear me OK? Yes. Yeah, okay, thank you. Approach this issue a little differently. I sort of see this as very, it's sort of like this three-pronged issue. If we just give all of the suggestions to the committee, I think 50 is, no offense to member Vanderbilt, but a bit naive. There will be hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of submissions, if for no other reason to make it difficult to accomplish the work. That is what is going to happen. If we get hundreds and hundreds of submissions and we give all of those to the advisory committee, we have now sort of baked in a requirement that they can't possibly get their work done in any reasonable timeframe. Also, this is completely indirectly related to how many people are on the advisory committee. If an advisory committee has 10 people and we give them four choices, we can all imagine they can do a good job of figuring out what their suggestion is. if an advisory is 10 people and we give them 300 names, we need to give them two years to do the work. So I feel like these three pieces are directly related to each other, because if we do not in any way, shape or form, call the list in some fashion, whether we agree to do it sort of in some blanket way in this or or do it in the fashion that I had suggested in my resolution, which was again, just a first draft idea. But I do feel very much that we have an important decision to make, unless we wanna hear back from the advisory committee that they are only 30% of the way through the hundreds of submissions they got when they come to us and say, we just can't do it in this timeframe. So we can set ourselves up for failure on this, if we don't do this right, is my opinion.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Or mayor. And member Kreatz has her hand as well. So member Van der Kloot, if you wanna just.
[Van der Kloot]: Yeah, just to answer that. Or we can set ourselves up for failure by receiving, if you're a number, Paul, of 300 on Friday afternoon, and expecting me without, I don't have any time to vet them. And on so what basis am I going from 300 to four? It's just not real. The reason you have the advisory committee is to do the work. I mean, part of it will be when they will go through and, you know, the first ones, they'll, you know, but that's not, if you're having us do that initial work selection without establishing what criteria we're using, it's a crapshoot. And I think that it undermines the whole process.
[Kreatz]: respond. Member Kreatz? Yes, so I completely agree with Ms. Van der Kloot and I strongly believe that all the names must go to the advisory committee and that committee will thoroughly research those names. They're going to have to Google, maybe go to the library, break up into groups, That's what I believe the committee is being formed to do, to research all the names, to come up with the best name for our community, and it should be the community which is formed via the committee that's researching these names. So I motioned to accept the resolution the way it was put forth by Ms. Van der Kloot, where the advisory committee will be formed and will receive all the names. Yes, maybe we could get a copy of the names so that we can also just review them and be familiar with the names that were submitted as suggested names. But the process of researching and thoroughly you know, reflecting on these names and taking into consideration, you know, everything that's going on in our community, um, just from what we heard this evening, it's, it's very, very important that the community, which is comprised of the advisory committee is part of the process and doing the selection. You know, the entire, if we get 300 names, I believe, yes, they should get all of those names.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I agree with that too, member Kreatz, thank you. And this is a public committee, so all the records will be public. Everybody will be able to see all 300. And I think it's the job of the advisory committee. So that may be something we have to vote on. Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: Sorry, I'm happy to second that. I just think the next section ought to be interesting. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, so we are gonna change that. All name suggestions will go to the advisory committee.
[Van der Kloot]: So can you use mine, my wording since I worked it out?
[Lungo-Koehn]: We'll work that change in while we take a few more comments. We have Adam.
[McLaughlin]: Was that, I'm sorry, Mayor, was that a motion and a second? Because I'm trying to keep the tally.
[Kreatz]: Yes, I did motion. I didn't hear a second. That was a second by member. Okay, thank you. Thank you. I didn't hear it either. Okay, thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: We don't necessarily have to take the role. Well, we can take the role if there's opposition. So if anybody has opposition, we can do a roll call now. Otherwise, we're kind of just working with a living document. You can call the roll. Okay, before the rolls call, then let me
[McLaughlin]: Um, can I also have a wording of the motion just so I can record it in the tally sheet accurately? Please.
[Kreatz]: Okay, I'm just hold on one minute.
[Lungo-Koehn]: It would be it would be Paul Paulets that we accept Paulets wording on on this language. So why don't we write it in and then screen share it? and I'm gonna call on the residents that would like to speak on this issue. Mike Kugno.
[Mike Cugno]: Thank you, Madam Chair. Sorry about that. We have, I don't understand the process that's going on here, but I believe this should be in a committee, subcommittee, not the committee of the whole. We're doing so many processes against Robert's Rules of Order that it's just absurd of what's going on. We're taking address, we're not taking address for people that are calling in. We're doing this on a zoom meeting. Uh, people can't come in to talk. I just want to know what is going on. Why are we not in, in chambers discussing this? And prior to that, it should be in a subcommittee to discuss, get the processes down, bring it back to a committee of the whole, let them vote on what they can see, what they can review after weeks of looking at it or days of looking at it. as opposed to looking at it for 15, 20 minutes on a screen and deciding upon it. This is flawed. This should be tabled, put to a committee, subcommittee meeting, then brought back to a committee of the whole, voted upon, then brought to the full committee at some point in time later in the year. I don't understand what we're doing here. We're against every process that we've put forth in this city from time and material going forward. I don't know why you're allowing it. My address is 871 Felsway in Medford. And I haven't heard the last few people coming up since the beginning, giving their addresses at all. They could be calling it California, Florida or Cambridge or other cities around the city. We have not identified themselves or they haven't identified themselves. Can you answer any of those questions? And going back to what was asked before, if we don't know the cost, we don't know what's going on. How can we decide tonight on what we're going to do to go forward? These are all questions that need to be answered prior to taking- Mike, you have 15 seconds. And again, we don't have the answers. I would suggest someone to step up and table this. If you have to step down and let your vice chair step up, you put the motion forward. I'll let someone else put the motion forward to do this correctly.
[Lisa Evangelista]: Thank you, Mike.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Thank you, Mike. My privilege, Mayor Point of privilege member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. I just want to let the community know that part of the role of the advisory committee, I believe will be researching the cost or we could include it in the document, so I don't want people to think that. You know, we won't be aware of what the cost is as we're moving this forward. And again, I just want to some time ago, and we have been working on this for approximately a year. So this is not the first time that we've been thinking about this document or looking at this document. And this is not the first time we've had this long school committee meeting. And it's not the first time we've heard from a number of people that are here, both publicly, privately, phone calls, emails, letters. So just so folks know, we have been listening. for quite some time, and we will be certain to know what the cost is and to make that public as part of our advisory committee. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Member Ruseau. And then I see two people with their hands up, so I'm gonna take the three people with their hands up next.
[Ruseau]: Thank you, Mayor. I just don't want to get into a back and forth, but The policy of the Medford School Committee for at least the last 30 years has mandated this process and it has not happened for 30 years. That is not a reflection of following our procedures. The fact that we have policies and procedures that are ignored by some folks is within their option. As a committee, we can sort of ignore our policies, but we also should follow them in my opinion, when they're literally in black and white. And this policy is in black and white. This lays out exactly that we as a committee design the advisory committee with graphic detail, frankly, what we should be doing. So I do recognize that we have not done this as a community perhaps for at least 30 years. And I look forward to this becoming a regular thing for advisory committees. We have to have a hunger, making Medford a hunger-free community advisory committee. We passed the motion to do that. So we will be going through all of this again. We also have another advisory committee for the vision committee for the high school. So those are both going to follow this same format as is the policy of the school committee as passed at least 25, 30 years ago. I'm not making this process up and nobody else here is either. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: We have Sharon and then Lee. Sharon, you gotta wait till we unmute you, please. It doesn't do it. It takes some time for me for some reason. Oh, geez, where'd you go? Dr. Cushing, could you maybe try, I'm not able to unmute her.
[U1EIl_L-LWc_SPEAKER_00]: Yes. Thank you. Sharon, as we click ask to unmute, a symbol should come, there you go.
[Deyeso]: Okay, is that better? Yeah, it was on my end too, sorry. I'll just take about a minute of your time because we hear about all kinds of odd things during these months in this country and around the world. I have one comment about the whole thing, about anyone who really started this movement on Columbus School. It isn't just about being Italian and taking it away from the Italian community. It's like a witch hunt. I'm thinking with some of the Confederate plaques that were taken down, some of the review of different cities, what a name change, et cetera. If somebody must've said, oh, we better start looking at Metro, what can we change here? You know, we do, as a couple of commentators said, have very important vigilant moves to make during this COVID. No one really wants to be in a big hot seat. However, it goes beyond just Italian in Columbus. Let's take an example. How many people have been to Rome, you know, to Italy and went to visit the Colosseum? Being a history humanities minor in college, and I also did teach in Medford for a while, I had tears in my eyes when I went there because of the architecture in the history. And I could just imagine the chairs and whatnot. I didn't leave there that day and go on to the huge triumph of Marcus Aurelius and say, we better get after these Romans. You know, pagans lived here one time and we need to tear the Colosseum down. Is that what you want to do next? Because what's next? You're just going to stop this now? Because buyer beware. There may be people who are so upset about this, not because it's Italian or anti-Italian or anything else. You need to do better constructive, not destructive things with your elected time. And I know some of your intentions were on a side. I haven't seen all the history documents yet, so I can't give a full opinion of that. But you really need to look at that. And you have 15 seconds. Thank you. So please, please examine this closely. I am not the change of that name. I think he was a famous navigator, we would not be having this conversation if it weren't for him going through uncharted waters. Thank you very much and good evening.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Deanna, and then we're going to go to Grace.
[Deanne]: Are we all set? Yes. Hi, I just have a comment and a question. Why are you trying to erase history?
[Lungo-Koehn]: And maybe you wanna go into your comment.
[Deanne]: Well, technically that's my comment. Why are you trying to erase history? Why is the school committee trying to erase history?
[Lungo-Koehn]: I think that's one of many, many arguments and there's arguments on both sides. So I'm not sure if anybody's gonna answer it specifically.
[Deanne]: Oh, that's a question to the school committee.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Van der Kloot.
[Van der Kloot]: Yes, um, so in my mind we're not erasing history we're changing a name to what might be a more appropriate name in this day and age. Columbus will still be taught, like you said he was a famous navigator. There's much history there. It's to be appreciated in its totality. It is part of the Massachusetts strands of education. I think it's both fourth and then again in middle school where students discuss Columbus. So it's not in any way a shape to remove Columbus from the curriculum or not to teach it. It is a question of saying, what name do we want to put on this building that will embrace and bring our community together? Unfortunately, Columbus is very divisive, as you can see in this discussion.
[Deanne]: Well, I don't agree with it. Because if you're still going to teach about Columbus, you're going to teach about this. So why take a name off a building that's been there for umpteen years?
[SPEAKER_40]: Lee, I'm going to come to you. I forgot. Sorry.
[Lee Conlon]: Am I on? Yes, Lee. OK. I have to say, thank you, Madam Mayor. And listening to, I've come in and I have to say my ignorance to a point of listening to all, to everybody. But I have to say for one thing, I am in shock and totally disappointed in the school committee when this woman asked a question in regards to the Christopher Columbus and that, and nobody wanted to step forward. But yet, why? I don't understand. Our city is full of history, good history, bad history. So you're starting with the Columbus School because somebody got that in their brain that that had to be changed. Well, we could go through the whole city and change every street, Let's go to the royal house and ban that from going in. That's slavery. There's so much history, and the Christopher Columbus is history to the people who live and have grown up in Medford. I'm not Italian, but this means a lot to me. This means a lot. This is how it has been. I would really like to know, and my main reason was asking, whose idea was this? to do this. And again, like many of our people, many people in the city have been blindsided with it. Ms. McLaughlin said this has been going on a year. Well, that's fine, but it hasn't been going out to the public in a year. And what is the big rush? With Mike saying things need to be done correctly. You have 15 seconds. Okay. That's all, those are my thoughts from just someone who lives in Medford her whole life. Thank you, Lee.
[Lungo-Koehn]: This was proposed. Yeah, this was proposed in June and was on a school committee meeting. By who?
[Lee Conlon]: Like, why? It was a, I don't know. Nobody wants to give like a straight answer. To be honest, Madam Mayor, nobody can say, like the person who brought this to and their reasoning why. Everything's, you know,
[McLaughlin]: Okay. Remember McLaughlin? Remember Ms. Stone? Sure. Mayor, I will share that myself. I was one of the people who signed the motion, the original motion, to move this forward for all of the reasons that have been discussed here tonight. And I am sorry that the individual that is speaking feels like this hasn't been discussed. It has been discussed. and shared and shared out. It's been on the television. It's been in the newspaper. It's been in social media. It has been, you know, any number of places. But I, with a few of our colleagues, put this motion forward almost a year ago. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Mustone?
[Mustone]: Yes, I also signed on to the resolution with Member Ruseau and Member McLaughlin. And I want to say the reason why we proposed it is because as we've learned of Columbus's legacy in recent times with more research and history, we realized that is not someone that we would like to hold up in a standard for our children. Most people know I have six children, four in Medford Public Schools. He is not someone that I want my children to think that's who we want to represent a school in the city of Medford. We've heard a lot of conversation on both sides tonight. I've had personal conversation with a number of people. I have thought about it thoroughly. And I know that there are many other opportunities to name a school and that we're not erasing history. It's that he is not someone that represents what I wanna teach my children. I agree that he was a navigator, but other than that, there's nothing that I wanna encourage my children to say, this is someone that we admire and someone that I want you to look up to. So I think that's how I agreed with my family discussing it that I signed on with Mr. Russo and Ms. McLaughlin. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, member. Ms. Stone.
[Caldera]: Hi, I just have a couple things to say. And I first want to say thank you all for doing this and moving with this name change. It goes on with the overall goal of our community to be more equitable. and as someone whose father is from the Bahamas, where Columbus actually landed, and then he, because of him, decimated the entire Native population. I, you know, his history is important, but he didn't discover this land. There was already people here with rich culture and traditions and religion. And it's also important to note about that. And then I do have a question with the overall process that you guys are doing. Is there any plan or a plan in your current plans to run any of the new names by the school's racial equity task force?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Grace. We're still going through the process, so we can take that into account, absolutely. Paul, I'm going to people that have not spoken yet at all, and then I will.
[Hollings]: Good evening, May, can you hear me? Yes, Paul. Good evening, Madam Mayor and members of the school committee. I just have a question and a comment. My question is, and you're probably gonna cover this, I'm sorry if I'm cutting you guys off, but the name change, is it gonna be reserved for somebody who was a resident of the city or had an impact directly on the city of Medford? Is that one of the qualifications? And if so, I hope it is. And my comment would be, Um, I know this is going to, there's going to be a lot of discussion on this, but I think one of the names that should be considered would be Crystal Campbell. I don't know if she went to the Columbus. I tried to reach out to her cousin, find out before I got put on here, but I think that'd be a really nice gesture. I think that'd be, and I think someone like that who, you know, lived in the city, um, or went to the school or had a serious impact on the city should be someone that the school gets named after if that's the route that it seems like that's the route that it's going to go. So. That's all. Have a good evening.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Paul. Member Van de Koot, I'm looking at yours. I thought yours had that it would be that this preference to naming it after somebody from Medford, but I'm just, can't locate that line.
[Van der Kloot]: Member Ruseau had that.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, there is language, Paul, and all that we're gonna debate on this being named after somebody from Medford. So we wouldn't get to that section yet, but we will. So thank you.
[Jennifer Kerwood]: Jennifer Kerwood, I don't believe you spoke yet. Hi, thank you. Jennifer Kerwood, 43 Willis Ave. I apologize for not having my video on this evening, but considering some of the comments I've heard tonight, I think that perhaps the advisory committee should have alternates or just a larger number than 10, simply because there will likely be people who join in order just to simply disrupt the process. And if we could possibly put something in there so that once people are on the committee, there is a means of replacing them, should that be, I don't know, I just think it's likely. And I think it should be something that we consider that. perhaps even just more than 10 people, a larger number. So that way, if there is someone who is disruptive, it doesn't have as much of an impact with such a small number. That's all. And thank you guys. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Yes, one speaks about 21 people, one, I think 15. So we didn't get to that yet. Member McLaughlin? And we'll discuss alternates.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you. I'd like to make a motion. I wanna hear from everyone that wants to speak tonight. And I'd like to make a motion that we move public comment till after we go through the document. So that, cause a lot of the questions are really relevant to the document and we haven't gotten the opportunity to go through it. So if we could move public comment till the end of the document so that people can actually see the entirety of the document, I think that would be really helpful. I'm wondering if I might get a second.
[SPEAKER_40]: Member Van der Kloot.
[Van der Kloot]: I, I think that's problematical Melanie, because so many people have already felt that they haven't had the opportunity to speak to now say that this may take us another three hours to work through the whole document. So I think the way the mayor's been feeding them in. As time-consuming as it is and how sometimes questions are being asked that we will answer, I think we just have to be short and say, we'll get to that. But I think you might make a tough situation even more difficult if you shut down any ability to talk while the meeting is proceeding.
[McLaughlin]: One clarification, I'm not interested in shutting down. I know you're not.
[Van der Kloot]: how some people might perceive it, Melanie, and I know you're always open to hearing from her.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Graham]: Member Graham. Can I make a suggestion that we complete a round of public comment, we then close public comment so that we can actually work through this document with the comments of the public in mind, and then we can open for a brief, maybe shorter timeline, public comment when the document is completed, so that we can hear from everybody, we can use that information to react and complete the work of this meeting, and then we can take public comment again. But this is disrupt, this back and forth, we're not making our way through this document in a productive way, so I'd like to see us try to be more productive as we get through this document. Is that an amendment to the motion? If you would like it to be. Yes, please. Then you have a second.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Can you please explain that? I think the document needs to be screen shared so we can see where we're at and continue to plug through. I did mention
[Graham]: Yeah. So the motion is to take a round of public comment starting now. Everybody gets three minutes. Two minutes. And then we close public comment and we work through the document. When we are done, we can take another round of public comment, but we will not take public comment during the working through of the language. We are not making forward progress.
[Lungo-Koehn]: As long as we don't vote on the language in its entirety before the second round, I think that's fine. That's fine. Okay, motion on the floor by Member McLaughlin, amended by Member Graham, seconded by Member Graham. Roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? No. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone?
[Clerk]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Van der Kloot]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Lungo-Koehn?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, six in the affirmative, one in the negative. So right now public comment is open. I'm going to go through Mr. Carboni.
[Christopher Carbone]: Um, so just on the issue that's currently before us. Um, I agree with the council person can include and Councilperson credits in so far as, um, The committee that is being formed should have access to all the names and have the ability to go through all the names. And the reason for that is I trust my neighbors to make the best decisions possible. That's the whole reason we're having public comment. That's the whole reason why we have these discussions, is because our neighbors are going to be the ones together that can make the best decision. I believe whether they submit four names or 4,000 names, The people we put on that committee will be in the best position to actually do what's to choose the best name, not as sort of a rubber stamp to the acceptable ones that our betters give to us, but instead that the people on the committee would make the decision. I support expanding the committee to be slightly larger. I think it's a bad idea to cut a couple of comments that they have. And Otherwise, I support the continued work of everyone here to try to get through this project, warts and all, no matter how difficult it might be on any of us. Thank you very much.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Annemarie.
