[Kreatz]: Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order suspended certain provisions of the Open Meeting Law, Chapter 30A, Section 18, and then Governor's March 15, 2020 order imposing strict limitations of the number of people that may gather in one place, this meeting of the Medford School Committee will be conducted via remote participation to the greatest extent possible. Specific information on the general guidelines for remote participation by members of the public and or parties with the right and a requirement to attend this meeting can be found on the city of Medford website at www.medfordma.org. For this meeting, members of the public who wish to listen or watch the meeting may do so by accessing the meeting link contained herein. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. In the event that we aren't able to do so, despite best efforts, we will post in the city of Medford and Medford community media websites and audio or video recording transcript to other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting. Additionally, questions or comments can be submitted during the meeting by emailing medfordsc at medford.k12.ma.us. Those submitting must include the following information, your first and last name, your Medford street address, your question or comment. You can call in by using the phone number 1-929-205-6099. Enter meeting ID 988-5234-6189 when prompted. If you could take the roll, member McLaughlin, please. Member Graham. Here. Member Kreatz. Here.
[McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin. Member Mustone. Here. Member Ruseau.
[Murphy]: Here.
[McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Van der Kloot, if you just unmute yourself, please. Present.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Present. 7 present, 0 absent. If we all may rise to salute the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We have negotiations and legal matters and executive session. Executive session of the Medford School Committee pursuant to General Law 30A, Section 21A. In preparation for negotiations with non-union personnel, specifically the negotiation process involving the superintendent's individual employment agreement, the Medford School Committee will reconvene in public session following the executive session.
[McLaughlin]: Is there a- Move to executive session.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Move to executive session, seconded by member Rousseau. Roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone.
[Van der Kloot]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot? Yes. Mayor Longo-Curran?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, I'm in the affirmative. Zero in the negative. We are going to go into executive session and revert out as soon as possible. We are exiting our executive session meeting. We are a couple minutes late, but pretty good for time, 637. We are recording. We already took the roll and saluted the flag. And if I may just take a moment, I just want to recognize that there are often topics that are controversial in nature. that many have opinions, strong opinions, one way or another. I respect that. I respect respectful dialogue and debate. But what happened last Wednesday, which was obviously a topic of contention, the insults and the name calling, even after I had asked for people to be respectful, will not be tolerated. If somebody uses or calls another person on the Zoom or a member of the admin or a member of the school committee or vice versa, a name or is insulting, you will be muted and you will not be allowed to speak for the rest of the meeting. If any of my colleagues object, please let me know at the time. And I'll ask Dr. Cushing if he can also monitor that because insults and disrespect name calling will not be tolerated. Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. And can I also ask that in following Robert's rules of orders that anyone that is addressing any member of the committee speaks through the chair. So again, that's Robert's rules. The requirement is that you speak to the chair. We do not speak directly to members. Thank you. Less personal. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, through the chair and name and address will be taken for the record. name and address before you speak, please. And that will be for this school committee meeting, and we will follow those rules for every school committee moving forward. Next up, we have approval of minutes. That was the March 8th, 2021 school committee meeting, our regular meeting. If there is a motion for approval.
[McLaughlin]: Motion to approve.
[Lungo-Koehn]: By member McLaughlin, seconded by member Van der Kloot, roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Randeclute?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. The minutes from the March 8th, 2021 meeting have been approved. Number four, approval of bills, transfer of funds, and approval of payrolls. Motion of approval. Motion for approval by member Bandiclute, seconded by member Kreatz. Roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Bandiclute.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Milonga Kern.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, seven of the affirmative, zero in the negative. Bills and approval of payrolls has been approved. Is there a report of secretary?
[McLaughlin]: No, there is no report of secretary, thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Next up, we have number six, report of committees. First up, member Kreatz, you're the chair of the building and ground subcommittee meeting, which took place on March 3rd, 2021.
[Kreatz]: Yes, I read the minutes, I read the abbreviated minutes at the last meeting, and for some reason, I forgot to motion to approve the minutes. We did take a vote on what we voted on during the meeting, and it just flipped my mind. So I'm making a motion to approve the minutes. Second.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Approval seconded by Member McLaughlin. Roll call, please.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. 7 in the affirmative, 0 in the negative. Nits are approved. Number two, chair is member Paulette van de Kloot for the curriculum subcommittee meeting held on March 10th, 2021. If you could give a brief synopsis.