[Anna Maria]: OK, so if I'm understanding this the correct way, If I'm understanding this correctly, you're going to take a round of questions now. You're going to go and work on the document. And then once it's done and you're all finished, you're going to come back to take more questions from the community. So we're after 8 o'clock now. So we're going to expect you to come back at 10, 11 o'clock. That's one. Second of all is the fact that, you know, everybody keeps on saying everybody's been hurt. I think everybody forgets the fact that if everybody had been heard in June, you would have had your 600 signatures against the, I don't want to say against, but versus the 300 signatures. So I guess my question again, isn't this a mute conversation? Because everybody keeps on saying that everybody's been hurt. And these questions and concerns from the community started when we finally did hear about what was going on. And again, it's just frustrating because I've asked questions. There have been other people tonight that have asked questions. And out of respect, it would be nice if we got some type of answer because you still don't know. You don't know any of this. And as far as the comment on process and policy, As a former school committee member, we had many processes and policies, we just didn't throw this up and say in one night, we're going to do this, whether people you know agree or disagree with me. I just think that the process, again, you're going to have people against him for this, but this is a community. community has been speaking, and it seems like tonight that people are asking questions. There still has not been one person who has stood up and answered any of them or addressed any of them. But on June 30th, or whatever the day was, those answers to those questions were all answered. As a school committee, you're supposed to be representing the community. Thank you, Anne-Marie. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I can just comment to that. Most of the questions that are coming in relate to answers that we haven't even got to yet. The amount of people on the committee, how we're gonna submit the applications, who's gonna look at them, are we gonna look at them and then give five to the committee. We just wanna get through that a little bit so that we can answer those questions. We don't know how much exactly this is gonna cost. I believe the main amount is gonna be for signage. We are trying to answer the questions as best we can and just get through the documents so people know what they wanna comment on after, whether they're for or against something and we can make those changes as needed. Amy and Mary.
[SPEAKER_31]: Hi, Amy Esperanto, 47 Westville Road. Sorry, I didn't say my address last time. I just want to respond to the person who said that changing, taking the Columbus name off the school is erasing history. Once upon a time, as a culture, our history was painted on cave walls. And if it wasn't on a cave wall, it wasn't history. And then we developed oral history and writing and other means of preserving our culture and history. History isn't entirely based on what things are named or what things are called. I'm sure most of us learned about World War II somewhere in our middle school, high school, college experience. But there's no Mussolini Elementary School in Italy, and there's no Hitler Elementary School in Germany. And it's not because people there want to forget history. It's because they make careful decisions about who they elevate and who they honor with having a school named after you as an honor and a privilege. It's not bland history. If it were just history, we could call it anything. We could call it the War of 1812 Elementary School, if that's what it was about. But naming things is about imbuing them with a significance and an honor and a privilege. And if you're really invested and honoring and elevating a murderer, rapist, thief, genocide, genocide, someone who committed genocide, I really want you to think about what that means. What is your culture? If that's your culture, what's your culture? Because the Italians I know, that's not their culture. The Italians I know, they, They honor, you know, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Enrico Fermi, Galileo, all sorts of people who made notable and valuable contributions to the evolution of humanity as a species, who brought us up and not down. And I would really encourage people to think about, like, if you want to honor our culture- Sorry, you have 15 seconds. What about it do you want to honor? That's it.
[Moretti]: Thank you, Nadine. Thank you again. I just, I want to reiterate what Deanne had said. I was actually going to ask the same question. Why is it okay to still teach about Columbus, but we can't have the name on the school? I guess none of that makes any sense to me whatsoever. I think that there's a crowd of people that were pretty, pretty proud to be at that school. I did mention earlier that I, all my ethnicity. So I'm a proud Italian. I don't spend so much time worrying about Columbus, neither did my children, the name, because they were doing other things, more important things. Not looking at the name and saying, my gosh, why do you send us here, mom? This is atrocious. That's not how we roll. So I guess I can't understand why it's such a big to-do. But again, if it's OK to teach Columbus history, then it's OK to keep the name on the school. And this meeting shouldn't be happening, because it's a clear, clear agenda. you know, from a few people and there's people for that change, but many more against. And our voices deserve to be heard. And we're going to keep speaking no matter how long this takes tonight, because it's all right. So I just, I don't understand that that makes no sense. If someone wants to tell me how we can still teach it, but take it off the name of the school, then something's wrong. I don't know if anybody has an answer. Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: Yes, I think at this point, I guess it's time for me to answer some of these questions. We teach about the Holocaust. We don't name shit after it. Excuse my language. And you know what? It's really hard to come up with a curriculum for third grade girls to explain how they were sold into sex slavery. That's not a real curriculum. I would send my kids to Columbus Elementary School if that was what we were teaching them. And that is what we would have to teach them if we taught them the truth. We're not teaching them because there is no valid way to teach little kids the kind of truth that is involved. When we teach kids about the Holocaust in our education system, I don't think we actually teach our first graders about the ovens. I'm hoping that that's not what's happening in our first grade classrooms, but we do teach it. And we also don't name anything after those people. Okay, so that's that. And then, you know, I keep being accused of being the person that led all of these women on the committee to slaughter. It's so obviously sexism, it's beyond comprehension. Each one of these people voted their own way. They have the exact same capacity to decide and vote, just like I do. And so I appreciate that I've led them all to slaughter, but it's just an obscene level of sexism that is so disgusting, frankly. It is disgusting. Member Graham, Member Van Der Kloet, Every single one of these members made a decision to vote the way they did based on what they had heard from the community and what they had read and thought. So Ms. Coppola is shaking her head crazy like, yeah, no, they didn't. You're right. I have some blackmail on each one of them and that's why they voted. Or better yet, they don't have minds of their own because this is the 14th century and these are women who do whatever I tell them. You know what? I didn't tell any of them how to vote. And I would not tell them how to vote because I respect them as independent people that can decide this themselves. So I was one of three people that put this forward. I'm more than happy to keep taking all the crap for it because why share it, frankly. But the fact is that they decided this, a majority. I am one member with zero authority by law. Not one person here, not even the mayor in her role as chair has any authority None. We only have authority when four of us vote for something. So I get it. You don't know the law about school committee and what our authority is and isn't. And I understand that it's ridiculously complicated, but you know, some of this stuff is just so ridiculous. And I just feel like at this point you've worn me down. So now I'm going to answer your questions. Ready? I look forward to your Facebook posts.
[SPEAKER_40]: Tony. Mayor point of privilege when a privilege member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. Um, I just have to say that I'm sure that everyone is, um. You know, feeling really riled up now and a lot of energy around this and I am, you know, I personally want to apologize to our bipoc community that has been on this call for all of this time. I think that this is really, um, hurtful and, um. and embarrassing, frankly. And, you know, I do feel that I'm voting my values here. And for people that know me, I think you know what my values are. What I learned about Columbus was, you know, akin to pedophilia. In my opinion, they were rapists of, you know, rapes of children and what have you. And people say it's 15th century compared to 21st century. And I don't think that was ever vogue. I don't think cutting people's hands off was ever vogue. I mean, these are the things that I've learned. And in good conscience, I felt that. And also, and most importantly, listening to people who have gone to the school and who feel really disenfranchised and left out and upset about someone who enslaved people being named on one of the buildings in our school. And that's where I'm at. And that's why I agreed to put this motion forward, because I think it is a reflection of my values. And thank you.
[Tony Puccio]: Tony. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Tony Pucci, 11 James Street. So, I hate to be the one to follow up committee members those posts because I'm going to be the one who has to comment on it but that's what we have in our school committee thank you for showing your character yet once again. So I don't want to attack him, and I don't want to sit here and spend the rest of the night defending Columbus but the same people who are saying Columbus spread disease. and all that on America, the one stating that he never set foot on the soil of America. I just want to clarify that as well. There's other books out there that you can read, everyone. You don't have to be the one that follows just your narrative, okay, because there are other historians that promote other views. Anyways, what I really wanted to get into was Mia and committee person Kreatz both started the meeting off with important points and those were never addressed and we're moving along to Mr. Cuno's point which was What's going on here? This city has basically lost faith in you. You have divided us, the school committee, okay? So we don't trust you when you're gonna get involved and start making this committee to rename. We don't want you guys involved in that because we don't trust you anymore now. You have lost out. We don't have faith in you anymore. Do you understand this? You keep saying you're listening, you're listening, but you're not hearing us. You're really not understanding what we're trying to say here. Okay, you're listening, but really listen and understand and act upon what we're saying here. There's a lot of people that have a lot to say about this. And you guys just want to push this through and ignore everyone. And that's how we all feel right now. We all feel ignored. Like this is just something you're going to do, whether we like it or not. That's how we feel right now. And it's agitating and aggravating. maybe even on both sides of the agenda. It's not cool. Real quick, Paulette, again, thank you, committee person.
[Lisa Evangelista]: Sorry, Tony, 15 seconds.
[Tony Puccio]: Thank you, Lisa. You stated that you had a problem with this 20 years ago when it was brought up. Why are you making an issue now? You had 20 years to deal with this, but now all of a sudden, well, we'll just throw it in there because everyone else is on board. There's so many bad things going on about this. Thank you, Tony. Table this, push this, not tonight.
[Cadee Stefani]: Eric.
[Eric Fox]: Eric, are you there? Yes, hi. Sorry, I did get out of an unstable internet connection. Mostly, I just want to say I applaud the school committee for the action they are taking. It's something that is, from my understanding, something that has been building up for a while. It's just one of those things. It started off, you know, regardless of who brought it up in a school committee meeting first, a germ of an idea to with the school of this horrible man's name started a long time ago and has slowly, slowly, slowly been building up momentum until finally, earlier this year or earlier last year, it finally got to the point where, okay, this makes sense. And more people are on board and are for it. And or moving forward. I also just recently learned the history of the name of the Andrews school, and how the person who the Andrews middle school was named after was deeply involved in the Medford community was a person of color. And once I learned that it really made sense to me that is the type of person you want to name a school after. So in as we go through this process. I think it would be excellent if you know there's more examples out there. I'm sure there's plenty of other people deeply involved in the Medford community. maybe they're a person of color, maybe they're not, but who are really shining examples of who this and what this community can be and who deserve to have a school named after them and not someone who has absolutely no connection to Medford at all. Christopher Columbus never came to Medford. So I'm happy to see this process moving forward as a person who is raising biracial kids and who was married to a person of color. Move forward. That's all I have to say. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Diane.
[Diane Abramson]: Unmute. Thank you. I'm unmuted now. My name is Diane Abramson, Diane Galeno Abramson. I grew up in South Medford. I was an educator in the Medford public school system for 35 years. I was honored by the Anti-Defamation League on many occasions. I rewrote the curriculum for multicultural education in the city of Medford. What I am hearing tonight is beyond comprehension. We have come to a point in the Medford School Committee where the issue of education seems to be a secondary issue in comparison to the rabble rousing that is going on now over the name of the Columbus School. I grew up around the corner from the Columbus School. I am a proud Italian American. My family lived in Medford and continues to live in the city of Medford. I do not know who the new people are on the school committee, but I can tell you one thing, how upset and how horrible this is. We are not a revisionist history community. We are pulling things out of our hats in a way to to denigrate the memory or denigrate the school and denigrate the Italian-American population by saying, Columbus is this, Columbus is that, and here's the history, and I vote my conscience, and using all kinds of language which is totally unequivocally inappropriate from a school committee member. I'm talking to you, Mr. Rousseau. I'm talking to you because I find your behavior reprehensible. and I just simply cannot understand what is going on in the city of Medford, what is happening to the common sense of the school. You have 15 more seconds. And that's absolutely fine. I rest my case, but you can be sure that everyone on the school committee and Madam Mayor, you will be receiving a rather lengthy treatise from me about my opinions about this whole nonsensical situation that is killing time that should be devoted to addressing the needs of the children. Done. Rachel?
[Rachel Rockenmacher]: Me, Rachel Rockenmacher. Yeah, I'm a parent in Medford. I live in South Medford, a couple blocks from the Columbus School. My child went to the Columbus grades K through 12. I've been here for decades. Not that that should matter. And I was a very active member of the PTO throughout all my child's time there and was an officer as well in the PTO and certainly did my do's in that hall of 12-hour shifts and bake sale on election day, et cetera. I wanna applaud the school committee for taking on this important issue. And I wanna say that when my child was an elementary school student, I know there were other children too who did take issue with the name Columbus being used for their school and refused to buy school t-shirts and stuff because they didn't wanna applaud that person. I think it's important not to honor people who don't deserve to be honored. It does nothing against Italians or Italian-Americans. There are plenty, and like other people have said, there are plenty of other Italian-Americans or Italians to honor with the name of the school. There are many other options. And I really hope that people can see that and realize that not everyone agrees with sometimes people who oppose this change have been saying, oh, everybody who lives here opposes this. And that's absolutely not true. I live here and I support it heartily. And I'm horrified at the kind of vitriol that's coming at our school committee members by the people who oppose it. And I hope we can re-engage in some more civil discourse. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Eliza?
[Eliza Laudato]: Hi. I'm a South Medford resident. I actually voted the Columbus School and an educator, though not in Medford. And I think people seem to be really confused about what this meeting is for. So I thought maybe I was confused. I'd like to clarify if this is about stopping the renaming of the school or is it about focusing our efforts onto best representing the community in the renaming that's already been decided upon? Can somebody field that question for me?
[Lungo-Koehn]: This is the policy on how to rename.
[Eliza Laudato]: Okay, so what we're trying to figure out is how to do it, who's gonna be involved in it and how we can move forward. Is that accurate?
[Clerk]: Correct.
[Eliza Laudato]: Okay. The comments that I've been hearing seem to confuse me that maybe I came to the wrong meeting. So thank you for clarifying and thank you for all of your hard work. I think that this is an important issue and I'm glad that we're doing this. Have a good evening. You too, thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Nadia.
[Nadia Purifory]: Hi, I'm Nadia Purifory, a longtime resident of Medford. Thank you, Madam Mayor and school committee members. I just had just a couple of comments. I just, I feel like honestly, no matter what I'm going to say is really not going to change anyone's mind. I feel that almost with any issue, unfortunately, with the school committee, and I've never felt that way raising all eight of my children in Medford. I'm a nurse at hospital in Medford. I'm involved with PTG. And I just, since this happened, I don't even know when it was June, I guess. I just feel such a distrust towards all the members except for Ms. Kreatz. But otherwise I feel, you know, I am against the name change. I'm proud Italian American. My parents came from Italy and Columbus does mean a lot to my family, you know, growing up. And, um, I just feel the way it was done was just very sneaky. I wish that the community was involved and I felt we weren't, I felt it was hidden that the name change was done. in a sneaky way. And now I'm concerned with the new, you know, decision for the name change. I don't think we'll really be involved. I think the school committee will just make the name change on their own without any community involvement, or at least the part of Medford that wants the Columbus name removed. I don't think they'll listen to the members who don't wanna change. I just feel hurt. And, doesn't seem like the Medford that I grew up in. Thank you. Thank you, Nadia.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Van der Kloot.
[Van der Kloot]: Yes, Nadia. The question for me is, and I've said this all along, is there no one else that we could honor from the Italian community that might in fact bring a great deal of pride I understand people have very different feelings about Columbus, but part of the issue is, is there any way to move forward? We are saying we need to move forward. We understand, and I think a lot of this meeting is because we want everybody to speak, but again, part of the, the need at some point is to say, is there anybody else? Who else? And we're trying to say, if you want a voice in this, apply to the advisory committee. We're working out the nuts and bolts so that, and certainly all the work I did on the resolution was to make sure that no one person could slant the committee in such a way that a final name was predetermined. Um, so that's just a, you know, that's part of what I was looking at is to make sure the process was clean. I understand you don't like the back process. I understand that it's painful. I hear it. But going forward, how can we make sure that we are doing the best job? And I encourage you to please apply for the committee.
[Nadia Purifory]: Yes, I just think if it was, you know, from the beginning, if it was done differently, I would, it's not even mostly about the name. It's just the way it was done. You know, if it was, if, if the community could have been fully involved in the decision, I just suddenly heard it, I think on social media and I was like, what is going on? And then I just feel like this is one thing. And then what's going to be next. Let's change the Brooks school. Could my church suddenly the name get changed? I just feel like this is, what's happening throughout the country? And is this like a trend that's going on? And suddenly I'm here and my kids are learning about white privilege at school or Black Lives Matter. I don't know what direction Medford's going in, but it's definitely not the Medford, like I said, that I raised. I'm the youngest of nine that we grew up in here. There was never an issue. My husband's black. My kids are half black American, half native American. I've never seen race as an issue in Medford. And suddenly there's just more problems. We should be focusing on education and kids' mental health. They should be back in school. That should be the focus. There should be more, we should be having our community more pulled together. I don't even see anyone. My children don't see anyone. That should be the focus, not on the Columbus school change name right now. We should be focusing on, I've been in contact with Marie Cassidy numerous times at the Medford Network because I feel like I don't see any other parents. My children don't see any other children. And I'm concerned for their mental health. Not about the Columbus School. We shouldn't be wasting all this time on this right now or the money on that. It should be money for programs for our children to be connected. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Nadia.
[Nadia Purifory]: Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Joanna?
[Joanna]: Am I unmuted? Yes. Hi, I just wanted to thank you all for voting to change the name, the time is now. And I feel bad, I feel bad for Nadia that she's heard. I think that the other, the people that oppose the change, well, the change is done. The people that oppose it should have a big say in the renaming. There's plenty of heroes to name the school after. Columbus was not a hero. I'm Italian American, Mi'kmaq, which is Native American, Irish, I mean, I'm a hodgepodge, but that's not even important. What's important is at the beginning of the meeting, you said there would be some decorum. And I think that the people that have shown a little disrespect, not a little, but they shouldn't be attacking you. And I just want to thank you. Thank you for changing the name. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Hendricks?
[Hendrik Gideonse]: Hi, Hendrick Gideons, North Medford. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I moved to Medford in 1990. And when I got here, it was really quite unfriendly. And I didn't feel welcome. And I understand that many other people that are newcomers, like I am only being here 30 years, we have felt like our opinion wasn't valued. And what is happening now is that Medford is changing because people are moving here. The population is changing, the values are changing, and To me, this is very much like making a mistake around people that come to visit you at your house. If you have somebody come over to your house and you say, well, my boss gypped me out of this. And it turns out that they're Roma. and that they're offended by that. And they say, do you know where that comes from? That comes from the expression, gyp is from gypsy. And that hurt my feelings because it made me feel like you were pointing the finger at me. And then when you do something like that, you say, I'm really sorry that I hurt your feelings and I'm not going to do it again. And what can I do to make it right? And what I'm hearing from the people that say how Medford is changing and they don't wanna change, to me, this is about being polite. If you find out that something hurts people- Enrique, 15 seconds. Thank you. You change what you're doing so you stop hurting people. That's what good people do. And if you find out that calling a school the Columbus hurts people, You change it. That's what cities are supposed to do. They're supposed to respond and act the way that morality dictates, which is to stop hurting people. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. I'm trying to go to people who haven't spoke yet, Erica.
[Erica Hunt]: Hi. Can you hear me?
[Clerk]: Yes.
[Erica Hunt]: Hi. My name is Erica Hunt. I live on Fulton Street, and I'm a proud Italian American and mother of three biracial children in metropolitan schools. The pushback to this foregone conclusion only highlights the need for massive change for racial justice in our schools and community. People saying they are not being listened to are repeating the same racial tropes heard over and over in any situation of progress or change in the city. I don't tie my worth as an American to Christopher Columbus, and actually it perpetuates the hidden caste system in America. I am completely in agreement with the change of the name of the Columbus school, and that's all I have to say.
[Van der Kloot]: Mayor.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Erica. Member van der Kloet.
[Van der Kloot]: Yes, I just wanted to mention that Ron Giovino has had his hand up for a long time, but he doesn't have one of the regular little hands. So just to make sure he's on your list.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Sure. Ron can go next. We haven't heard from Ron yet. Let me just unmute you, Ron.
[Givino]: Thank you. I just have two points, procedural points. I'd love to see this get moved towards a decent end here, but two points. The beginning of this meeting three hours ago, one of the rules was that everybody has to give their address. It was mentioned by Mr. Cook know a little while ago, given the fact that there are so many organizations outside the city involved in this process, I think it's extremely important that people are mandated to give their address. Second point is the language that's been used. We were asked to be respectful. I know a lot of citizens haven't, but not one committee person admonished their colleague when he used that language, language which in the 62 years I've lived in the city, I've never heard an elected official use. So I'll give him an opportunity to apologize for that. Not that it should come from me, it should have come from one of his colleagues, but very, very disappointed. Thank you.
[Van der Kloot]: Ron, what's your address?
[Givino]: 326 East Porter Road, and I've lived in Medford since 1959. Thank you for asking.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Ron.