[Van der Kloot]: Mayor, I'm gonna ask if you could just skip to the next item of business and take this up last. I'm switching back and forth, because I also have community participation letters, and so I'm not quite ready. So if you could just do some of the other subcommittees first, I'd appreciate it.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, number three, committee of the whole meeting, March 10th, 2021. That was myself. That was our meeting.
[Ruseau]: Mayor?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: I'd like to motion to table this. It was a very, very, very long set of minutes for a long meeting, and I need more time to digest the minutes.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion to table by Member Ruseau, seconded by... Second. Member Graham, roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin. Yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor Long-O'Karn.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Number three is tabled. Number four, we have personnel and budget subcommittee meeting March 16th, 2021. Chair of that committee is Member Mustone.
[Mustone]: Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, everyone. Our personnel and budget committee, we had member Van der Kloot and member Kreatz present, and our assistant superintendent, Mr. Murray, shared our dates for the upcoming budget. So I don't know if we can screen share the dates so people can see. And Mr. Murphy, I'm sorry, Collins teachers, Mr. David Murray, and you have Mr. David Murphy. I always confuse the two of you. No problem at all.
[Murphy]: It's an honor to be associated with a teacher in the public schools.
[Mustone]: So we went through the dates in the process for budget season, which will be upon us sooner than later. And this is just for people to make notes of when they would like to tune in. We have not set an exact time yet, just waiting for everyone's schedules to be consolidated so we can see what time is best. Mr. Murphy, I don't know if you have anything to add about under each topic. they encompass more than everything that's listed.
[Murphy]: Right, so these are the umbrella topics. And so particularly for some of those in the later part of this, the special education and central office and whatnot, those will incorporate a number of departments in which that will be highlighted as part of the budget process. With regard to the start times where there are other forums and community meetings that are being held within this time frame. And so we're just holding off a little bit on the scheduling, but they'll generally be evening meetings. So for members of the community that intend to participate, they can expect that the start times will be sometime between 5.30 p.m. and 7.30 p.m., depending on what else is scheduled for that night. It'll also probably depend on, some of them may be two hours, some of them may be an hour. And so we'll try to, we'll provide as much specificity in advance as possible, so folks can be sure to attend and or participate as they see fit.
[Mustone]: Thank you. Member McLaughlin, I'm not sure if I call on you because it's the building subcommittee, or Maya, do you call on Member McLaughlin? Member McLaughlin, sorry, Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you for sharing this. I just wanted to say to members of the community that it's really worth and worthwhile and interesting to come to these budget hearings if you really want to understand the sort of behind the scenes machinations of how things are decided and in what way things are funded. So I really encourage participation for folks who want a clear understanding of what is being funded in our schools and how. Thank you, Member Mustone.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Thank you. Motion for approval of the minutes.
[Unidentified]: Motion for approval.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Graham.
[Graham]: Before we color. Thank you. Yeah, I just had a quick question. When, when I was reading the minutes, I did not see reference to the question that we posed last year around What items that are not part of the budget would improve student outcomes. And I want to make sure that the departments provide that information to us again this year so that we can start to compare that list year over year and make sure that we can issue a similar memo to the community about sort of where that funding landed. Was that part of the discussion or can it be included in the budget?
[Murphy]: Certainly can be included in the presentation. You mean essentially the priorities that are not necessarily part of the superintendent's recommendation to the school committee, but would in the view of various administrators be impactful with regard to student outcomes?
[Graham]: Yes, I can send you the working documents that we used last year if that's helpful.
[Murphy]: Sure, I assume that the June 29 memo was the culmination of that discussion, correct?
[Graham]: Yeah, I have a spreadsheet that I can send your way, though, that's able to be manipulated.
[Murphy]: Sure.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member McLaughlin, Member Ruseau?
[McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. And Mr. Murphy, I just wanted to say thank you for the flow chart that I know that you're revising. So if we could maybe have that for the next meeting, that would be really helpful. Would that be okay?
[Ruseau]: Sure.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you. Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. Last year, we did have a motion to require this as part of the budget, but it was new. Do we feel we need a motion or will it just be coming? I don't wanna get to one of these presentations that a department has worked hard on, And then there isn't this list, because I just don't want us to be in that situation. So I just want to hear somebody in central administration say you will get the list like you did last year or better. if that's something.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Yes, we will. We will use a very similar format to what happened last year. So, um, I would say you should expect it from every department. The department heads have already been told that we're going to be following a similar format to what we did last year.
[Ruseau]: Thank you so much.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion to approve the minutes by member McLaughlin, seconded by member Miss Stone. I second. Committee roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Excuse me, Member Graham?
[McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor Long-Klein?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Minutes are approved. Number five, special education behavioral health subcommittee meeting, March 18th, 2021, offered by Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Yes. Thank you, Mayor. We met on March 18th. As people may know, we divide the meetings 45 minutes each. One topic is behavioral health and specifically trauma-informed schools. And then the latter half of the meeting is special education specifically. building friendships in school and community among individuals with and without disabilities. And then we swap the order each month. So this month behavioral health was first. And the question that we really were asking our director of guidance Stacey Shulman in this meeting was, how are we addressing the social emotional needs of our students and families as we are having a return to school to full, you know, full in-person school and remote for those who choose to have remote. And so Stacey shared with us that there's increased group counseling, there's pushing counseling in some classes, supportive groups in middle school, more individual in sixth grade. We did talk with some parents that were in the meeting that were really concerned about the social emotional needs of our children, especially as compared to academic recruitment. And people are feeling like, social emotional needs to be addressed in order for academic recruitment to even begin to happen. And so Ms. Schulman shared that the Sandy Hook Promise campaign is starting up again and Medford has signed on to that. And that's a program that we've had in the past and their slogan is start with hello. It begins in the first week of April, I believe in the middle schools. We asked that families or school committee members be invited to see what that actually looks like, the Sandy Hook Promise Campaign. And there were some more comments about like just what is it gonna look like for our kids being overwhelmed? What about kids who have anxiety in the six feet to three feet? How are we addressing this? Stacey talked about group for anxiety. There were families, specifically a parent who is a licensed social worker as well. has been really committed to these meetings and she was just really sharing as the parent of two students currently in the Medford public schools and you know sort of as a message that she's been hearing from a lot of students and families is the real need for for our children to have some social interaction, our students have some social interaction with each other. And how can we do that? Like, you know, what are the opportunities, whether it's, you know, being able to go for a hike in the fells as a group or, you know, teaching on the field or, you know, and we had one day, I guess, last week of not having homework and, you know, just sort of thinking about what their social and emotional needs are. And next month we will be doing, we'll be reviewing what policy recommendations the subcommittee wants to make for our May presentation. So there was also, you know, rethinking homework was another question around sort of, again, this these these academic requirements when people are still trying to catch up to the social emotional so that was the crux of the behavioral health and then building friendships and community in schools. We talked with Susanna Campbell, who is the Director of Speech and Language and who has built a really great reserve with our colleagues of resources on Google Doc around social stories for families and teachers and others to use in returning to school, social stories for a number of different situations and books and what have you. So anyone interested in the link to that Google Doc can reach out to That Google folder I'm sure can reach out to Susanna Campbell and she's also partnering at our request or collaborating, I should say, with Paul Teixeira from our Director of English Language to work on identifying social stories that can be translated into other languages for students that need those. So that was really exciting. I was happy about that opportunity. We talked about the Universal Safety Committee website. This is the website we're talking about on the social stories. Update on Common Ground. We're hoping to expand the Common Ground program that's at the high school to build friendships. Among students with and without disabilities. It's a proven program that's existed at the high school would like to see it expand or they would like you know the committee wants is interested in seeing expand to an elective, and we're exploring options on what that might look like. CCSR is having a disability awareness focus on the 27th, April 27th. Historically, the diversity week for Medford public schools has not included disability, interestingly. So this is the first year that disability will be included in diversity week and we think that that's a really important note not to point out what hasn't been done but to remind people that disability is diversity and that obviously they should be included in any conversation around diversity. And then an update on Medford Recreation, there was conversation around adaptive versus inclusive programming and right now we're really happy that we're starting to see some adaptive programming at the recreation level And again, there was discussion about what peer-to-peer relationships look like and that they're horizontal, not vertical. And adaptive programs, it's often the individual with disability being served by the peer as opposed to having a unique and authentic relationship with them. So we're eager and looking forward to helping Medford Recreation with the support of community members and stakeholders that attend these meetings and others to move into adaptive and inclusive programming. And then we did an update on the inclusive playground. So for folks who are not aware, there's a playground restructure that will be happening at the McGlynn Elementary School Playground, which is a central location in the city and accessible to many members of our community outside of just our school community at the McGlynn. So that playground is being restructured with a real eye towards inclusive play space and expertise in that. And so we're lucky we have some community members that offer unique expertise in that area, and we're excited to move that project forward. So our next meeting is Thursday, April 15th, where we'll be talking about policy recommendations, and the following meeting is May 20th. So April 15th, we hope you'll join us, 5 to 6.30, and obviously these will be posted online. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you very much, Member McLaughlin. Is there a motion on the floor to accept the minutes? Motion to accept the minutes. Member Van der Kloot, seconded by Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Second.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Roll call, please.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: May I long go, Karin?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. The minutes are approved. Member Van der Kloot, would you like to table yours until the end of the meeting or till next meeting?