[Ruseau]: I'm not sure if you don't watch a lot of political activities in Medford, but I heard a lovely story about how the governor of Massachusetts used Medford City Council meetings as entertainment This is not a community where we are all polite in our political discourse, right on TV. And that has a history going back long before I was born. We also just had a president for four years that thought words I would never utter in front of polite company was front page news every day. So I use the word crap a couple of times and I'm not gonna apologize for it. It was, If you think that that was offensive language that you've never heard from a politician, then you haven't listened to a lot of city council meetings, because I have heard it many times much worse. So thank you for the admonishment, and I don't apologize.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Please, if we could just work through comments, if everybody could choose kindness and just be respectable. Please, please, let's get through this. Jessica.
[Rivieccio]: Good evening, Madam Mayor and committee members. I did not plan to talk this evening because I knew it was going to be this three or four hour long situation where most of the people supporting OR and Mr. Comeau would be, you know, battling back and forth. Okay.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Point of personal privilege member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: Okay speaking, but I'd like to know their maiden name.
[Rivieccio]: Jessica, your name and address. I'll give you my address. 6 22 Boston.
[Ruseau]: I don't know your maiden name, Mayor. If my maiden name is considered appropriate, then I would like to know this person's maiden name as well.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Well, if you want to know, you can't ask for the maiden name. You
[Ruseau]: Rousseau for 15 years, I don't understand the disrespect, but it's an unacceptable level of disrespect. I expect that she will either use my correct name or she will be asked to not speak.
[Lungo-Koehn]: If we could address Mr. Rousseau as Mr. Rousseau, you name and address the record, and then you have two minutes, you have the rest of your two minutes, please.
[Rivieccio]: Jessica Ravicchio, 622 Boston Ave. I'll be happy to give Mr. Russo whatever he thinks he deserves, but I really think he needs to put his felony records up so that we could all see who he actually is. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Have a good night.
[Ruseau]: Mayor, if anybody wants to directly address a member, I'm fairly certain that's against the violation of Robert's rules, and I think they should be ejected from the meeting. Is there a second from a member?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, everything needs to be addressed through the chair. Please. through the chair.
[Ruseau]: It's no longer. This is a committee of the whole, as I understand it, and the public actually does not have a right to participate and speak. They have a right to watch. That is the law. And I think that if we can't maintain decorum, then I think we should consider ending all public participation.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I'm not in favor of ending participation, If we could just stop with the insults. We need to move on. We need to get through this. And we wanna hear from people. We just, if everybody could please be respectful. Mayor. Member Van der Kloot.
[Van der Kloot]: Yes, I think people should also only have one last chance to talk. I think that we've allowed ample opportunity for people to, you know, and many people have spoken several times and, So I think that we've been more than generous with time. If there's people who haven't spoken, they should get a chance to speak. But we're getting tired and the commentary is dissolving.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I think we've heard from everybody that has their hand raised. We can always take a motion. If we get through another paragraph or two, we can always take a motion to hear more public comment. and not wait till the end. Let's just get through another paragraph or two at least, and we will hear more public participation. Yes.
[Van der Kloot]: So one of the questions is I've seen principal K here and some level of question was around the Columbus participation. And I wondered if we should, Talk about that. Paul and I do have the Columbus participation in a different way. You know, it is part of the bigger question of who's going to be on the advisory council, membership on the advisory council. Perhaps, you know, when you have multiple devices and then they close on you. This one's Paul's, sorry. Anyway, would that be acceptable? Mayor, can I talk about that for a minute? Yes, please do. Yes, thank you. First, I have a paragraph about participation by the Columbus School staff and students. And it's a separate paragraph says in recognition that the staff and students of the Columbus school are dedicated to their school. The school committee requests the principal to create a representative group of staff to solicit input from their colleagues. Additionally, student input is highly desirable. And if it is feasible, student participation will be encouraged in any way the principal deems to be workable in this very short period of time. The goal of both staff and student input is to come up with three to five names to submit for consideration to the advisory committee. The names will be submitted by April 26th. So we're saying to the principal, there's only four weeks. We had originally envisioned a much greater, longer period where we were gonna get student education and input. Therefore, in recognition of that, I'm saying, oh my gosh, you know, principal, I don't know what you're going to be able to do. And I don't, I understand to me, it's not, this is one of the problems with a very tight timeline, I believe. It's not giving a great opportunity for student input. Furthermore, the principal of the Columbus or her designee, as well as two staff members selected by their peers. And then I have, or appointed by the principal. I didn't know which way to go. I wanted committee input and I wanted the principal's input.
[Lungo-Koehn]: We'll be appointed as- If I may, before you finish, will you please screen share that? Or I don't know if member Graham has that right in her document.
[Graham]: I can do that.
[Lungo-Koehn]: We're gonna need to screen share.
[Graham]: Yeah, I would just ask that member Van der Kloot describe her intent and then member Rousseau do the same thing because we need to understand the intent so that we can then understand the details of the words. And we have not had an opportunity to talk about this as a group until now. So can we just start with,
[Van der Kloot]: overall intent, Columbus participation, the overall intent was that we originally said we wanted some student participation, and we were recognizing that the Columbus family if you would, including staff members should have some role. Member Ruseau will speak to this, but he identified six members as being on the advisory council. I thought that was a lot to ask for six members. I'm suggesting that the school have an internal process, however way they want to do it, to collect names that they want to submit, hopefully with some student input, but I don't know if the time allows, honestly. and that there would be three members from the Columbus community, and that is the staff, okay, that would serve on the advisory committee. And they would be elected either by their peers or appointed by the principal, depending on what we decided. So that was my thinking.
[Lungo-Koehn]: And if I just may comment again, if we put the, principal and the two staff, that's gonna depend a great deal on how large, for me, the committee is, whether it's 11 people, 15, 21.
[Van der Kloot]: Right, but that was less than the six people that Member Ruseau suggested.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Correct. Okay. Member Ruseau?
[Ruseau]: Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Member Randall-Kluge, for summarizing yours. I actually don't think they're actually that far apart. one of the reasons that mine is the way it is, is that later in the process, we were going to be reducing the number of names and that their names that they were suggest name or names that they were going to come forth with as a Columbus community would just automatically make it to the list. And if a list was four, then it was going to become six names long, for instance. So I guess I since we've already decided that we're going to allow any and every name that comes forth to be in the pile. And all names will get the same amount of deliberation and consideration by the advisory committee. I mean, of course, they're gonna go through the list. So then I guess I'm confused. I think Columbus doing the work to come up with a couple of names or however many names they want to is good work that I think would be great. But at the end of the day, their names just get tossed on the pile on what will actually be a heap. So I think if they wanna do the work to come up with names and to provide a good defense of like, here's why we think this name should be the name. And I think that we may get a lot more at the starting point from the Columbus community because they won't have entered a couple of sentences on a submission form. They may have an actual like, document our presentation on the names that they've come up with. So that's still important and good work. But the number of members from the Columbus staff that will be on the advisory committee, I think I can go any which way you want. And I see Dr. Hay has her hand up. Two, three, six, I honestly feel that because we've already decided if there are a thousand names that show up on our table, they're gonna go through them. I'm a big fan of more people, divide and conquer that work to get it so that they can get through it.
[Van der Kloot]: Mayor, can I just, one thing, Paul, I just don't know, and when Kathy can, Principal Kaye can advise us on this. I just don't know with teachers being at the end of the school year, and it's such a busy time. A part of it was I was trying to lessen the obligation, even though I totally understand they may be fully invested or want to be invested. This is part, you know, this is why I've said from the outset, oh my gosh, I've got a problem with the timeline. It's really tight. We're not being able to achieve some of our goals. So, you know, that's my concern.
[SPEAKER_40]: Mayor? Yes, Member Graham?
[Graham]: Can we hear from Ms. Kaye before I speak? Ms.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Kaye, yes. should be able to press unmute, yeah.
[Kathleen Kay]: Hi everybody, good evening. Thank you so much for being here and thank you for giving me this opportunity. I have first a question and then I guess depending on what the answer would be, then a comment. If in fact as a school, we're gonna work together to come up with some names, would that then negate the students from submitting any names individually if I understood correctly as part of the process laid out earlier this evening?
[Lungo-Koehn]: That would not negate the students from doing an individual name with their family's help. No, they could still submit a name.
[Kathleen Kay]: Okay, so that could make a very big difference as to how we would move forward if the students' names will be accounted for anyway. Are we doing work that maybe we don't need to do as a school because those names will come forward anyway? And then the other comment would be in that regard, given that we are coming back to school so soon and there's a lot of work to be done with that, having a smaller group of teachers to be on the advisory committee probably would be more palatable. And then, therefore, we would be part of the team that helps vet and decide on a name, as opposed to coming together as a school and getting the school excited that, yay, we picked a name, and now that name might not be the one that's chosen. Does that make sense?
[Van der Kloot]: Yeah.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, Mayor. Member Van der Kloot and then Member Graham.
[Van der Kloot]: For me, Principal Kaye, what I really want to be is respectful to the time, the limitations of time that you have. I wanted to make sure that there was some place where your school was represented. I personally understand completely that there may, you know, doing a big school project just doesn't necessarily make sense. unfortunately, right now. So if you thought that, you know, if it was making everybody aware that they could submit names from your school and making, you know, that maybe would be what's really possible right at this point, making forms available, letting kids know, you know, whatever, that might be just, you know, what's real. And if the, do you think that, so originally I think it was that you and, you know, there were five members all together. I suspect strongly there'll be some interest so that you'll be able to have staff members who will want to participate. Am I correct?
[Kathleen Kay]: Yes, I do think so. And originally, you know, in my head kind of milling this around, more people was to try and have representation from like the upper elementary staff and the lower elementary staff so that they could be the representatives for the special education group and the support services, the specialists.
[Van der Kloot]: Did you see those though as members of the advisory committee?
[Kathleen Kay]: Well, that was my original thought, but I think now if we were to certainly educate the students as to why this is moving forward and if they are interested in putting their names, we could then as a school help the children through that process. I think that would be something we should do quite strongly for those kids who are interested, make sure that they are able to go through the process and fill out the application. And then if we had less people on the advisory committee, at least as a school, we would be able to have those discussions if, in fact, myself and, if it is me, and the two teachers who might be on that, if they could go back and talk to their constituents and be representative of that, then that to me seems like it would be a very fair process for the school input.
[Clerk]: Thank you, Kathy.
[Graham]: Are you- Member Graham? As I was sort of listening and trying to reconcile all of these pieces around the Columbus School's participation, I was sort of thinking through a model where we would let Ms. Kay move through a process within her building and put forward some number of, we can just call them finalists for the moment, to say that the Columbus School is going to, work within their building and recommend some number of finalists, like call it four. And then that the larger advisory committee is, in addition to those four, going to add six more finalists. So perhaps part of the process is getting from the list of potentially thousands, if we're going down this road of passing everything off to the subcommittee, maybe their first step is to get to a culled list of finalists before they do the rest of their work, where the finalist list can be published to the community, there can be some excitement about it, but that Miss Kay and the Columbus building could seed some number of finalist choices to that to that sort of population. So that was something I was thinking about, I guess for me, knowing how busy the end of the year is. The school building and the calendar and the schedule sort of operates differently than what I expect the rest of the advisory committee to operate like. And there may be more flexibility for Ms. Kay if we give her the latitude to operate in the confines of the school schedule, which is going to be completely different. then how the advisory committee is going to operate. So I want to make sure that we are not losing the Columbus's participation due to like schedule issues, which I think is a real possibility if we just ask teachers to participate in the advisory committee, which is just going to operate on a completely different schedule than their use than they operate on today. So I feel like it could be a prohibitive amount of time. If you're a teacher, you're going back to school, you're trying to get your vaccine, you're trying to get MCAS off the ground, you're trying to do the end of the year stuff like to ask them also to meet 567 some number of times with an advisory committee that is largely going to be made up of people with jobs elsewhere who aren't going to be able to meet at 2.30 or 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and it's going to be nights and weekends. I think there may be some value, but I will defer to Ms. Kay of putting a structure in place that gives her some autonomy to recommend finalists and makes that a feature of the advisory committee that the very first step is a list of finalists.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Member Graham. And we also have Dr. Edward Benson who'd like to comment.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Yes, I just wanted to comment in regards to what Dr. Kay just shared. I would be in support of her recommendation. I think with the school name being changed, I would like to see the involvement of Dr. Kay and maybe two members of her staff So even if there is some kind of smaller group that would be school based, I think that it would be in their best interest to be able to be actively involved in the advisory process. And so to give Dr. K some flexibility with her staff in terms of who would be willing to make the commitment to the meetings that are going to happen. They are currently at the building and I just feel that it's critically important that they are actively involved in the process. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Dr. Edward-Vincent.
[Kathleen Kay]: Ms. Kay. Mayor, I just wanted to add one thing. Listening to everything that's being discussed this evening and going through a process, I just wanna voice a little tiny concern that I have inside, well, one of many, but if in fact we as a school submitted some names and then there were other names that came from wherever, be they children at my school through a different venue, I would fear that it might be taken that we didn't take the work we did in the school seriously if we were to submit a certain number of names to the advisory committee. Does that make sense?
[Van der Kloot]: So Dr. Kaye? Yes. Are you saying that it would be better for the school not to submit names specifically from the school?
[Kathleen Kay]: I am thinking that maybe if we want it really to be a transparent and a genuine process that any single child from the Columbus, if they wanted to submit a name and we're saying we're taking names from everybody, and that might be a more fair, a less.
[Van der Kloot]: Okay, so if you look at the paragraph that I wrote, which is on the screen, if we take away in the first large paragraph, if we take away the last sentence, the goal of both the staff and student input is to come up with three to five names. If we just take that out, Okay, remove that, then you have in recognition that the staff and students of the Columbus school are dedicated to their school, the school committee requests the principal to create a representative group of staff to solicit input from their colleagues oh um. Yeah, no, okay, that doesn't work.
[Kathleen Kay]: But it could in that we're going to be encouraging the students as teachers to be involved. Okay. And we would have whatever form it is the committee decides to use for submission, the teachers can help support the children as a class or as an individual to then submit those applications. And then if we had representation, whether it be two or three or four, from the Columbus School on the advisory committee, then we're involved in the process and then everybody's name has the equitable likelihood of being chosen.
[Van der Kloot]: Right. So my next sentence is, additionally, student input is highly desirable. And if it is feasible, student participation will be encouraged in any way the principal deems to be workable in this very short period of time. Yes, that would work for me. And then the last sentence to that paragraph is further the principal of the Columbus or her designee, as well as two staff members selected by their peers or appointed by the principal. And I have a question mark there because I don't know which is better. I don't know whether you prefer to say that you'll appoint them or whether you say, oh yeah, doing a vote is the better way.
[Kathleen Kay]: I would love for it if it could go for a vote and then the people who are really interested are the ones who the staff would then choose.
[Van der Kloot]: Great. So we'll take about that.
[Kathleen Kay]: And that's like a fair process to me as well from the teacher representation point.
[Van der Kloot]: Right. So thank you. Now, again, that's what I'm kind of suggesting to working through from what I heard Jenny say and whatever. Jenny, does that meet your?
[Graham]: Yeah, I just want to make sure that we don't make it so hard for the Columbus teachers and community to participate in the advisory committee that they don't. And then we have sort of left that voice out. Yeah, so that I think, Dr. Kaye, if you feel like there will be volunteers and excitement to do this work, I am totally comfortable with that. I just don't want it ever to be said that this committee did not value the input and thought leadership of the community at the Columbus School. So I just wanna make sure you're comfortable that this will work for you.
[Kathleen Kay]: Well, I am certainly committed, and I hope that we will have teachers who would be interested in being on this committee as well.
[Van der Kloot]: Do you think there should be more than the three representatives, or do you think that's a realistic number?
[Kathleen Kay]: You know, it's hard to tell because I don't know how many other committee members you have tossed around that you'd like to have involved. I mean, it would be nice to have a teacher representation, a specialist representation, perhaps the supports of providers, as well as an administrator. So that would make four. But if that then makes the advisory committee too large, I certainly see the value in not having as many as well.
[Van der Kloot]: So why don't we just put the principal and as well as two to four staff members, and we can come back to that piece after we figure out the other members of the committee. That works for me.
[Kathleen Kay]: Dr. Edouard-Vincent, how about you? Do you think that's fair too?
[Edouard-Vincent]: Yeah, I'd be comfortable with two to four members. I don't know what the total number is going to be.
[Van der Kloot]: Yeah, we can revisit it if it's too large.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Yeah.
[Kathleen Kay]: Kathy, we appreciate you being here tonight. Oh, and I appreciate everyone being here too. Thank you so much for the support.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, so by April 16, 2021, a Medford High School student who attended the Columbus School is a member of the CCSR and who is able to make the time commitment will be selected by his, her, their peers to be a member of the advisory committee. So make it a little bit more broad so that, I mean, what if we have a great student that is not part of CCSR?
[Van der Kloot]: You can take off the CCC. I use that only because it was an easy way for students to be elected by their peers. And so that's why I limited it that way. And also because I know that they're a service organization interested in community participation. Again, I'm just throwing out some of these things by saying there is having a high school student rep on any committee that we have is, I think, an appropriate thing to have. I'm absolutely fine with however people want to amend it.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I think you could leave it in, but you could say preferably. So a Medford High School student, preferably one who attended Columbus School and or is a member of CCSR.
[Graham]: I think when I read this what I liked about it was that we are like again under the umbrella of making sure our Columbus school community is involved. I do, like, I think we shouldn't shy away from having additional members of the high school on the committee, but I would like to see us ensure that there is a member of the Columbus community that is currently in high school that can participate in this.
[Lungo-Koehn]: My concern is with the timeline that is being suggested to fulfill every single
[Van der Kloot]: slot that we want to may take a lot more time than, I mean, maybe there's a lot more interest than... So Mayor, that's why I designated the CCSR because they have, you know, meetings and they have, you know, it's just organizationally, it's a really easy way that kids can get together and vote and say who's from Columbus, who's interested.
[Lungo-Koehn]: That's assuming you're gonna have more than one person interested that even fits that non-broad category. That's my concern that we'll get to the last day and we say, we're supposed to have a committee today, but we have three slots that aren't filled by the exact specifications listed in the policy we set. So that's a concern of mine. HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, Secretary of Staff Members Meeting, Page 2 of 13 Miss Kay, would you like to speak? And before you speak, I cannot see Member Ruseau, Member McLaughlin, or Member Kreatz. So if you'd like to speak and chime in, please just- Member Kreatz has had her hand up, Mayor. Okay, yeah, I can't see everybody. So please just chime in. Miss Kay.
[McLaughlin]: Okay, so I just wanted to ask- Actually, Member Kreatz has had her hand up, Mayor. Sorry, point of privilege. She's had her hand up and she just unmuted and tried to start talking, excuse me.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Kreatz then, Miss Kay, if you don't mind.
[McLaughlin]: Not at all.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you.
[McLaughlin]: Kathy, we can't hear you.
[U1EIl_L-LWc_SPEAKER_00]: She is unmuted.
[McLaughlin]: She should be able to unmute herself, member Kreatz. She's unmuted, but we can't hear her. There's no, there's no.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Kreatz, if you press the little arrow next to the mute button, It says test speaker and microphone sometimes, and then you hit yes if you can hear it. Sometimes that happens on my work computer. You can also change the option in there and that sometimes.
[Van der Kloot]: Member Graham, while they're trying to figure that out, bullet one and two essentially are the same and need to be condensed.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Why don't we allow Ms. Kaye, if you could make your comment while Member Kreatz tries to unmute. Sure.
[Kathleen Kay]: I just wanted to ask for clarity let's say there are three people from the Columbus who are on the advisory committee. Are they like sworn to secrecy or are they allowed to come back to the Columbus to speak to the other constituents and staff to sort of get input for them and then be representative of more people without having the people actually on the committee?
[Graham]: Elsewhere in this document, we talk about all the meetings being posted via compliance with the open meeting law. there would, if that carries, there would be no concern about that discussion happening. Okay.
[Kathleen Kay]: So they could then, you know, talk to the teachers at school and they get, Oh yeah, that's a good idea. I'm bringing it back forward. And that's good to know. I think that, that, that allows more people to have a voice as well, I think, without having so many people actually in the room.
[Kreatz]: Hi, can you hear me because it is work I can hear it on my test. We can hear you now. We're back. Okay, all right. So I had, when Paulette had shared her resolution, I reached out to Ms. Van der Kloot to just let her know that I felt the same way, that I don't think it should be exclusive to the CCSR. I think it should be open to high school students. And I felt the same way, and possibly maybe a backup student, whereas we do have two, high school students that serve on our committee and they take turns. So what if, because where it is high school and it's the end of the year and there's finals and things like that, it might be busy with the schedules that they might have. So I feel like it might, even if we picked two students, they might not be able to make all the meetings, but they might, you know, one of them might be able to make a meeting and they could, you know, kind of like go back and forth or come up with a schedule that works for both of them.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, thank you. Thanks. Mayor. Sorry. Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. I've never sure if you can see me. So that's why I spoke apologies. We could just change language to up to four and then not have to keep revisiting it. And any of these things where we're concerned that there will not be enough where we are not actually doing the selecting I think solves the problem. I certainly don't want us to be in a situation where we have all agreed hardcore on a single detail. And then at the end of the day, we can't comply with it. And then we're all stuck wondering, well, what does that mean? So that's my recommendation. As for the student representatives, I certainly, for the CCSR, the exact same logic that I think member Van der Kloot used about, you know, there's a group, there's somebody to talk to and ask about, you know, we have to run a full-blown student government. election to accomplish this. I'm guessing that Mr. Skorka or whoever could, you know, email the whole group and probably have an answer to this in very short order. I do think alternates and people not being the person is problematic. Missing out on, you know, it'd be like as if there was school committee members who swapped in for each other. It would make the conversations very difficult to, to maintain continuity. So I would certainly be opposed to having alternates or having two people where one attends one meeting and one attends the other.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Okay, let's go through one more section. And then I know there's hands up from the community, so let's... Okay, on April 26th, 2021, a committee of the whole be held to select and confirm the 15 voting members and one ex officio member as follows. So the question is, is 15 a good number for everybody? Can we agree on that?
[Van der Kloot]: Well, why don't we put, let's work through each of the lines and then figure out how many it comes up to, okay? The number one said the up to four names are, so it says the two names selected from the Columbus School and Principal Kathy Kay. So we had put the up to four. individuals selected from the, it should say up to four individuals, not names, sorry. Thank you for doing this, Jenny. No problem. So on number two, it says each school committee member will select a member of the advisory committee from the valid applications received and will state the names publicly. In the event that an application is selected by more than one school committee member, the members will continue to name applicants until a total of seven advisory committee members have been named. Now that was a member Ruseau had done it. He had suggested that every school committee select two. That put together a committee of 14 already. I was concerned about the overall size. The process is the same that we each name One, so we can look once we sort of figure out the total number of people, we can decide whether it should be one person or two people. The next thought to any thought to allow.
[Kreatz]: I have a question. Yes. So, I, I actually think that, you know, we should really amend this to be more of like number two specifically, and we're at the end, you know, having a lottery selection. I feel that, you know, we shouldn't be involved in selecting the applicants. It should those applicants in that section there with the other section at the end should be done via the lottery system where when the applications are sent in there would be a box where somebody could check off the Racial Equity Task Force, South Medford Community, Medford Historian or Historical Society, CPAC, Italian Alliance, Italian American. So I feel like you know, the lottery is the most equitable process where it's not going to be a human, you know, looking at that application. There could be room for bias making those selections, you know, to that advisory committee. So I just, I felt as though there needs to be a larger number for the lottery selection and in order to do that we would you know have to remove the school committee making a selection for the applicants similar to what we do for the middle school lottery selection where um where the students are put into a lottery and it's it's selected you know via the lottery selection process i think that's worth um
[Lungo-Koehn]: discussing, I too have concerns about each of us picking two people. And I'm questioning if it should be someone from, I'm sorry, but somebody from our administration to do it, to make sure it's a diverse group of whatever that may be, 13, 15, 21 people. So that's just a thought I wanted to throw out there. Member Ruseau?
[Ruseau]: Thank you, Mayor. You bring up a very important point that I also have concerns about. Our current policy, however, is explicit that we must select the members. The word is select is in the policy. So a lottery to me is a violation of our policy. Achieving a advisory committee that in fact is representative of the community, I think based on our current policy is only gonna happen if we actually select them. And, you know, it's not, I think we need to look to other communities and amend this policy and do some work to figure out how on earth do communities do exactly what I think we are all saying we want. But our current policy is explicit. We must, we, the members, must select the members of the advisory committee. A lottery is not a selection. I also have grave concerns about a lottery You know, I think that when we're looking through the applicants, I'm looking for people who are making it crystal clear, they want to do the work. A lottery could be anybody who just throws their name in. And I don't believe that we're only going to have applicants that are good actors, that are interested in doing the work and finding a new name. I think we have to build this to defend against disruption. Otherwise, this advisory committee is gonna either fall apart or at the end of the day, they're gonna come back to us and say, we couldn't do it, not possible, here's why. And I don't know if anybody here wants to continue doing this for a whole nother year, but I certainly don't. So I would literally vote against the entire resolution. And I also think it's a violation of our policy to have a lottery.
[Van der Kloot]: So mayor.
[SPEAKER_40]: Member van der Klook.
[Van der Kloot]: So again, I have two different committee members who have very different feelings about this. One wants each of us to pick two, and one wants everything to be done by lottery. I was looking for a middle road because I The and to me the middle road and was do three by lottery. So there was some totally random piece. Okay, and And then do have each of the committee members pick one To be honest with you. I'm very open to whatever the majority of the committee wants to do. I'm not stuck on any of this. I just wanted to explain where I was coming from and knowing Kathy had already said to me, I think everybody should be by lottery. And I knew what Paul said. So I was trying to bring everything together to a middle place. I personally believe that when it says select, if we decide that part of that selection should be by lottery, I'm not uncomfortable with it. But clearly I didn't say we should select the whole committee to try and bring people together. Thank you. Paul, can you go along with any piece of the, can you go along with three lotteries?
[Ruseau]: I cannot go along with any lottery, but I mean, I don't, I'm not, you know, it's not a dictatorship. As I mentioned earlier in my moment of losing control, I don't have to be in the majority and I can lose the vote, but I think a lottery is setting ourselves up for failure. And I do think that's not a very nice thing to do to the people that are going to volunteer their time. Um, I think I see other hands up.
[Van der Kloot]: I think I'm looking to bring people together. So Mm. Member Graham.
[Graham]: Um I do think we need to totally torpedo this process, because that will be the very definition of not bringing people together. So we need to take active measure to ensure that we are putting people on the committee who not only want to do the work, but are committed to moving the school community forward. I do believe that we need to select people to do that. I don't think we can leave that to chance because the lottery, literally you can be completely against the name change and submit an application, which is fine. But if the lottery produces an entire group of people who are there to oppose the name change, the committee will not be able to move forward. And that is not actually helping us accomplish the work that we're doing. So I have major hesitations about the lottery, but I don't mind the notion of a small number of people being picked by lottery. I would be fine with three, but I also think the committee needs to each pick two because we have put all of the work of reviewing and vetting names on the committee and it will be a considerable amount of work. So I think the committee should I think the school committee should each select two, and I think there should be three additional names pulled via lottery.
[Ruseau]: Mayor?
[SPEAKER_40]: Member Ruseau?
[Ruseau]: I actually, I'll walk back that I would not agree to this. I would just, if we could add language where the chair and, I think if we can add some kind of a language where somebody who has been selected by us or the lottery is not being a good faith actor in the effort, that they can be removed. I mean, it's just not fair to ask people to volunteer, come to a meeting and have somebody who spends the entire time trying to make sure that it can't happen. I mean, what kind of a, that's just horrible. I mean, that's sort of like running for office. you know, it just doesn't make sense. So if we could add something where there is an out, and I think we need to be careful, because I'm not interested in an out where people can be kicked off because they're just disagreeing. That's definitely not my goal here. But some language where the chair has the authority, maybe with consultation of, you know, a majority of the members, of the advisory committee can decide to remove somebody for bad faith effort. I don't know what language sounds good.
[Lungo-Koehn]: What about allowing the admin to fully vet and pick the committee?
[Ruseau]: That's a violation of our policy.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, but so isn't a lottery.
[Ruseau]: Well, the language in the policy is, I have it right here. Appointments to such committees will be made by the committee. So I said that the word select was in there and I was wrong. I brought it up after I said that. So, but it is by the committee. I mean, we also could go back by the way, and each of us could just do our own personal lottery of all of the names. So there isn't a chance if any member is totally uncomfortable with the notion of picking members, well then just, throw them up in the air and pick the first two that you grab. I mean, you know, there's other ways to accomplish that. But I think that putting it on the admin or has historically happened in Medford, putting it on the mayor or her office, those are not valid ways and they're a violation of our policy that I think, you know, if this was a rule, we could suspend the rules. This is not a rule, this is a policy. You can't just suspend the policy. So I don't wanna delay while we consider rewriting the policy.
[Lungo-Koehn]: The lottery is not part of our policy, so that's where it's.
[Graham]: And we can just remove it. It's fine.
[Lungo-Koehn]: But I think the administration, not that I want to put anything on the administration, but should be responsible for picking this committee.
[Van der Kloot]: How does the administration feel about that?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Need to make sure this is a diverse committee, and I'm not sure how we do that if we're each picking two members.
[Graham]: Aren't we all capable of looking out for that if that is important to us? I am.
[Lerner]: I am.
[Kreatz]: I would just like to make a point of information. There is still potential room for some bias in the process. In order to make it equitable, I feel as though removing the school committee from the process is the most equitable way to ensure it's a diverse committee. So if it's not going to be done via the lottery, there has to be Somebody that's overseeing or ensuring that it's a diverse committee. I'll just give an example um, we just recently in september disbanded the vision committee because it wasn't a diverse committee, so That's something that could happen. We're all going to be going through these applications and We have all the same applications and you know you know, there's room for human error, making that selection, you know, there's room for emotion, making that selection, you know, choosing that candidate. I just think, you know, it should be, if it's not gonna be done via the lottery, then I agree with the mayor, it would be part of the administration team, you know, to review the applications.
[SPEAKER_40]: Member Ruseau?
[Ruseau]: I mean, being an elected official is supposed to be hard, I thought. I'm not interested in putting this responsibility on somebody else. And yes, I'm not going to pick just anybody of the applications. I'm going to pick people whom I think, based on their reason they want to be on it, reflect what I imagine they may in fact decide on when they come to selecting a name. I'm not going to just randomly pick somebody. And by the way, with random, with a lottery, we could literally end up with 14 white women. That's totally possible. The lottery does not guarantee in any way, shape or form a distribution of anything, because it has everything to do with the applicant pool. So if we fail to reach out to anybody from a certain sub community, that we're interested in having representation to, if we don't get applications for them or we get one application from them, well, they're not gonna end up on this committee. I mean, the lottery in no way, shape or form provides actual representation. It did for the schools, for the middle school, because we had a set group to start with that we knew and that we knew where we wanted to go. So, but we will not know who the applicants are. So it's an impossible thing to use a lottery to accomplish any level of equity. And I think that that's really important. So, and I, again, I don't wanna beat the dead horse here, but our policy is very clear that we'd select it. It's explicit language here. Appointments to such committees will be made by the committee, not or their delegate or the superintendent or anybody else. So I don't believe we have an option to give it to somebody else.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Another option for this could be that we do like we did with the with the superintendent search, where we basically made the applications blind, for lack of a better word. And so we didn't see, you know, the individual's name necessarily, what have you, but we could see the narrative around it. And we could sort of, you know, go from that perspective, if you're thinking about, if people are thinking about the implicit bias piece. And to, I mean, I'm hearing both sides of the argument right now, to member Rousseau's point, it has to be pointed in terms of being diverse, and the lottery won't do that. To member Retz's point, it can remove the implicit bias, but again, doesn't account for the diversity. So I'm wondering if there's some compromise there for the, you know, to have a blind application.
[Lungo-Koehn]: A blind application, or we could pick our top five or 10 and we are, picking the names, but the administration can finalize the committee?
[McLaughlin]: Well, I think to member Rousseau's point, also we are selecting, but the administration can finalize. Cause I was going to say to member Rousseau's point, it's not part of the policy, but if we're selecting and they finalize, it could be another workaround.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. It's all in the wording. So I don't know. That would be my suggestion.
[Van der Kloot]: I guess, yeah, I need, I need you to say that again. Um, I'm troubled because I think that we as school committee members do, um, uh, have the ability to pick a person. And I think that we'll pick a person that will each have a criteria, um, that will not be the same, um, you know, uh, necessarily. Um, but that's why there's seven of us. Um, you know, uh,
[Lungo-Koehn]: know to pick blind I don't I don't know um maybe you could just say yours again mayor because I really didn't get we pick a number so say 50 applications come in we each pick our top 10 we give those top 10 to the administration and they have they have a tough task on their hands but they're going to see seven people's top 10 and they're going to be able to make sure it's a diverse they're going to finalize a committee of diverse members so If seven of us pick seven Italian-Americans because we heard loud and clear how they feel, that's not a diverse committee. But the administration would have the ability to do that out of our top selections, like the policy says. We have to select. They will finalize.
[Van der Kloot]: And what if we don't like the committee that the superintendent or her designee comes up with? I mean, that's the problem.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Administration, some of them don't live here, they're not gonna have biases. I feel like it would be a better way moving forward to build the trust in the community that we so badly need to try to restore.
[Van der Kloot]: Well, I'm open to hearing my colleagues, if everybody thinks that's gonna work, I don't know. Kathy, how do you feel about that?
[Kreatz]: I would be okay with that resolution, what's proposed by the mayor. I just really think that there is too much room for bias in the process. It would be okay if we went through and we gave our top 10 and then the final decision would come from the administration so that, you know, I didn't handpick, you know, X, Y, Z, you know, to fit my, you know, you know, what I wanted. I just, you know, I just really, and I want to have a diverse committee because we recently just disbanded the visionary committee and we haven't begun that process to start the application process for that committee. So I just feel it's really important that we get a diverse group of candidates, equitable.
[Van der Kloot]: So I guess we just have to ask a superintendent, is that something which is comfortable for you?
[McLaughlin]: May I excuse me?
[Graham]: Member Graham has had her hand up. Sorry. Member Graham? I am completely opposed to giving this responsibility to the administration. I think one thing that we have heard from everybody, no matter what their perspective on the renaming of the Columbus school is, is that the administration has a very big task ahead of them to get kids back to school. And this was our decision. Six out of the seven of us said yes to this vote in June. We need to own the consequences of that decision, and we need to own the completion of the task. And pushing the dirty work onto the administration because it's uncomfortable is not what we're here to do. We made a decision and it's up to us to carry that decision forward, not to make other people do the work that we don't wanna do. So I'm completely opposed and it has nothing to do with trust before anybody goes there. It has nothing to do with trusting the superintendent. It has nothing to do with trusting the administration. It has to do with our responsibility and ownership as this school committee for this decision.
[Ruseau]: Fair. Thank you. Thank you to everyone who's spoken on this. It's obviously a difficult point and I kind of expected this to be the most difficult point of the whole thing. I do think that the word bias, it has to be unpacked. If I am insistent that I will only pick two members who are women, Well, that is absolutely biased, of course. And I would openly own that and be fine with that. I think bias does not imply that there's, you know, bias just means a selection based on anything, frankly, just not random is bias. And the vision committee, I think, you know, we know that the pool was not a big, it was not a good, was not a good pool to start with. I mean, the people that were in it were great, but we didn't have the right people. We didn't ask and get more people in it. So there was no chance for that random lottery, which is what I believe what the mayor used to some extent to work. But, you know, in that case, there was a lottery and we didn't get a good result of a representation that we were hoping for. So, but I think that the other point though of the that we need to own the dirty work. And I don't necessarily think this terribly dirty actually, but I do feel like it would be very uncomfortable if I submit 10 names, Kathy submits 10 names and then Dr. Edouard-Vincent says, here's the list and there's not one of Kathy's name on. One of her 10 is not on the list. How's Kathy gonna feel about that? I know I would be pretty shocked and uncomfortable and think what the heck happened. But if we're going to do that, then we are literally saying, here's the pile, you figure out what the right group is, and I would hope they're not going to be like, okay, well, this is member Rousseau's pile, and this is member Kreatz's pile, because that would be biased also. To me, we should do the hard part of selecting the committee. And absolutely, we should do the hard part of figuring out how to update this policy so that we can figure out a way to ensure that advisory committees going forward have a robust mechanism for this exact point. Because it does just say, we'll select them. We literally could all just say, Okay, you know, if we all had siblings in Medford, we could just all pick our siblings. And then boom, that's the advisory committee. And that'd be perfectly legal, following our policies. And hopefully we would all get screamed at for it. So I think that we have to live with the policy we have, even though I think there's nobody who seems to be happy with what we have. So that's a different set of work. But I think we should pick the names because I think we should own it. And, you know, I certainly am not going to take the pile and just like flip it and then stick my finger in and say, there's the person I'm picking. That's not, I'm going to read each applicant. It doesn't matter if they're, what their race is, their gender. I mean, I used women a moment ago, but it doesn't matter. I'm going to read everyone. Cause I want to read the statement that they write as to why they want to be on it. I want to hear the stories. I'm a fourth generation. You know, I, I went, you know, my grandmother went to Columbus or whatever. And I want to hear these stories and connect to the people that I think, you know, this person, they care a lot and they're going to really be able to take both the history and maybe they have an interest in, you know, and maybe they literally have a history degree or something, you know, and figuring out how to get people that I think will fit the goal. The goal is that nobody's going to show up with a name and say, here's our name and they just randomly selected a name from the list. That would be terrible. We want them to be able to, you know, proudly announce the name. And then also like all of us to be in awe, like, Oh my God, this is such a good name. And I do expect the advisory committee to wow us with their presentation about why is this the person or, well, we haven't done that part yet, but here's the three. So, I mean, I'm very excited, but I also think it's critically important that we recognize that right people have to get together to get the work done. We've all, many of us have worked on teams, and when the team isn't the right team, it's terribly challenging to get the work done. So it's not so much that I think having a random representation is a bad thing. I just think that it's not going to work here.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member McLaughlin?
[McLaughlin]: Yeah, I just wanted to echo Member Graham's sentiment around not putting this on school administration. I think it's both unfair and I think to the point that we've heard from many individuals is they are focused on other things right now as they should be with the commissioner's requirements and the specifics of what is being requested of them in terms of getting kids back to school. And a lot of people, I think, think that the school committee is in the weeds with that, and we do that, but we do not. The administration does that, and we set policy, which is what we're doing tonight. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Member McLaughlin. So, Mayor. Yes, and people's hands are raised. So, I mean, I feel like we need to... I don't know if we all... We'll go through a few paragraphs. I would move to... Somebody wants to make a motion to take those hands that are raised before we make a final decision on this one.
[Van der Kloot]: I think you can just go ahead and do that, Mayor. We don't need a motion.
[Graham]: Didn't we have a motion that we were going to take public comment, then we were going to finish the document, and then we were going to take public comment again? Didn't we pass that as a motion?
[Lungo-Koehn]: We passed the motion, yes, and now it's 10.15. It's been probably another hour and there's hands raised and people want to speak. So I'm asking if somebody will move, I'm in the chair, I'm asking if somebody will move the motion to make that change and allow people to speak. Motion to allow the people to speak.
[SPEAKER_40]: Is there a second? Seconded by Member Van der Kloot. Roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Hold on one second. Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz?
[SPEAKER_59]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone?
[Diane Abramson]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: My longer current.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, 70 affirmative zero in the negative. Yeah, we're gonna stick to the two minutes and one time one time each so that we can move on to the next page, and then we'll do public comment again at the end. Mike Kugner.