[Van der Kloot]: I would actually like to table them to the next meeting. I see that Dr. Quilles' report, a link wasn't provided. And the discussion will make much more sense with that link. So I'm going to talk to, we'll figure it out by the next meeting.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Sounds great. Motion to table number two till the meeting on April 12th by member of Van der Kloot seconded by second member Graham roll call, please.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Seven the affirmative, zero in the negative. Meeting minutes are tabled. Number seven, we have community participation, public participation emails, yes. I have several emails on that. Okay, let me just read this and then you can... Yeah, sorry. Public participation emails, questions or comments can be submitted during the meeting by emailing medfordsc at medford.k12.ma.us. Those submitting must include the following information, your first and last name, your Medford Street address, your question or comment. Member Van der Kloot.
[Graham]: Before member bandicoot reads the participation, can I ask that you read our policy on public participation so that the folks who are planning to participate know how to do so in a manner that's consistent with our own rules?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Do you want to screen share that?
[Graham]: I'm happy to read it. Maybe we should just start posting it right on the agenda. Our policy states that any citizen in the audience may be given permission to speak once at a school committee meeting regarding any item on the agenda for up to three minutes on any one item, a community participation portion of the agenda. will be established which will give any citizen the privilege of placing any item before the school committee or be heard on any item. Any item to be presented must be submitted in writing to the superintendent of schools by Wednesday noon prior to the scheduled meeting with a maximum of five minutes allowed for any one presentation.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Member Graham. Member Van der Kloot?
[McLaughlin]: sure.
[Lungo-Koehn]: So offline before you sorry. Remember, we had a group member will often do have something to say.
[McLaughlin]: Yeah, just as a just a clarification on that, having attended previous meetings again before I was elected and also looking into the policy. I just want to clarify for folks that five minutes that is presented as a request and public participation in our minutes the Wednesday before the meeting, but you can If you have not submitted a request for public participation, you can speak on any topic for up to three minutes one time, just for clarification, because I don't want people to think that if you didn't submit a request for public participation the Wednesday before the meeting that you cannot participate. It's just if you want more minutes to speak about something in particular, you would submit that the Wednesday before. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Member Van de Gloot.
[Van der Kloot]: Yes, Mayor, we received six communications. The first one is entitled Info Request for Advisory Committee Columbus School. It was submitted by Luchita Hiller, 58 Metcalf Street, Medford. She says, hi, I am trying to find information on how to apply for the advisory committee in charge of picking the new names to replace existing Columbus school name and how to submit new name nominations. I have been looking through the MPS website and could not find anything. Can you direct me to the right place where this information lives? Thank you. Would someone like to address that?
[Murphy]: My understanding is it was on one of the front tabs, but it certainly will be by the end of the night if it's not now. And we'll also recirculate it to both all families and all staff on the same announcement that has the links in the document as well. So we'll make sure that it's, I think it's already out, but we'll make sure that it is.
[Van der Kloot]: Thank you. So the next letters, there's five letters and they're all on the same topic. I'll read one from the first one that was submitted on this topic was from Sharon Hayes of 69 Ripley Road and then I'll tell you who submitted the other ones. It says, dear superintendent and school committee members, I am writing to you as a parent of two elementary school children who are currently enrolled in the full remote learning at the Roberts and who will remain in remote learning for the rest of the school year. I am very concerned that the students who plan to remain in the remote classes not be subjected to additional changes due to the April 5th shift to full-time in-person learning for the current hybrid students. The remote teachers have spent the last six plus months working hard to create a classroom community and new daily routines in virtual learning. While both of my boys are struggling with the virtual aspect of virtual learning, they love being a part of the classroom community and seeing the same classmates and teacher every day. And as a parent, I know that the classroom routines keep them feeling grounded and secure. If any of these things are changed now with less than a third of the year remaining, if students are regrouped and put with different classmates and or a new teacher, it will cause yet another major disruption in the lives of young children who are still living through an intensely difficult and traumatizing event. Please do not make changes to the remote learning classrooms between now and the end of the school year." That sentiment was shared and we received a email from Arshia Amina of 37 Ashland Street, from Shanine Pelequin, she did not give an address, of Michelle Ciccolo of 28 Douglas Road, of Wynette Vo, Um, also no address and of Claire Flaherty of Marshall Street. Um, all of those, these centers, uh, echoed the same concerns of the first letter, um, about remote learning.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Member Van der Kloot. Member McLaughlin?