[Mike Cugno]: Can you hear me now? Yes. My question is, I don't think anybody in the committee wants to be biased in any way, equitable. We're at a point now where we're at nauseum. We're going through this whole process. But my question is, does anyone on this committee feel that they'll be biased in their process of selecting members for this It's a task force. Because if we had a committee, we wouldn't be going through this. Does anyone feel that they are biased?
[Lungo-Koehn]: You're breaking up, Mike. I'm sorry. You're breaking up. Will we be biased? No, I'll do my best not to.
[Mike Cugno]: I'm just trying to get the word across. Does anyone on this committee feel that the process is biased?
[Lungo-Koehn]: We don't even have a process yet. We're working on that. Member Ruseau?
[Ruseau]: I was going to say exactly that, that we don't have a process yet, so I don't know how to answer the question.
[SPEAKER_40]: Ingrid?
[Mike Cugno]: I'm sorry, this is technical.
[Ingrid Moncada]: All right. Is it my turn now?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Ingrid Moncada]: OK. I had a few comments. One was about the Columbus School involvement, because I am part of the Columbus School, and I'm part of the PTU, and I'm very involved. So I feel a little bit sad and a little bit conflicted that the timeline doesn't work out having projects on the school so the kids can work on this name change. The kids haven't been told that this is happening by the school. I mean, my kids know it because we've been talking about it for years, but the kids haven't been told by the administration. And so there's gonna have to be a process to get the kids have to speak and excited about the name change. Because I think it's very important that the kids are excited. that they're picking a new name, that they can be part of the process, that, you know, make them think, what does it mean to have a name? What do you value on a name? Why is it important? You know, so many things that kids, it's good for kids to think about. And I trust that Ms. Kay will do a good job with that. But I feel like it's so little time. So I know this has to be done and I'm totally, supporting the name change and it has to be done now, but I feel sad about that, that we don't have time to do a process there. And I'm wondering if we can do something about having the kids somehow have more participation in the being involved at some point in the decision. I don't know how to do that. And the second thing that I wanted to talk about was do you have don't you have another diversity committee in the schools is that hasn't been selected can that be involved into this process at all or somebody like Neil Osborne who's the director of diversity can he be involved in this decision to make sure that the committee is actually diverse Because I do trust the school committee members to choose. Ingrid, you have 15 seconds. And I don't think you should involve the administration because they're really busy with other things. But I think you might be able to bring an external advisor to make sure that the committee that you end up with is actually diverse and is actually the right people. OK.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Ingrid. Ms. Kay, I'm sure you'll be working on a plan in the next week to get the students involved. So I know you probably don't have We'll work hard on that. Thank you. And then I'm blanking on the second question. Student involvement. I know that was her main point, but okay. Jessica.
[Rivieccio]: Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to address the issue of bias in the selection. I have a recollection of Member Ruseau saying at the meeting in June that he would absolutely not allow Italian Americans on the committee and it's actually on the tape. So I feel like there's no possible way he could sit there and say he's not biased when clearly he's stated for the record that he has a bias. There needs to be I mean the committee on majority of the committee has voted for this silly name change, and a majority of the committee will vote for people who are in support of what they're doing. So I feel like it's very interesting that the tail is wagging the dog here. The members are supposed to be serving this community, not the other way around. Thank you.
[Ruseau]: Yes, I certainly did not say that. I certainly may have said something along the lines that I do not think that it is appropriate to limit the possible names to the Italian community. The school does not belong to the Italian community, it belongs to the Medford community. And while I recognize that there was an assertion that this was on tape, please do send in the link and the timestamp and we can all watch it together, thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: We'll get Michael, Mari, Seth, Marie and Marie. We're only allowing people to speak once and then we're moving on and then we can have more public participation. So Michael.
[Lyman]: Thank you. Michael Burns.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Michael, hold on one second. Go ahead. Sorry, Michael.
[Lyman]: Thank you. Michael Bernstein, Lyman Avenue, Medford. I'm a Columbus parent. When I was a kid, my own elementary school went through a process like this for the elementary school to choose a new school mascot with student input. I'd like to make a suggestion for ensuring student input in this process. The advisory committee is going to sort through lots of suggestions for a new name for the Columbus school. That committee will come up with a short list of finalists, and those finalists will all be good names. If you want students at the Columbus to have a voice and feel like they were a key part of this process, let the school committee reduce that list to three names. It would all be great choices. And then let the kids at the school have the final vote among those top three finalists. The school can do a short lesson on all three finalists to educate the kids. The kids can feel involved in the process of naming their school, and they can see how democracy works by truly participating in it. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Michael. Mari?
[Lisa Marie]: Good evening, everyone. Thanks for having me. A couple of things, you know, I've been in the city a long time and everyone knows that, but, you know, I just listened to this gentleman to have the kids involved. It's nice to have the kids involved, but they graduated out of there too. There's been people graduating out of the Columbus schools. 1929, if you want to go back that far, and you know, everyone should have a little bit of a voice in it, but let's not put the impetus on that. We all know, you want to bring it out, bring it to the community. You know, I disagree so much with Paul Rousseau's stance on this and coming out against this, you know, against the city of Medford. You know, we are one Medford, hopefully, but you know, it's all divided right now. And, and, and, and, and no one's willing to say that, you know, they're just willing to, they have their own agenda and want to move it forward. And, you know, It's not right. It's just not right without the community being heard. And everyone's going to say, well, we put it out there back in June. You know something? The community is out there right now. Put your money where your mouth is and say, OK, let's have a community meeting. Let's see what they have to say. And no one has the guts there, including the members of this committee that are afraid to put it out there because they know it's not going to work. Thank you and appreciate it.
[Jennifer Kerwood]: Thank you. Seth.
[Hill]: Yeah, that's me. I was just going to echo a lot of what Ingrid said. I am also a Columbus parent, as I mentioned earlier this evening. I would love for my daughter to be more involved in the process and for there to be more opportunities for her classmates and for her schoolmates to be involved in the renaming. At the same time, that plays into a lot of what member Ruseau has been talking about and others on the committee in the committee or advisory committee being a safe space for kids to show up and be part of the process. I don't know whether or not, obviously, there'll be voting members, but if there's going to be elementary school kids coming people, I wouldn't want it to be a contentious group of people that are not there in good faith, you know, welcoming them with the possibilities of new names. Yeah.
[SPEAKER_40]: Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Seth.
[SPEAKER_40]: Marie Mack.
[Marie Mack]: Hi, can you hear me? Yes. I just wanna say as a member of the community, a long-term member of the community, what I find extremely disturbing in all of this, and whether you're for or against the name change, I think what you're feeling and what's creating the divisiveness in the community of Medford is the way this was first started. And I'm very sorry, but to me, The biggest problem is the involvement of member Rousseau. Long before this went to the vote, he posted on his own campaign page that he was gonna change this and went so far as to say he had already picked a name on his own. And he published that name that he had chosen. Then it went to the vote, the community didn't know. And even tonight listening to this, I didn't wanna say anything, I don't know how you as mayor and head of this committee can listen to him and the way that him and Ms. Graham speaks. They have made it very clear to me that they will not be unbiased in choosing members of this committee. It seems to me that they want to cherry pick people. They have called members of the Medford community bad characters. they already feel that they're gonna have bad characters. And everyone just sits there and lets them speak that way. So to me, you're gonna have a school committee can choose people selecting exactly who they want to do what they want, when they want. I don't think this is gonna be a very inclusive, equitable, diverse setting at all. And I understand it's against your policy, but it's- Maria, 15 seconds. Okay. The situation we're in is so severe. Maybe you should rewrite your policy to try and get rid of the divisiveness in this community.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Anne-Marie?
[Anna Maria]: I'm here. So, Basically, again, we're still at the same position we were four hours ago. I mean, you have a committee who keeps on telling me that it's not gonna take any time, it doesn't take time. We have administrators. We have to open up our schools to all our elementary schools have to be open in three weeks. I don't understand this process this evening. And honestly, the members keep on saying that they hear people. Well, I've been listening to people all night. but no one has addressed the situation yet. It's like you've heard, but you're continuing on with the process. You're continuing on with everything. I mean, you have members that are concerned that there might be actors that might be applying. How are they going to distinguish which ones are actors and which ones are not actors? I mean, I am frustrated to the point that I am so disheartened with my school committee, something I cherished very, very much. and to keep on listening to this for the next four hours. And no one has discussed anything about our school, our kids going back to school. And as far as member McLaughlin, you're right. It is not up to the school committee to make the policy of how they're going to go back. But you have to be involved in that planning. You need to know what's going on. I mean, this is ridiculous. No one is saying to change your values change your opinion, change anything. We're just asking, or I'm asking, slow down. pick it and do it correctly. As far as people saying they've heard us, I don't think so. Because if you listen to what's going on tonight, for the last four hours of participation, you've had both people that are for it and people that are against it. But it seems that the people are for it have been listened to. And the people that are not for it, for whatever reason, everybody has the right to believe what they wanna believe. Put the kids first tonight. and postponing. I'd like to know if the process is gonna be like this to make sure our kids are gonna have proms. What's the MCAS gonna be like? Is there gonna be an MCAS? Is there gonna be any type of social break for the kids this year?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Graduation.
[Anna Maria]: Graduation.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Everybody can speak once on this and we'll go back. So Tony, you're next.
[Tony Puccio]: Hi, thank you. Am I unmuted?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, you're good.
[Tony Puccio]: Thank you. So really quick again, what if the committee chooses a name that is 75 characters long, the ever loving school of Medford, blah, blah, blah. And you have to select the sign and all the literature to go with this. And that sign may cost a lot of money, a lot more than a standard sign. Without knowing what the budget constraints are, How can anyone make a decision on whether or not this is the appropriate measure to rename a school? What if the city can't handle that budget? I mean, I just think it's kind of backwards. Shouldn't that budget be set first and then you decide what the school name is going to be? We have no idea as citizens what this is going to cost. And you're still trying to push this through. I mean, I know it's through. I know that the order is through and whatnot. It's just, it's just, it's just all done so awkwardly. Over four hours has been spent tonight on this topic. We have kids that are still not back in school fully yet. We have so many other issues. We know the school budget this year is in deficit. We have a library that hasn't, we haven't figured out how to pay for that yet. And we're talking about all this stuff here. that really would not change anything. This can wait. This is not something that needs to be discussed now. We need to get back to get these kids. We need to focus on what the kids are doing right now. Let's get them back in school. Let's get them safe. What's going to happen in September? I didn't get to watch my daughter cross the platform holding her diploma this year. Still pretty ticked off about that because it was opportunity for that. But that's not what this is about. But I don't wanna see that happen again to the kids in 2021. Can we just redirect the focus to where it needs to be right now? This is not going to change the city right now. We need help right now.
[Lisa Evangelista]: Tony, you have 15 seconds.
[Tony Puccio]: I appreciate you listening again, but listening is great, but acting, that's really what we need here. We need some real action. Table this, put it off for now. We don't need to deal with this right now.
[Lisa Evangelista]: Thank you, Tony.
[Tony Puccio]: Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Melissa?
[Melissa]: Hi, I just wanna go back to what I said earlier. A little bit ago, a few minutes ago, it was said that the school is not just for the Italian Americans, it was for the entire community. So my question is, if it's for the entire community to decide, why was it just decided by the school committee and not, there was no way to allow the entire community to vote whether or not the name should change? I am having a little bit of difficulty here. whether or not the name should change. And then from there, if again, it is voted on that it should change, then we talk about how we would go about coming up with a name. Because again, I think getting the kids back into school and how all that's going to happen right now is a much more important issue than changing the name. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_40]: Thank you. Member Van der Kloothe and Member McLaughlin.
[Van der Kloot]: So the answer simply is by statute, The naming of school buildings belongs to the school committee. The responsibility belongs to the school committee. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_40]: Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. I took some notes and wanted to answer some of the questions that I've been hearing repeated, and I hope that this is helpful. I'm hearing often, you know, why aren't we having a community meeting on this? And I am asking because I'm confused here. What is this? This is a community meeting. People are saying we've been talking for over four hours and we have been talking for over four hours. And we've also had previous meetings that were talking for over four hours about the same issue. So I don't understand when people are saying, why aren't we having a community meeting? That's exactly what this is tonight. When people are saying, slow it down, I also feel like we voted on this in June, 2020. It's March 2021, a year almost has gone by. I don't know how people don't think that that was a slowed down process, frankly, with everything that had been happening. And I think if people remember from back then, the question was, if not now, when? And that was over a year ago. And the other question is, if not us, who? And I think that that's a legitimate question. Budget will be part of the advisory committee. Having people participate in the name change, that's also part of the advisory committee, which is why we chose an advisory committee. Again, the vote was already approved. When people keep talking about whether or not we should do this, I think that, again, we have to note this was already approved a year ago. And then what was the other thing? Oh, and again, the administration is working very hard and has been working very hard this past year to get our children back to school. And they're continuing to do that. And we are involved in the process, but we are not the people who choose the process. Again, our role as school committee members is to decide policy, to approve a budget, and to evaluate the superintendent. It is not to do the daily work of getting our kids back into school, although I believe it is also very much a priority in our community and has been a focus. And the administration has been working very hard on that. So I hope that was an answer to some of the questions.
[Lungo-Koehn]: And I just have to point out, I mean, we also have to remember that when it came before our desks in an agenda on a Friday, this was voted on on a Monday. So I agree, we've had many long nights on this. We've been able to, since then, read emails, talk to people, but we did take the vote. I know three of us voted to table it to allow more time for public engagement, but we did take a vote. We learned about it on a Friday and we took a vote on a Monday and people are upset, we have to acknowledge that.
[McLaughlin]: I know we have been for a year, Mayor, and I appreciate that, but we also voted six, you know, six to approve it. So everybody here, you know, voted to approve it. And everybody, again, to member Graham's point earlier, has to own that. And then, you know, and also having a commitment to anti-racism in our city and, you know, having an anti-racist task force at our schools. I mean, I think that this is the point that we have to, this is hard work. This is messy work. It's painful work. It's not easy. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Amy and Anna.
[SPEAKER_31]: I just wanted to say to everyone who's talking about the manner in which this resolution was introduced or the timetable, nearly every social progressive stride that's been made has faced the same complaints. You didn't do it in the right way. You didn't ask the right way. You didn't give us enough time. We should be doing other things. So anytime there's been any sort of civil rights advancement, when women earned the right to vote, we were just coming out of World War I. And during that time, it was, we've got to build and repair the country. Now is not the time to give women the right to vote. It's never the right time. You have to do it sometime, you know? When your laundry is piled up to the ceiling, you don't want to do it either. It's not the right time to do the laundry until you're out of clothes. And then you have to do it. And it doesn't matter whether or not you feel like doing it or you like how the laundry pile was presented to you. You have to do it because we have laws about going outside naked. So I would ask those people who are complaining about how this came about or the timetable, when would be the right time? How could someone have presented it to you? I feel like if you really ask yourself, You never would have been okay with it. You were always going to be upset that the name of the school was changing. It was never going to be the right time or the right way. And those are just rhetorical stalls to progress. And I'll just close by saying I'm really fed up with all of the attacks, particularly on Member Ruseau. Member Graham, Member McLaughlin, Mayor Mastone. Thousands of people elected these folks as members. Member Ruseau represents me and my values. I think he's doing a great job. So do the thousands of other people who voted for him. Same with- You have 15 seconds, ma'am. Et cetera. So please stop attacking our members.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. I'm losing track of who already spoke on this, but I think Nicole's next and then Lee. is waving at me.
[SPEAKER_40]: So, Nicole.
[Muzo]: Hello? Yes. Hello, I'm sorry if I have an echo. So I just want to touch base with what the council member just said about everyone was informed. You keep on saying that everyone was informed, but that you know that is not true. Just like Brianna just said, you had two days to make this a point to change this. The community was not involved, and you all know that. So to say that they were is just an insult to us. As for Paul, the way he acts and just his smirking on here is a complete insult. Everyone knows what Paul said. If you go on my private, my page, you'll see a video. Point of privilege, member Van der Kloot.
[Van der Kloot]: Yeah, I think it's inappropriate to single out a school committee members. And I just, I think it's appropriate not to let that comment continue.
[Lungo-Koehn]: If you could address the chair, please. Nicole?
[Muzo]: Yes. I won't say that. It's already out there. Everyone knows. I just don't think it's fair for someone to say, well, I want to select X, Y, Z, when they already put out what they want. And what they want is very biased. So I'm not unsure why these people are even allowed to have a say in anything. And Brianna, I know you know this is not right. I mean, just looking at his smirk is an insult to you, nevermind all of us. That's all I want to say it's already out there, and this has not been brought up I have people who have been coming to me saying like oh my god I didn't even know that this is happening. It's not now until us the community has brought this forward to the rest of the community that this is going on and now people are outrage. I'm supposed to be speaking with the Boston Globe tomorrow about this whole issue. And I said, I'm going to wait till after this is over because I'm so heated about this right now. And I want, I don't want to say something non-biased, but I'm just so saddened by what is happening and why we are still concentrating on this when our kids, we just got literally told that our kids need to be back in school by April 4th. My son is afraid to go to school because he can't wash his hand because there's no paper towels. Nicole, we have 15 seconds. This is the stuff that is important. Right now, I really believe that this should be tabled, if anything. You obviously know I don't think we should change the name at all. But right now, I think this should be tabled. We have too many council members in the mix right here.
[Lisa Evangelista]: Thank you, Nicole. Thank you.
[Lee Conlon]: Unmute, okay. Thank you very much for listening to me again. I honestly have to say, I've been listening to all of your statements and I do try to look at the whole picture. I have my thoughts in that, but I try to give the benefit of the doubt, but I really have to say here, Member Graham, I think all of the referrals that you gave in regards to, you know, needing to get the kids back to school and the time frame and this, that or whatever, I felt that you gave a perfect example of why this should be tabled. your statements was a perfect example why this was pushed too quickly.
[Lungo-Koehn]: The thing is- If I could adjust the chair, please.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. When people address the members, it becomes very personal. Excuse me.
[Lee Conlon]: Okay. Excuse me. I don't think that It was rushed through, it is not a fair situation, and a lot of people still don't know about it. You say about having, we're having a meeting here. Well, how many people don't have computers? How many people of ages don't know how to use it? Let's be fair, there should have been a meeting, say at Medford High School, set up somewhere with the proper, distancing, so it gave the community to go. Enough with the backdoor business. And my other situation is I 100% think the administration should have the control over picking who was on this, because there was definitely bias on the part of our school committee members. You have 15 seconds. I'm good. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I lost track a little bit of who spoke. I know Ingrid and Jessica spoke. We have to move on to our final page or so. Hendricks, I don't think you spoke on this issue. I'm trying to keep track.
[Hendrik Gideonse]: I would appreciate that. Thank you. Madam Mayor, I wanted to, you know, point out that This came, the energy to make this happen occurred because of a movement that happened in our nation to combat systemic racism. It was timely, and those of us who pay attention to what happens in the city saw that the meeting was happening, and we got the information that it was going to happen. We talked to our friends and our family members that it was gonna be under discussion and hundreds of people showed up to that meeting. This has been discussed. If people are concerned about getting our kids back into schools so they can catch COVID, then let's, Let's look at it this way. Just stop complaining about what has already been decided and move forward. Let's get a good name. It's going to change. Thank you. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_40]: Last one, we'll move on Brie.
[Bri Brothers]: Hi, can everyone hear me? Yes. Cool, thank you for letting me speak again. Honestly though, Hendricks just kind of hit most of it on the head for me. I was just reiterating that you all are elected officials entrusted with this responsibility of naming schools. This falls under your jurisdiction. You were elected, elected officials did their job. This is the process. And I mean, this is exactly how this is supposed to work. And I just wanted to reiterate and thank you guys for persevering through all of this. And I think it also stands to be called out that when people claim that you are not listening to them, at this point, what they really mean is that you're not agreeing with them. You guys are in an incredibly difficult position. This is messy work. Doing the right and equitable thing is usually messy work. There's no way you're going to make everyone happy here. And I think as part of making Medford equitable and inclusive for all, this is absolutely the right decision. And I'd also like to point out that this new directive to have all of the kids in school in a month is just that. This is brand new. So people using that as a reason to further kick this down the road, it's not valid. You know, get our kids in school. You guys have fought about that for months when we're following state guidelines. I don't actually know what people expected you to do there. And so the fact that there's this new mandate that says, okay, now, thanks. Now they all need to be back in a month. I don't see that as a valid reason to deter things that were already in progress. So thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. If we remember Graham, if you could screen share, we can move on to finish this document. Please. I have a tooth fairy to get to. My son was very upset yesterday. The tooth fairy didn't come.
[Graham]: The good thing they work all night, those tooth fairies.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Not last night. Some calm of relief. I know. Hi.
[Ruseau]: I will admit I was not sad when the tooth fairy was discovered. It's hard to stay up late. I was just wondering, have we actually finalized the section on the selection? I didn't think we had, but I,
[Lungo-Koehn]: No, I heard the word move on. Yeah, I'm hoping we can do that now. I know Memogram's going to share the screen. Thank you. I let people talk because I didn't know if this was going to lead to a vote, so we can just kind of finalize it. Is there a motion on the floor? Is there a motion on the floor to change this in any way? So that we can just- On the first sentence, it should be the, the should be removed are the- Up to four individuals selected from the Columbus school staff. Oh, wait, no, maybe it should be up to four.
[Van der Kloot]: Why don't you go say the individual selected from the Columbus School and then parentheses say up to four. Principal Kathy Kay and the one MHA student will be announced.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, and then each school committee member, right now it reads, each school committee member will select a member for the advisory committee from the valid applications received and will state the names publicly in the event that an applicant is selected by more than one school committee member, the members will continue to name applicants until a total of seven advisory committee members have been made by the school committee. Three additional names will be selected by lottery from the remaining applicants.
[Ruseau]: The mayor will- Eric, can I make a motion?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, member- Sorry, I'm sorry.
[Ruseau]: Nope, member Rousseau, on those three points. Number two, I would motion to change that to two per member.
[SPEAKER_32]: Second.
[Mustone]: That'd be a big committee.
[SPEAKER_40]: Yeah, I guess how many committee members do it?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Can everybody just state a number of how many committee members you're thinking, you're not held to it, just so we can kind of have an idea moving forward through this list.
[SPEAKER_31]: Can I put up one finger?
[Lungo-Koehn]: You want one member? 20 plus. Paul, you want 20 plus?
[McLaughlin]: I would say 13. Or 11. I would say no more than 15. I was at 15.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you.
[Graham]: Member Graham. We have. The number of people has to be commiserate with, I know, but the number of people has to be commiserate with the work that has to get done. So we can have a small committee if we are gonna limit the universe of what we're asking them to consider, but we're asking them to do a tremendous amount of work. We're not, this is a volunteer committee. Like there's just, you know, we need to be respectful of the work that we're asking people to do and make sure that it's reasonable. So that is, I would love for us to have a smaller committee, but I don't think that makes any sense if we are gonna dump hundreds and hundreds of suggestions on their lap. Because I think what I want is for them to vet through these suggestions and remove the Schoolie McSchoolface suggestions and all the other things that are non-contenders off the bat. But I think people are going to put forward names that are not household names. And somebody is going to have to vet through that information, it's a lot of work, potentially. I mean, we just don't know how much work it is, but I think we have to be prepared for the fact it's a lot of work.
[Van der Kloot]: Mayor?
[SPEAKER_40]: Member Van der Kloot.
[Van der Kloot]: So I would say the individuals, and instead of saying up to four, let's say up to three selected from the Columbus School staff, Principal Kathy Kaye, so that's four from the Columbus School, one Medford High School student. If we're saying that we're each gonna pick two, so we're up to five and two would be, 14 would be 19. Then the chair would be number 20. And the member from the historical commission is ex officio non-voting. So I have 20 voting members. Now the question is whether we're gonna have those three selected by lottery. That was in direct response to Kathy's concerns. You know.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Can I just stop you, member Cress, I didn't hear you. How many members were you thinking? Just so we can, I didn't hear what your number was.
[Kreatz]: Well, I wanted to get some clarification, because I thought Mr. Russo said that we couldn't do a lottery as per our policy. So I was going to ask, I thought we couldn't do a lottery, but then I'm seeing the lottery is still in the application process. Well, we can take it out.
[Lungo-Koehn]: We agreed to do at least three of the lottery. The school committee sets the policy, and we can change the policy. what do we feel is best to move forward with the committee to do such important work as to change the name of the Columbus School? I think we all were in agreement, there should be some component of the lottery. So I would say leave that in there and we'll change our other policy if we need to. But for right now, I know Kathy, that means a lot to you to have some component as a lottery. So I agree that that should remain. And I believe other committee members did as well. So I feel like that's something we agreed on.
[Kreatz]: I agree to the lottery. I think that maybe one member, one, the school committee would select one applicant each and then the additional applicants would then go into the lottery. So that might be maybe a total of six lottery and each school committee member picking an applicant.
[Lungo-Koehn]: That would depend on how many members we have. So do you believe that there should be 11, 13, 15, 17, 21, because there's three of us at least that believe it should be 15 or less. And if it's 15 or less, it's gonna be the Columbus school individuals. It's gonna be probably one person per member. It's gonna be one high school student, three from, you know, in a number from the lottery. So we need to get an idea of how many members there would be first.
[Kreatz]: I think it's going to be closer to 20 because we are giving them such a big task to do all the research. And based on the current timeline, I've already put my resolution out there for extending the timeline so that they can do the thoughtful discussions. The way that it's detailed now in such a short amount of time, I think that there would need to be additional members to do the additional research with, you know, to thoroughly, you know, pick those names.
[Lungo-Koehn]: And then Mia, Member Mustone, did you give a number for the committee that you're thinking?
[Mustone]: I did not.
[Cadee Stefani]: I see the tiebreaker.
[Mustone]: Sorry, I just, I mean, I can see that if they get many names, I know with all the emails we got, I would say we probably were maybe 30 to 40 names were suggested in the emails we received over the last nine months. So then this is opened up to the community. I wonder if it will be a large number. So no, I mean on the advisory committee, how many, right. If we're thinking about how much work they each have to do, they each get divvied up 40 names each to just, you know, Google their name and see what their story is. Um, so probably 20.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I think the 21 has it then. I mean, we should base it somewhat off of that because there's four people that believe it should be 21. three that feel it should be 15 or less. So it's okay. That helps to get an idea. Anybody can change their mind. Member Ruseau?
[Ruseau]: Yeah, sorry. Just briefly, you know, part of the problem with my resolution was there wasn't background. Member van de Kloots was definitely better at providing sort of context. You know, while we are not telling the advisory committee how to operate when they get together, that doesn't mean I didn't imagine how they might do their work. And, you know, if there's even 30 or 40 names, I mean, I would imagine that they would divide themselves up to do a first pass through them and, you know, divide the work, divide, conquer. So that was the rationale behind such a large number. But since we've already landed there, I guess I'm just dragging the meeting out, sorry. I do, I just feel strongly about being able to pick two members. I think that, you know, We're going to read a lot of applications. And does anybody here think we're going to see only one person in that application pool? We're going to be like, I want that person. And you're going to look at the rest of them and not be like, no, I want that one too. I mean, I partially it's self-serving that I don't want to have to just pick one name out of what will surely be many qualified applicants. It seems like a self-limiting decision that will create I don't wanna spend a whole weekend trying to pick between my two finalists when we need this many applicants anyways. So I'm sticking to the two and hopefully.
[Lungo-Koehn]: So I would just leave number one, I would put two per member and then I would put all the additional up to 21 pulled from a lottery? I'm sorry, Mayor, can you say that again? Leave number one, how it stands up to four selected from the Columbus School staff, Principal Kathy Bay and the one MHS student. So that's upwards of five. Then you have two per member, that's 14. And then the rest shall be pulled from the lottery, whatever that number that.
[Van der Kloot]: Mayor, you've already got, you've got five from number one, three. You've got up to, up to, okay, up to three, four. Five, so you've got five people in number one. If we each pick two, that's four.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Four people in number one, four people in number one.
[Van der Kloot]: No, no.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Three, sorry, up to three.
[Graham]: If we do up to three. And MHS student. Three, Kathy K and MHS student is five. So I think it's 23. This math works out to 23. So 5 plus 14 plus 3 is 17. Wait, so 5 plus 14 is 19, sorry, plus 3 is 21, plus a chair is 22, and an ex officio.
[Van der Kloot]: OK.
[Graham]: So let's talk, it's 23 plus an ex-officio.
[Ruseau]: Right. It's late. It's 23 plus an ex-officio.
[Graham]: So 23 voting members and one ex-officio member.
[Ruseau]: Well, that's if we agree to number four. If I may, Mayor, So number four was about the mayor appointing the chair. I had an extensive conversation with member Van der Kloot about this. I guess I don't feel that the chair doesn't have to be a voting member. I think that all I care about for the chair is the chair must have experience with open meeting law and Roberts rules. This is a committee that's even much smaller than 23, And this committee has to follow open meeting law. So I don't want the person to be learning open meeting law on the fly, because what I worry about is at the end of the day, when the name or names come out, that anybody could take to court the operations of the advisory committee and say, you didn't comply with open meeting law, so your decision doesn't matter. And we all have to start over, because that to me sounds like a nightmare scenario. And I don't know who to pick. I don't know when the community we can pick to act as the chair and whether or not we would actually want to go through the applicants or if you may have somebody in mind. I don't have anybody in mind. And so I don't think we necessarily have to land on who that is yet, but if the applications are coming in and it doesn't look like anybody has this experience, Um, can I just pause on my thought and suggest that we put that on the application form to say, would you be interested in serving as the chair? And do you have experience in meeting law?
[Deyeso]: No, don't go backwards.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Mayor? Yeah, that's not a bad idea, because I don't have anybody in mind right now. I'd like to see who applies. Member van de Kloot?
[Van der Kloot]: Okay, so you, so the chair would be chosen by the mayor before the meeting? You know.
[Ruseau]: Mayor. Senator Russo. You know, Member Radley, I think this is a, you know, there was a couple of spots. I think we both left it in where there was some squishiness of like, well, what happens if it's like, we'll figure it out if we get there. I feel like, you know, at 11 o'clock after six hours of meeting, I'm comfortable if the members are with saying, we will discuss it at that meeting of all the people who suggest, you know, we won't come to the meeting and see the names for the first time, but if the superintendent, when she provides the list says there were three people who applied to be the chair, you know, then we could have a conversation about that during the meeting and pick that person sort of separate from pipping the membership, although it is the membership. I mean, that's just my thought. I don't.
[Van der Kloot]: I'm okay with that. I think I would say chair or co-chairs.
[SPEAKER_10]: Sure.
[Van der Kloot]: Okay, I just, and that's fine. However you wanna do it.
[Graham]: So are we saying that we will collectively select the chair?
[Van der Kloot]: Well, I was giving the responsibility to the mayor. We could say that the person that she picks, since we're each picking two, that one of her picks will be for the chair or co-chairs.
[Graham]: I don't know. I think it would need to be in excess, otherwise you'd have an even number of people.
[Van der Kloot]: Yeah, but it doesn't necessarily, in terms of the voting, it doesn't necessarily matter.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I don't know. And number one, we don't know where that's gonna land at one, two, or three, so.
[Van der Kloot]: So part of the question is we're also asking whether they're gonna you know, when we get to the process of how many names they're gonna give us, you know.
[Graham]: So are we saying one of the mayor's appointments will serve as the chair?
[Van der Kloot]: Right.
[Ruseau]: That doesn't feel fair. I mean, I just, you know, it doesn't feel fair to take one of the mayor's regular appointments away because there may only be one or two people who say they would be the chair. So the mayor really loses the chance to even really pick, you know, if there's one person who's- The way you do it is that you have, you pick the committee members and they pick their own co-chairs.
[Van der Kloot]: And the only problem with that, I mean, it definitely works, but who's organizing that first meeting then? Who's sending out the notices? That's what the problem is if you have the committee pick their own, if you have the advisory committee pick their own leadership, it starts it all out and how long does it take to get to that decision?
[Graham]: And I think the other challenge there is the open meeting law requirement and being able to adhere to that. because if the advisory committee doesn't adhere to the open meeting law, that will be a problem for this committee. So we need to take measures to ensure that there is compliance with the open meeting law.
[Ruseau]: So I feel like we have the challenge of truly having an unknown here and that we don't know if there will be even any applicants who want to be the chair. So, but we, but member Van der Kloot's change date to end it earlier is good news because then we will know with an entire week in advance, whether or not there actually wasn't the applicants to be chair. If there weren't, then we can scramble, to find somebody who would be interested, you know, a city councilor or somebody from another, I mean, they don't necessarily have to be from our committee, community even, but it just feels hard without having any idea whether we will have any applicants.
[Van der Kloot]: Mayor. Member Van der Kloot. So the reason why I originally said the mayor will appoint was because I wanted the mayor to do some legwork in advance of this to search out people who would be interested. And so that she would know who the chair was gonna be rather than leaving it up to who applied. I mean, I needed, I'm thinking when we had advisory committees before, for example, for building the schools, the mayor sought out people to be chairs and appointed them. I will, by the way, tell you that this committee is larger than the building the future committees were. Nobody's amused by that, I guess.
[Ruseau]: It's funny though. If I may, Mayor, do you, what are your thoughts?
[Lungo-Koehn]: You know what, that's fine. but maybe you can write one of my picks will be the chair. And if the committee needs another number to make it the 21 or 23, I mean, I can have a pick then. Otherwise I'll just have the chair and I'll have one other pick. But if there is 20 members, the mayor gets another pick and that will help us solve number one.
[Van der Kloot]: Do we need, are we keeping in the three additional names by lottery, just? Yes. Yes, okay.
[Lungo-Koehn]: So if number one is full, we'll have a full committee of 23 and an alternate. If it's not, then it may lead us to go into number five, which would allow me two picks plus the chair.
[Van der Kloot]: Okay, and the chair is a voting member, correct? Yes. And the historical person, I was really hoping, I put it in your lap, Mayor, because I just thought that you would be a good point person for reaching out to the historical society and asking, we're going to need help. The advisory committee is going to need help looking into the history of some of the people that are suggested.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, I would just ask for the change on that to be historical society, historical commission, historical district commission, just so I have a large enough pool to find somebody that's willing to do it. Sure. Yeah, historical commission, historical district commission. Those are the three bodies we have in Medford that could help me.
[Van der Kloot]: And potentially, since they're non-voting members, it could be more than one.
[SPEAKER_32]: like that.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, please. Thanks. Yeah. Member herself.
[Ruseau]: And could we add something after number three? A new number for, um, to just say that the, um By a majority vote of the advisory committee, a member can be removed to allow for the scenario for which a either somebody we pick or a randomly selected person is a disruptor.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Is that further down? I think that removal is further down, we can add that. I'm almost sure. I'm sorry, okay. Yeah, we can put it down here. Yeah, removal's positive that if somebody, well, if somebody doesn't show up to meetings or something is in here, so we can send that. That was in Paul.
[Van der Kloot]: Paul had that in.
[Lungo-Koehn]: That was in mine.
[Van der Kloot]: I did not have it in mine, so. You could add that.
[Graham]: We'll add that in at the end.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Let's keep going.
[Graham]: Let's see, five, six. Are there any other changes to one through six here?
[Van der Kloot]: I think it's too big, but that's.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, I think three of us think it's too big, but we've lost that, so.
[SPEAKER_32]: Okay, so I'm just going to move this. Give me one quick second. We finished this as well, right? This is good.
[Van der Kloot]: We have to look at this again in light of our other discussions. So change up to four, up to three staff members. Yes, that's right.
[SPEAKER_32]: Okay. And then this is otherwise good.
[Lungo-Koehn]: One second. I trust Ms. Kay will start immediately to get student involvement, so we don't really have to set a timeline, but maybe we can just ask her, even on the side tonight, to keep us posted, even if it's a every Friday email on what the school's doing to get the students involved.
[SPEAKER_59]: Yeah, I, yeah.
[Lungo-Koehn]: So I'm sure teachers will get involved to try to make it.
[Van der Kloot]: I just think that, yeah, I think we have to be really realistic.
[SPEAKER_32]: Any objections on this paragraph?
[Lungo-Koehn]: One more second. Nope.
[SPEAKER_32]: Good, okay. Moving it above the line.
[Graham]: Okay, the work of the advisory committee. So, at our committee of the whole, we will also put forward.
[Van der Kloot]: No, this is just the work of the advisory committee. Correct. Yeah. Okay, for number two, I think it's important that there, it's very possible that there will be people who are not aware of the letters that we've received and the depth of angst. So for that reason, I wanted them to have access in a file to the letters so they could understand what kind of letters we've read, we've gotten. So they don't have to read them, but I just want to say that they have access to them so they can understand what the discussion has been so far.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I think that's important as well.
[Van der Kloot]: OK, does anybody object to that? No. OK, how about number three?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Number three, the advisory committee will develop criteria for evaluating the names. The advisory committee will determine the process for vetting the names, narrowing the field, and submitting three finalists to the school committee.
[Van der Kloot]: Okay, now there's a crucial point here, and this is one of the key talking points that I mentioned right at the beginning. There are two different ways we could go about this. Paul suggested that the advisory council go all the way down to the single last name, they give a presentation, and the school committee votes to confirm it, okay? And frankly, he had that all done on the same night. I say that the advisory committee gives the school committee three names and the school committee then at a subsequent meeting, I don't think it should happen at the same meeting, that we pick one of the names. The arguments pro and against are, if we have the advisory committee pick the final name and then we just rubber stamp it, in many ways I feel like we're giving up our responsibility. However, I realize that others will have a different opinion about that. But it's a clear, we have to make a decision about how we're gonna proceed on that particular point.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Just a thought. if you went with the three names, and even if we decided a later time, but a community survey to really put it out to the community, not only the children of the Columbus and parents of the Columbus, but the whole community to, we were getting amazing responses on surveys we put out, and this would be a way to try to bring people together to pick a name, just a thought. Or a public hearing. We could have a public hearing. you'd have to have an address in Medford and only get one vote per person. It would be some work, but member Rousseau.
[Ruseau]: I feel like we're kind of vacillating a bit between it's our responsibility, but then we don't want the responsibility. Sorry. Is that any better? Yes. Thank you. It's a little bit vacillating between we want to have the responsibility to who we don't. If we put it in the community to pick three, then we aren't picking a name. If we get three and we pick a name, then we're picking a name. If the advisory committee just gives us the name, then we're not picking the name. I feel like we should decide whether we want to pick the name or not before we decide how that will happen. talking about the, I mean, there's probably a dozen other ways we could decide what the name will be, but we, the, for me, the bifurcating issue here is do we pick the name or not? And I could be convinced by the way, frankly, but I think we should answer that explicitly before we decide the next, you know, which way we go. with how that happens. Do people have a strong preference to, do you want the responsibility to pick the name as the statute requires? Or do you want to like punt and give it to somebody else so you can say, well, I wouldn't have picked that name after it's picked.
[Van der Kloot]: Well, Paul, if you put it in those terms, I think that we have the responsibility to pick from three finalists. And I would suggest that it would be OK with me if the advisory committee weighted them or numbered them or chose not to do that. We gave it to those equally. But if you put it in those terms, then I don't see how we can choose not to.
[Lungo-Koehn]: And I think the advisory committee gave us three. know and saying that they can't put out a survey themselves and at least give us the results to help us decide. Member Graham.
[Graham]: I actually loved the suggestion of us narrowing down to two and then asking the students of the Columbus to vote. I loved that idea. I think it's could be a really powerful lesson for the students, right? So they talk about voting during election day. This is a chance for them to vote on something more than like what their favorite cookie is, right? Like this is a chance for them to vote. we could be presented with three options and we could collectively narrow to two and then let the school vote later that week.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor. Member McLaughlin. I also like that idea, just because I like the idea of the, you know, again, the students understanding the process, you know, seeing this having gone through, you know, a certain way, their involvement from the beginning all the way through the end, and ultimately, you know, their vote. So I forget who the community member was that suggested it, but I wanted to thank them for the suggestion.
[Kreatz]: Mayor Kathy Kreatz is trying to remember. Yes, I just wanted to chime in. So I do like the idea of having even a survey for the community so that they can give us some feedback once we have the three final names. I think it's really important that we involve the community somehow in this process. So I think that's a great idea. I think I like the idea of the students at the same time, I just wanna make sure that we're involving the entire community, you know, and including the students in the community in the process. It's just something that it's just such a, you know, big responsibility. I'm just getting exhausted, sorry.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, no, and maybe we could do both. Miss K can do a survey for the students. We could ask either the committee or us to do a survey for the community, and that would be results that we can use as a committee to choose the final name. Mayor. Member.
[SPEAKER_40]: Vanderkleep.
[Van der Kloot]: Yes, so my concern when you get down to two names is that it becomes polarizing again, right off the bat. So I love the idea of involving the kids and the community. There is a time factor for all of those things. But I really would suggest that we might even have the kids go from three names to two names, or we're adding another process here. but that's why you don't pick two names is because you have one Italian American and one black American, and there you are with your polarization. So that's why I said three, up to three, I said up to three, somewhere along the line.
[Lungo-Koehn]: It could be up to four, we're responsible for picking the final name. So, yep, I agree with three, first two. Member Ruseau?
[Ruseau]: I remember in, Hi, Sue. We had a mock election for president a very long ago. And I guess I just wonder about the mechanics of kindergartners, pre-school graders voting. I recognize that not all students are, I'm not suggesting that they can't take a train.
[McLaughlin]: Bruce, may I?
[Ruseau]: I just wonder about it.
[McLaughlin]: What point of privilege? Yes, please. Member Ruseau, your audio is not working. It is going in and out, and it's very difficult to understand you. I'm not sure what the difference is, but I think it might be related to your posture. I don't know what your microphone is, but just FYI, it's very difficult to hear you.
[Ruseau]: OK, can you hear me now?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. I'm apologizing for that. So I guess I'm just worried about the mechanics of a actual election at that grade level that I mean I would certainly trust Dr. She says she can pull that off. I just. You know, I mean, when when you were presented with multiple options as with any kind of election. You have to be told what those options are and you have to make a decision. And, you know, as with all regular elections, what you get for information sort of major deciding factor. you know, if there's a teacher who has a, you know, and I'm not suggesting this would happen, but if there's a teacher who has a clear preference, and the teacher is the person who gets to tell the students, oh, it's election day, and here's the three options, there's this terrible option over here, terrible option over here, and this great option over here, like, and I know the teachers wouldn't literally do that, but kids are very intuitive teachers will have preferences. And I just, I'm concerned about whether or not the students will be voting for what they want or whether they will be voting based on the preferences of the adults in their lives, whether that's their teachers or their parents. So I don't dislike the idea. I just have a lot of worry about the mechanics of getting it done. And I would like to hear Dr. K greatly.
[Lungo-Koehn]: HAB-Masyn Moyer): And why don't we, why don't we leave it up to the advisory committee 23 people can choose if they have time to do one or two surveys. HAB-Masyn Moyer): Now, Mayor. HAB-Masyn Moyer): And we have the final decision based out of off of three one way or another. HAB-Charlotte Pitts, 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-
[McLaughlin]: I'm fine with that.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Okay, good. We'll write that up and then we're going on to number four. Press relations will be directed through the advisory committee chair and members of the advisory committee are urged to send press contacts to the chair. Stop me if you have questions, but I'll keep going. Number five, advisory committee meetings are public meetings and must follow all requirements of the open meeting law. Six, the superintendent will provide a note taker and create minutes. Seven, it is expected that the advisory committee will need to meet three to five times and a majority of voting members will be required to reach a quorum for the meeting. the advisory committee will hold at least one public hearing to solicit feedback on the options they are considering per the charge of this resolution as at least one of their, at at least one of their meetings.
[Graham]: Mayor?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Graham]: Can we revise this to say they will hold at least one public hearing or issue one public survey to provide them some options? I am very sensitive to a group of volunteers coming forward to do this work and being treated badly because of the work they're trying to do.
[McLaughlin]: Fine with me. Fine with me.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Number nine, advisory committee members may withdraw from participation. This is where we could add what you were mentioning before. advisory committee members may withdraw from participation by notifying the chair and will not be counted in subsequent quorum and voting requirements. The chair will notify the remaining members of the advisory committee of the reduction in membership. No new members will be added to the advisory committee due to vacancies. And that's where I would suggest we add any language if it was mentioned before of somebody if the committee needed to vote a member out for some reason. Number 10, while consensus is always preferred, a simple majority of the total number of advisory committee members will be required to select up to three names that will be forwarded to the school committee. Note, if the school committee votes to have the advisory choose the, okay, we're gonna get three so we can take that out. Yep. Love in the advisory. Yep, and I think I have two, Number 11, the advisory committee will present their recommendations for the new names of the Columbus Elementary School no later than May 24th, 2021. A presentation will be given explaining the way that the recommendation was arrived at and why the names were chosen.
[Van der Kloot]: So it should be, we're chosen since there's gonna be more than one? We're chosen, yeah. Yeah.
[Lungo-Koehn]: And on Kathy's point of the timeframe, I mean, I think everybody, majority at least, wants this done by the end of the fiscal year. I just would want the committee to know that if they needed an extra week on something, that they'd be able to ask us somehow because of all the work that they have to do.
[Van der Kloot]: Right. Mayor, I agree with you. I'm really concerned. I mean, there's a whole lot of me which thinks that this work ought to happen in the fall. and a temporary name should be given to the school. I mean, you know, I guess the way that I would put is maybe put another line, if the advisory committee concludes or if a majority of the advisory committee concludes that they cannot complete this work in the timeframe specified, that they come before the school committee or that they communicate this to the school committee with a suggested new timeline. How's that? Now, that would take care of the concern that I personally have that it's too much work and too little time.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Ruseau?
[Ruseau]: I actually don't have a problem with this, but I do think you need to put a constraint. I mean, if they come back and say we need until next January, that if they, you know, when they think about the work they have ahead of them, there will be members of the advisory committee who want to do PhD level work on every single advisor, every single suggestion. And there will be others who want to just go to Wikipedia for 10 minutes. And everybody in between. I feel like that's me on a daily basis with some things. So if we allow them to change the timeline to anything they want, then the voice of the person who wants to write a novel about every person might win, and then we're not gonna ever get this done. So I think I'm fine with them telling us we need a little more time or whatever, but I am also not fine with them having the option to tell us that they can't get it done before the school year ends.
[Lungo-Koehn]: So you want to put it in an end date. Timeline shall not exceed July 31st so that it covers the next school year or something like that.
[Ruseau]: Sure.
[Clerk]: Why?
[Ruseau]: Yeah. And the question is, why don't we just give them that much time?
[Lungo-Koehn]: But I think you get more. These people, all the people that apply are going to know this is under a pretty serious timeline, and I think Will It Apply are going to want to do this work now if they come to May and they're like, we are doing work nonstop, but we really feel that to do this right, we need another month with three more meetings. We want to do a survey and a public meeting. I mean, we don't know what the committee is going to say. So I like how Jenny wrote it.
[Ruseau]: There are two items missing that I have in mind that I think are important. And maybe they're in there just like worded differently on mine I have a number 23 that says an advisory committee member that refuses to communicate about scheduling participation or participation can be removed.
[Van der Kloot]: I thought we just talked about that but then we did withdraw right here.
[Ruseau]: Well that's withdrawal.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, that's where I said you could add your language that you, if somebody needs to be removed, that's what I suggest added after that.
[Ruseau]: Okay.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, it's simpler language and I guess it... Removal of a member is permitted by a majority vote of the committee.
[Ruseau]: Okay, that's fine. And then the other one was the, Where's the one about? For my number 24, there's this consensus may is, I know that was in there somewhere. Okay, number 12 there. Mine doesn't say the same thing. Mine says, while consensus is always preferred, a simple majority of the total number of advisory committee members will be required to select the recommended new name. In the event that all members of the Advisory Committee are not present for the final vote to select the recommended new name, a majority vote of the total number of Advisory Committee members is still required, not a majority of Advisory Committee members that are present. So this is sort of, again, trying to prevent any kind of suggestions that things weren't on the up and up. If you get to schedule the meetings and you have a preference, so you make sure that just the people who are gonna vote the way you want can actually show up. This is saying that a majority of the members must be there to vote for the final one. Not the regular meeting, the regular quorum. If people can't make it, that's fine. But all members, yeah. I just have that a majority vote of the total number of advisory committee members is required. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_40]: Mayor. Member Krantz.
[Kreatz]: Yes, so I'm just really uncomfortable and I wouldn't be able to approve the date, the May 24th. I just feel that it's too rushed. You know, I mentioned that at the beginning of the meeting when I, you know, detailed the timeline, this advisory committee in the resolution that was originally stated was supposed to have a term of six months. So now we're condensing the six months into about eight weeks. And so I'm just, I mean, I would ask my committee members if they would consider changing that date
[Lungo-Koehn]: Even with- I just, I really think it's too soon. Memocrats, even with number 15 we just added. Till July 31st.
[Kreatz]: I still think it's too soon. You know, I mean, I read the original resolutions that were presented in June, and it clearly stated the advisory committee will have a six-month term so that, you know, in my opinion, that would be ample time for the committee to to have thoughtful, reflective discussions, get the survey results, read the survey results, thoroughly research for the new name. this is, you know, we're rushing to get the new name on May 24th. You know, we're not, in this particular meeting, we're not changing the vote. And I get that. I'm just, you know, I just think it's too short of a timeframe. That that's my opinion.
[Ruseau]: And Mia has her hand up.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Sorry, I can't see Mia, sorry. Member Mustone?
[Mustone]: Sure, thank you, Mayor. For number 15, if the advisory committee recommends a timeline change, which I hear what Kathy's saying, for the time crunch it is now, could it be that in the meantime, that we will refer to the Columbus School with the temporary name of the South Medford Elementary School? So then it feels like we're moving forward, it's temporary, but if an extension is asked, if the advisory committee asked for an extension at that time.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I think we've gone to two. Would we have to do that unless they asked for an extension past the start of the school year? If they asked for an extension past the start of the school year, I'd agree to that, but.
[Kreatz]: Okay.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Mayor.
[Kreatz]: I'm not in favor of a temporary name. We're forming this advisory committee so that they can come up with a name. I just don't understand some of that. And that's not in the resolution that I went back to the original resolution and it didn't state that The name would have to take on a temporary name. If a name wasn't decided by July 1 in keeping in mind that this is a pandemic. And all the deadlines that occurred all year everywhere, everything changed and got slid and extended and delayed. So I'm just, you know, I wouldn't be happy with the way that the resolution in this section is written with the strict timeframe. And that's my opinion.
[Graham]: Member Graham?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Rosado?
[Graham]: The resolution that we passed did say that effective July 1st, the school no longer be named the Columbus School. So I am amenable to giving the committee at their request time into the end of July. And if we're going to extend that, we need to have an answer for what will we call the school between those dates. I feel like South Medford Elementary School is a fine interim, name, but I am a hard no on a six-month extension. So I'm a no, absolutely not.
[Lungo-Koehn]: And was it Mia that said South Medford or you said Mystic earlier, so you chained it to South Medford, Mia?
[Mustone]: No, I mean, my heart is with the Mystic, but for this process, I think just to be able to move forward with a temporary name while the advisory committee asks for more time, the South Medford Elementary School buys us more time with also recognizing that we are no longer honoring Columbus.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, one comment and then Paul, member Ruseau, can we take that line out? Because they're gonna have to come to us before July 30th, before May 24th to ask us for an extension. And since it's midnight and we've been going at this since 545, I do not wanna pick a temporary name right now. That's just my feeling. We'll do that on May 24th after we've had a couple months to think about it and knowing they're gonna need an extension. So I would suggest we just take that out. Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: When you say take that out, you mean I would be fine with getting rid of the South Medford Elementary School suggestion if we remove the ability for them to ask for an extension. The original resolution, which my request continues to reference, is crystal clear. On July 1st, this school will not have that name. We can't have it both ways where we will adhere to that resolution and then not adhere to it. It also said on October 1st, the advisory committee would be working and they're not. So, I mean, the intent of that resolution is what we're working on. We obviously can't follow the letter of it, but, and that's why I think Member Mustone's suggestion is a good one because it makes us at least adhere to the fact that we are not going back, that this is not going to be the name on July 1st. Um, yeah, these new website goes up with the new data on July 1st for the year. It will say something other than the Columbus. So I I'm fine with getting rid of that South number 15 altogether, but that means I'm also fine. I would want to remove the ability for them to ask for an extension.
[Lungo-Koehn]: No, I'm just, I'm just saying, get rid of just so in the interim of any change that exceeds July 1st, the school will be, will a new name will be chosen. on or around May 24th, not tonight at midnight.
[Ruseau]: That's all I'm asking. I don't understand, Mayor, I'm sorry. It is late, so I'm not following.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, no, everything stays. If a majority of the advisory committee votes to recommend a timeline change to the school committee, they may do so. At that time, the school committee will vote to approve or decline this recommendation. Time changes shall not exceed a final date of July 31st. In the interim of any change that exceeds July 1st, the school will have an interim name to be decided at the time of approval or denial of the extension.
[Ruseau]: If I can just, I see what you're saying, sorry. It is very late as you've highlighted. I do just worry that we're gonna have a meeting about what the temporary name is gonna be for five hours. And that's, I think, For people that will be concerned that the extension is really going to be extended again, that this temporary name will be the name for a school year. I just, I'm just worried that we're going to have, you know, 200 emails about what the temporary name should be.
[Lungo-Koehn]: And if we pick the South Medford Elementary School now, we're going to get 200 emails of people that are upset that we picked it at midnight. after a meeting that started at 545. So it's like a no-win situation, I understand that, but I think just giving it a little time and picking in by May, we'll at least have had some thought, because it was Mystic at 545, and now it's South Medford Elementary School. And my brain's as mushy as everybody else's, and I just don't, I feel like that's an important decision, even if it's an interim name for only one, two to five months. member van de Kloet and then member Graham had her hand up.
[Van der Kloot]: It's ludicrous to say that we can't change the date of the original motion to say that you know that if they need more time we'll give them another month and they can the Columbus can stay the Columbus for another month. I mean As many have said, we're during a pandemic, all the other timelines. If you actually go back and read the minutes, and there is probably a problem with the minutes, but it doesn't reference the whole, it just says the name of the Columbus will change, and it doesn't put the date on what we actually voted. And I went back and read it. Now the intent was clear, but I'm just saying, Paul, to hang your hat on and saying, you know, that's your personal thing that it has to change on July 1st. Okay? There's nothing in the world that says it can't change on August 1st. Okay? There's just nothing. And, you know, if you want to avoid the temporary date, I mean, somewhere along the line, I think we've been working really well together. We've got different opinions about this. I mean, frankly, I'd like to say December 1st, because I think December 1st would be much more of a process of bringing kids in. To me, there's a rush here, which is still really uncomfortable, but I need to ask you to move off that, oh my God, the world is gonna end on July 1st if we don't change the name of the Columbus School.
[Lungo-Koehn]: August 1st seems more reasonable because it would come after the July 31st date anyway.
[Kreatz]: I agree with Ms. Van der Kloot. I've already stated that I think the timeline, you know, the date, all the other dates were missed. And they were missed because we're in a pandemic. In the original resolution, it does say that the advisory committee will have six months. So this time here, May 24th, that's not six months. So we're gonna keep to the July 1st deadline, but we're gonna just remove the six months that was originally in the resolution. And I know that was in the resolution and so was the July 1st date, but we're gonna skip the six months and we're just gonna keep the July 1st It's just not, I mean, it's just not right. It's not fair, it's not equitable, it's not reasonable. And that's how I feel like a strong no for me on May 24th. That's my strong no. And I've already provided my timeline and that wasn't second, so that's fine. I'm moving on from that. But I really think that You know, having this decision on July 1 is rushed. I even suggested in the timeline that I put forth at the beginning of the meeting that If we don't count the summer dates, and if the advisory committee were to meet in summer, brings us to September 1st, they would be coming to us with a recommended new name. Even if they have a couple, like have one meeting in July, one meeting in August, but they still have April, May, June, July, August, and they could come to us with a new name in September. The way that I read the resolution, it didn't make sense to me that the name had to, you know, transition over immediately on July 1st, where we didn't even follow all the other dates. We didn't, we missed all those other dates and that didn't matter to anybody. It didn't matter that we missed all those dates.
[SPEAKER_59]: Point of order.
[Kreatz]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: Mayor.
[SPEAKER_40]: Personal privilege.
[Ruseau]: I mean, Kathy, member Gratz, apologies. I know that myself and I believe Member Graham have sent multiple emails over the last six months about when is this Committee of the Whole going to happen. It didn't matter is not true. I have been trying to get this scheduled over and over and over. And it has been brought up in our regular school committee meetings over and over and over. So to say that it didn't matter that we missed all the dates, every single week that we had meetings, I'm like, when are we having this meeting? It did matter a lot because I certainly agree they should have had more time and they didn't have more time. And I don't think it's because of the pandemic. I think it's because nobody wanted to deal with this. That's why. And And you know what, if we had stopped pressing, this meeting wouldn't have happened either. So, you know, I think if, you know, if we want to just delay it till after the election and we all get voted out and then we can be reversed before we chisel the Columbus off the name, then that's, just say it and just ask for that. But I'm not interested in that. And I won't vote for anything that says that we will have anything other than the Columbus, not the name, on July one per the actual motion that six members voted for.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, so we're a little bit of a standstill. We have the July date, May, July, now September and December have been brought up. So we've got to try to get on the same page. A member, I just heard somebody, Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, through the chair, I wanna say again, I hear my colleagues, but I also have to say that I disagree respectfully and I agree to disagree. I don't think that this process frankly has been rushed in the sense of we've been talking about this as again, since June, 2020, we've had several meetings over this. I think the advisory committee process is being tightened. I wouldn't necessarily say it's being rushed. We've had discussion and discussion and even tonight we're still having discussion over whether or not the name change should happen when that was decided a year ago. And now people are talking about postponing the advisory committee process again for more. you know, for a longer period of time and more discussion and more sort of putting our community members, frankly, through this. And I feel like causing more divide and more pain. And I feel like it's, you know, sort of like ripping the bandaid off and getting things done and having people have a solid deadline and looking at, you know, again, there's some, you know, I'm willing to be flexible around some of the, you know, July 1st, July 31st sort of thing or whatever. But I think that we have to have a hard date of, you know, of know, end of May, end of school year, and then a July decision, and then it's done. And that's what we have voted on and worked on and talked about all year long. But we keep, and as a school committee too, I feel like we keep bringing people through this process, and through this process, and through this process, and just stirring in this pain. And I am voting to move this forward with the respect of asking people to please apply to the committee. If you feel this strongly about it and you're this passionate about it, apply to the committee so that you can be part of the committee that is part of the change that can move our community forward and help our kids celebrate this new name. Thank you. Mayor.
[Graham]: Member Grim. I think to Member Mustone's point, the value of identifying what happens in the interim is important. If for no other reason than to try to limit the hostile environment that could be created for the advisory work who will be in the thick of doing their work. So I feel like it would be fine to just clearly state that if this happens, the school committee will choose a temporary name for the school effective July 1st. I think that we don't, if it were me, I would be happy to make that decision now because if we don't, we are absolutely signing up for another five hour meeting which I'm perfectly happy to do but that five-hour meeting is going to happen in front of the advisory committee that is in the middle of doing this work and it's going to create a hostile environment and I would like us to try to avoid making this process hostile for the people volunteering to do this hard work on our behalf. So At minimum, I think we should just clearly state that the school committee will make that decision if it becomes necessary. Ideally, we would just decide it so that we can move forward, but I am open to either suggestion. I'm just not open to not saying anything in this particular instance, because I think it just sets us up for more churn and we need less churn.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, I see your points.
[Van der Kloot]: HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, Secretary of State for Education and Human Services, to speak on behalf of the Board of Trustees. HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, Secretary of State for Education and Human Services, to speak on behalf of the Board of Trustees. HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, Secretary of State for Education and Human Services, to speak on behalf of the Board of Trustees. HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, Secretary of State for Education and Human Services, to speak on behalf of the Board of Trustees.
[Lungo-Koehn]: So go to July 31st, at that point, you would hope that the committee would have the names for us and we'd pick a name by then.
[Van der Kloot]: Yes. And so that we just for an extra month, it would be called Columbus for an extra month. Okay. Now, if that is so unacceptable to my colleagues, then I would strongly vote for changing it to the South Medford Elementary School and not leaving it as an open, because I don't want that to become the issue. I think, to me, it seems silly to have an interim name for just one month.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor. Member McLaughlin. Yeah. Oh, I lost my train of thought for one second. Hold on. So maintaining, yeah, maintaining the name for July 31st, but again, to I would consider. But again, to member Graham's point, I would say that should the advisory committee not have a name by July 31st, then the school committee will choose the name.
[Clerk]: Fine with that.
[Van der Kloot]: We'll choose the temporary name.
[McLaughlin]: Whatever. I mean, We'll choose the temporary name and then no, that we'll choose the name because we're giving the advisory committee the charge to finish. We gave them till May or June and then July we're giving them an extension. So if they don't choose the name by the end of July, we will choose the name. Not we will give them more time so then we can name a temporary name. Not that we will choose a temporary name thereby giving more time to draw this process out more. No, then we will choose the name.
[Van der Kloot]: No, that they have to give us a recommendation on July 31st.
[McLaughlin]: Period.
[Van der Kloot]: Period.
[McLaughlin]: And if they don't, yeah, exactly.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Period. Basically, we will allow an extension up until July 31st. After that, we will pick a name.
[McLaughlin]: our colleagues on board.
[Van der Kloot]: When you say after that we will pick a name you're opening a whole new kettle of fish.
[Lungo-Koehn]: We won't put it we won't put that in writing but well we don't have to.
[Graham]: I think we have to. I think we have to. There has to be a finite endpoint of what this committee is being charged to do and how we will respond if that does not happen.
[Van der Kloot]: There is, the final date is July 31st, 2021. And what if they just don't?
[Graham]: They come back and they say we're a hung jury, sorry.
[Van der Kloot]: I mean, if that happens- Three recommendations to us.
[Graham]: I think that is exceedingly reasonable and I don't think it's likely to happen, but here we are at midnight talking about trying to form this committee because we have spent the entire evening talking about the thing we decided back in June of last year. So I don't think we can rule out that it's a possibility, and I want there to be a clear path. that says what happens in the off chance that that occurs?
[Van der Kloot]: I think that then in the off chance the school committee will, the school will be called the South Medford Elementary School until a name is decided upon.
[Ruseau]: Can we put that in the language though?
[Lungo-Koehn]: I liked Melanie's versus picking a name right now.
[McLaughlin]: I agree. I think it puts us back the responsibility. I think it also motivates the advisory committee because I think, you know, they've done all this work. They're going to want to have the input on the name. They're not going to want to give it over to a school committee decision or, you know, a South Medford school decision or what have you. So I say, you know, here's the first deadline, you know, may, if you cannot make this deadline, you know, and you need to request an extension, here's the process for the extension. we will give the extension till July 31st, as has been suggested by my colleagues. And if there's still not a decision by July 31st, then the decision reverts to the school committee and we vote on a name by August 15th. And that's what I would do. I mean, I think we have to have clear guidelines clear marks for where the expectations are and if they don't occur, what happens as a result, frankly.
[Van der Kloot]: Anybody planning on going on summer vacation this summer?
[McLaughlin]: Yeah, that's the wonder of Zoom or some other remote option that we can still access things wherever we are. On vacation.
[Ruseau]: In theory, I don't have a problem with this August 15th, we'll pick a date thing, but you know, I mean, I play that out in my mind. We are going to come to the meeting with seven different names. That's what's gonna happen.
[Graham]: I completely agree. I completely agree. But there has to be a clear answer to what if the advisory committee just cannot fulfill the obligations that we've asked them to fulfill. Because what we can't do is start back here in July.
[Ruseau]: That's what we will be doing.
[Graham]: But we have to, I feel like at that point, we have to be talking about names instead of advisory committees and how we will proceed. Like, I think the how we will proceed question just has to be answered by us tonight.
[SPEAKER_40]: Yeah, I think if no recommendation is provided by July 31st, the school committee will choose a name by August 15th.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I agree with that.
[Ruseau]: So we will get together as a group and do the very thing that both people who are pro and against changing the Columbus name do not want us to do. And every person who has spoken and emailed for and against the change does not want us just waking up one morning and picking a new name. They want all kinds of different things, whether it's to keep the old name or to have the students pick the name or the community. Every option that we have heard did not include the option we are saying we're going to do if the advisory committee is unable to complete their task. Let's just say, you know, August 1st to August 15th of this year, I'm going to send my family away to a cabin in the woods, if there is no actual name. Because I'm not going to feel terribly like I can even go to my day job. I mean, it's going to be horrible. If we are just going to on our own sit down and just pick a name out of the blue, it's like the opposite of everything everybody wants. I say we should have a, here's what happens. And it's explicit and it's not, what happens is a whole bunch more work and process that nobody likes.
[Lungo-Koehn]: And what if we just put shall not exceed final date of July 31st, 2021. at which time and name shall be, you know, the final date. So final date would be when we choose a name and just leave it at that. We will know in May, if they even need an extension, we will know in May, if we have to do anything further and just, that's it. They have to pick a name and give it to us and we have to choose it. May I? Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you. So I think what I hear through the chair, I think what I hear my colleague saying is he is worried about ambiguity. And I don't necessarily agree that what we would be asking the school committee to do is what both sides on this issue or all folks have not wanted. I think Or if that is the case, it's even it incentivizes the advisory committee to to do this really important work that we've been asking them to do. But that said, I also do want to point out to my colleagues, and I know that everyone is aware of the time, but I'm also very concerned about, you know, our administration and our staff and our colleagues and friends and neighbors and everyone else that have been on this call all night long. and some of whom have to get up in a matter of a few hours for school starting. So I would like to encourage my colleagues to come to a decision with this so that we can move forward and let people get to bed.
[Van der Kloot]: Mayor, I need to add to that. We also haven't covered the first part of this, page one. So our work is not done at the end of this page. And there are more people that would like to speak.
[Graham]: Page one. So is this what we want?
[Van der Kloot]: No, to keep it not. I think we should finish this sentence after July 31st, 2021. Period.
[McLaughlin]: Okay. So what are we going to do if there's no recommendation though?
[SPEAKER_40]: What are we going to do if we can't get 23 people that want to serve on the board? I mean, we're going to have to address it at the time we're stuck with the issue.
[Lungo-Koehn]: A million what ifs could happen. Right.
[Ruseau]: Well, I mean, I thought that's what we were doing was catching all the what ifs. This is the biggest what if because, you know, I just don't think this is actually as impossible to imagine as, I mean, I don't think that the advisory committee would purposefully do this at all, but we don't know if we will have 30 suggestions or 10,000 for crying out loud. Everybody and their brother from all over the world who thinks it should be Christopher Columbus could send in junk names. All of them have to be looked at by the advisory committee. I think that if they do their work honestly and I don't expect any less, they still may not actually finish by July 31st. So if we want them to do the work and they're saying, look, we're powering through 200 of these a week, we have another nine weeks to go and there's not enough time, what are we gonna call this damn school when the kids come back, when Dr. K needs to order more envelopes? She needs to know that. I mean, her staff and everybody else and all the others. I mean, we don't have to chisel the building, obviously, but it has to have a name for communication and all the other stuff that happens where that's actually on there.
[Lungo-Koehn]: We cannot decide that tonight. We cannot decide that. What about, you know, now it's the 11th. We're into the 11th. It's March 11th. We cannot decide on a name, even if it's a temporary name. the day after a meeting was posted. It's not fair.
[McLaughlin]: I would agree with the mayor. I agree with the mayor. I would agree with the mayor in that case. I don't think we can decide on a name.
[Graham]: Oh, so I think we just leave it like this and roll the dice.
[Ruseau]: See you all in July. Yep.
[Graham]: Okay. Any changes to this section? Just the date. The date. What is wrong with the date? they're gonna do their work by the 24th, and we're gonna do that by the 7th. It's fine. Okay.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay. Paragraph A is granted. Okay.
[SPEAKER_32]: We did that.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member van de Kloot, you said we had to go back to something? We have to go back to the first page.
[Graham]: Just give me a second to... Okay.
[SPEAKER_32]: Okay. This is it, guys.
[Van der Kloot]: Uh, so, um, I of course think this works just fine.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Um, the thing that, um, can I just point to what we're going over just cause it's late and this whole, this whole section we have to.
[Van der Kloot]: So mine is a little different from Paul's Paul. I made yours. I made it shorter. Okay. Um, I added the most significant thing is a charge to the advisory committee where it says, I don't know how that just happened.
[Graham]: Yeah. There's something funny going on with the formatting, so I'm just going to fix it while you talk, Paulette.
[Van der Kloot]: The way that we charge is the advisory committee with the task of vetting names submitted for consideration and weighing the relative strength of submissions against a criteria they will develop. The criteria will include but not be limited to such factors as the potential for the name to bring the community together. the ability for the name to stand as a role model for Medford students, and the name as a representation of the Medford community's proud history. Furthermore, the advisory committee is charged with narrowing the field of names to three finalists. And then at that point where it says these final names, and it says either, whatever, take out that sentence. So take out number B. The final exams will be presented. So, Jenny, also the subset of A. Yes.
[Graham]: And like that, Paulette? Yeah. And member Rousseau, was there other stuff in your?
[SPEAKER_59]: The folders.
[Van der Kloot]: So there is one difference, or at least one that I remember explicitly. Member Ruseau, you had that the names of Medford schools were named after an individual and we want to continue that. I do not specify that also because not all the schools were named after an individual. Also because maybe I almost anticipated that someone might put in the name Mystic and I didn't want to not include that. So I've not defined that and I think that for me, I'd rather have it open.
[Ruseau]: Mayor, actually, I don't say that they're named after people and what it says is whereas all Medford public schools bear names with a connection to Medford and the committee wishes to retain that tradition. Do you have that in here?
[Van der Kloot]: I don't, because when you say Medford, Medford High School.
[Ruseau]: No, I mean for the future name, this is not in the whereas, this is in the results. So this is what we're telling them to do. I mean, I. So could you read it again, Paul?
[Van der Kloot]: Because I interpreted it differently.
[Ruseau]: Well, mine's in the whereas, and it's simply saying that all Medford public schools are named bear names with a connection to Medford. and we wish to continue that tradition.
[Van der Kloot]: I mean, obviously- That's not true, and it hasn't always been true in the past.
[Ruseau]: Okay.
[Lungo-Koehn]: That's true now. I like that. I like that there would be a connection to Medford.
[Van der Kloot]: I mean, I feel like- Does Mystic count as a connection to Medford? Is that okay? Yes. Oh, okay. So I was just seeing it just as only, but it does mean that nobody can put in Da Vinci.
[Ruseau]: It does, yes.
[Van der Kloot]: Yes. I kind of like Da Vinci. Everything's named after him.
[Ruseau]: Got an awful lot.
[Van der Kloot]: Galileo.
[McLaughlin]: I know, I liked Galileo too.
[Van der Kloot]: Mr. Galileo, are you sure you just, you know, if we just now put it, then we can see what they come up with.
[McLaughlin]: I think we leave them the latitude to let people come up with, I like the idea and we can put that as a recommendation if we want, or send them on their way or give them their charge or something to say, it would be nice if you would consider something to that effect. But I also think, especially with the kids and everybody, let them have their imagination and let them, I would agree.
[Van der Kloot]: Melanie, in the charge, I wrote that the committee will come up with what they're measuring names against. And one of the measurements is the connection to Medford. So it is there. OK.
[Ruseau]: Let me go back to the bullet three, though. The criteria will include but not limited to. I would rather the criteria may include.
[Van der Kloot]: Okay, that's fine.
[Ruseau]: If they decide they don't like the criteria in that list, I think they should be free to
[Van der Kloot]: Right. This really comes to my discussion with Rick Orlando, who co-chaired the Building the Future Committee when we built the new. He said the first thing that was really important is for the committee to come up with the criteria that they're going to measure their decisions against so that they've got some agreed standard. And he said that was really probably the most important thing that they did in making it flow so easily. So I thought that was important.
[Ruseau]: Oh, and I think it's great. And, you know, I mean, it's the reason the other reason for the may is that Yeah, that's fine. You know, representation of Medford community proud history. I mean, not all our history is proud, but some of it still does need to be should be considered for recognition. And then But the role model part, you know, mystic as a river isn't usually considered a role model, but perhaps the mystic people is, yeah. So, but with the word may there, they really essentially can do whatever they want. And that makes me comfortable with that. One of the whereas's, there's a bunch of whereas's, nevermind, they're fine. I can look at that.
[Cadee Stefani]: Excuse me. Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Yeah, I was just going to ask Member Graham if she could highlight what part we're talking about right now, because I am also starting to... Oh, is this still the whole part? We're not going... I think we're done. Yeah, I think we already did all... Oh, good. So... Yeah. Okay. That's it. Thank you. So then, Mayor, may I? Yes, Member McLaughlin. I just wanted to thank my colleagues and everybody that has been on the call this long and everyone for this whole process. I know it's been incredibly arduous and I know there have been things that we have not agreed on and I hope that folks can agree to disagree and move forward to support Medford and our children and thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: We have, if we're the committee's done, I'm just gonna let the residents speak. Lisa, you're still keeping time, please. And we will take a final vote on this. Ingrid.
[Ingrid Moncada]: I think I am done. I think what I wanted to say, I think it's pretty late. I think I'm done. Just thanks everyone for all the work you've done.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. All right. Annemarie?
[Anna Maria]: Can I just ask the question? Because I wasn't sure. Are you still going to be taking names of Italian people or people in history with Italian names? Or is that off the table?
[Lungo-Koehn]: No, yes. Yes, we will be.
[Anna Maria]: OK.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Absolutely.
[Anna Maria]: All right, and then what I do ask is that, you know, for some people it's the name, for some people it's what it represents and doesn't represent, and some people believe certain readings that they have read, some have other opinions, but really keep in mind, you know, it's about culture, it's about history, it's about, yes, it's about Italians that did come into the community, and didn't make, made a lot of sacrifices. And I am an Italian, I understand exactly what the, just, you know, diversity is and all of that. But if it's not about the Italian name, and that's what I've been hearing tonight, then I really recommend that an Italian name be selected, because it feels as an Italian American, and I truly, believe this is that it's wiping out a lot of what you know the community stood for, and I understand about the change. I know about the diversity. I know about progress, but If it seems like we've been asking all night to postpone or whatever, and even though people have listened, they haven't heard, and people are gonna get upset that I said that, but at least listen to the fact that we do have more than just a name attached to that. There's a lot more that, and I don't mean to be disrespectful, but there's a lot more that maybe people are not aware of. that maybe if they ask the people that live in the city and has doesn't have to be, you don't have to be here your whole life, you don't have to be here 10 months, you don't have to be here a week. I'm just saying listen, and really understand. It's not just about a name.
[SPEAKER_40]: Thank you. Nadine.
[Moretti]: Thank you, Mayor. I just want to know, why aren't you honoring, not you specifically, sorry, why aren't you honoring the length of the original deadlines in that first resolution? I mean, I know COVID has made it difficult in many ways, but what is the issue with lengthening the whole process? I'm just curious.
[Lungo-Koehn]: If anyone knows. I can let the committee speak. I mean, one reason is the children go back to school in September. So having the name changed prior to the new school year, the process started June, 2020, but I'll let the member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Yeah, I think that I would add to that. Yeah, the process started June, 2020 that we've had, you know, several committee meetings, several hours coming into the, you know, midnight out passing the midnight hour tonight and several conversations. And I think that there are people in the community that are just going to have to get to the point where we can agree to disagree and be able to move forward. And I think the timeline is important to continue the process and progress in our city and to give our children and families who have had struggles with this name for some time, some relief and to be able to stick to what we had said we would do for a deadline.
[Muzo]: Um, Seth.
[Hill]: Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to mention that the Tooth Fairy in our house actually leaves notes on occasion. So, you know, that might be something that you might want to take advantage of tonight from middle management.
[Clerk]: Thank you.
[Hill]: Yes.
[Clerk]: Good idea. Good idea.
[Hill]: I want to do just issues that have been going on in this year. I am happy that tomorrow morning when Ellie wakes up that I will be able to let her know that there will be a new name that will be that her school will be referred to and that there might even be some way of having her participate in that process. So thanks again. Thanks for all of your hard work.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you.
[Hill]: See you, uh, Dr. Kade tomorrow morning. Happy birthday. I think today, right? We'll see her in a few hours.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you.
[Clerk]: Kathy, is it your birthday?
[Hill]: No.
[Ruseau]: Next week.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Next week. Happy birthday, Diane.
[Diane]: Thank you, Mayor in through you. Happy early birthday, and good morning everyone I just wanted to say quickly well first thank you all. I know you know the seats that you sit in. You've chosen to be there, but I. I'm certain you didn't anticipate this particular night going down the way that it did. I thank you all for your commitment. And to the entire community, everybody who's shown up to voice their opinion, we may or may not agree, there's always value in public debate and discourse when it's done respectfully. And sadly, we saw tonight it wasn't consistently. You know, and I couldn't help but think I wish we had just had the foresight to give this decision to the children. I think they would have shown us many lessons on how you get through problem solving. And that's also a shout out to our educators who prepare them. You know, I heard the term this, you know, the term these people shouldn't have an opinion. I heard that tonight. And, again, and I think this is something this is children don't approach their work that way they don't think in these people senses. And that's something that sadly they eventually learn from adults that exclusion. So I think about the students who will sit in these seats, who will protect them. And let's promise them that they will not have to be exposed to the stuff that has gone down here this evening, where our elected officials have been outright disrespected, lied about, and basically blamed for generations of racism that still permeate within this city today. And so I encourage us all to protect them as we put this burden on them and we asked them to engage in this process. Let's make sure that that's equitable. I heard the terms equity, diversity, inclusion tonight. These are not buzzwords. If you do not understand the meaning and cannot connect to those words, please stop using them. There are those of us more qualified, who know what they mean and know how to bring equity forward in our community, and we're here we're not going anywhere we've been here we're not new to this community. So to those. Thank you for the six members who voted in favor of this decision to move forward with this change. We are here to support you. And that's it. We're not going anywhere. So I just, again, want to thank all of the members in the community for their commitment to this work and getting through this work tonight.
[Lisa Evangelista]: Thank you, Diane.
[Diane]: Thank you so much, Lisa. And thank you, Mayor and the members.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so we have a final document. I'd like to make a motion to approve this document. Motion for approval by Member Graham, seconded by
[McLaughlin]: Second.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member McLaughlin, roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Let me get my little handy dandy roll call sheet, please, so I can have this all. Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Kreatz, your volume.
[SPEAKER_59]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin. Yes. Yes. Member McLaughlin. Yes. Member Miss Stone. Yes. Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot.
[Clerk]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: I longer Kern.
[Clerk]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Motion
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion was approved 7-0. Motion to adjourn by Member McLaughlin, seconded by?
[SPEAKER_59]: Vanderclute.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Vanderclute, roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham?
[Graham]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz?
[Clerk]: Kathy?
[McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz?
[McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau.
[SPEAKER_64]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Van de Kloop. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Dr. Cushing, you ready?
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