[McLaughlin]: Um, yes. I also just sort of wanted to mention that hearing from folks in the community as well, I know that we've heard in the past that, um, our remote families sometimes feel left out or excluded. And I'm sure that's a byproduct of also, you know, being at home. And so that I think we need to make that extra effort to make sure that they feel involved and included. And so I guess the other question is that, you know, are the students, again, around consistency, are the students' teachers gonna stay the same, which is, you know, I think important for our students. And, you know, whether there's going to be what the homework situation is going to be with more kids going into school so for the remote learners a lot of stuff has been able to be done during the day in the classroom and you know if they're getting more computer time at night it can be really problematic so wondering about that consistency as well, thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Mayor. Yes, Member van de Kloot.
[Van der Kloot]: May I ask, Superintendent, are you going to address this this evening?
[Edouard-Vincent]: I am going to be speaking to it in my remarks. Okay. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, great. Thank you very much. Which is next up, actually. So, number eight, report of Superintendent. Number one, Superintendent's updates and comments. Dr. Edward-Vincent.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Good evening. As I mentioned in my Friday message, I have mentioned many times before that we all have a duty to stand up against all forms of racism. Tonight, I wanna make it clear that the Medford Public Schools stands with our Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. Last Tuesday, in three separate shootings in Atlanta, eight Asian women were killed. We are keeping all those affected by this senseless tragedy in our prayers. Additionally, we have heard stories of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders being both harassed and abused throughout our country. This is both frightening and disgraceful. Our district is committed to doing the work to create equity, inclusivity, and belonging for all in our community. It is my hope that we can all come together and join Mayor Lungo-Koehn, the Board of Health, Medford's Human Rights Commission, the Medford Police Department, and the schools as we participate in a community conversation entitled racism is a public health crisis. What does this mean? And how can the city address this crisis? It will be held on Wednesday, April 7th, from six to 8 p.m. via Zoom. I applaud the mayor, Chief Buckley, Mary Ann O'Connor, and our diversity director, Mr. Neil Osborne, for organizing this crucial conversation. we support hashtag stop Asian hate, hashtag support AAPI, Asian American and Pacific Islanders. On March 10th, the school committee held a committee of the whole with the goal of launching the Columbus Elementary School Renaming Advisory Committee, which will review all suggestions for a new name for the school. While the task of creating the committee was accomplished, the means by which this was achieved was painful at times. Some conversations in the meeting involved angry and derogatory language. I know that the decision to change the name of the Columbus School is a controversial one, and especially upsetting to many long-term residents of Medford. However, Unprofessional and unkind statements were not the positive displays of civic discourse. We should be modeling for our children. I am hopeful that we can work together as one Medford to be better to each other and to overcome our disagreements constructively and considerably. The renaming committee will select three finalists for consideration by the school committee who will vote on the new name sometime in the late spring of 2021. Interested parties who may want to apply to serve on the renaming committee can access an application on our website, the city's website, our blog, Facebook, and Twitter. For those who just want to suggest a new name, you may do so by completing that form on the website. All applications to serve on the renaming committee and any submissions for suggested new names must be forwarded to my office by 5 p.m. on Friday, April 16th, 2021. Changing topics. I am pleased to announce that Ed Week, a school-based national publication, contacted our public relations office seeking input for their article entitled, Should Schools Test Students and Staff for COVID-19? Medford has truly been a leader in this arena. allowing us to bring students back into our schools sooner than most of our surrounding districts. We could not have done this without the help and support of the City of Medford, Tufts University, and the Broad Institute. Both our assistant superintendent, David Murphy, and our director of health services, nurse Toni Wray, were quoted in the article and photos were taken of elementary students being tested at the McGlynn Middle School. The Mustangs are certainly leading the charge to protect our students and staff in order to bring our students back safely to in-school learning. I would like to take this opportunity to extend my sincere thanks to our students, staff, and parents and guardians and our school committee members for actively taking part in our listening sessions regarding school during COVID-19. When we planned these sessions, we did not yet know that the Massachusetts Education Commissioner would soon issue a statement mandating that districts abandoned the hybrid learning model, therefore increasing in-person learning for all students. This declaration has created some confusion for families. Remote students are able to remain remote students but we know that there will be a small number of families who wish to switch models and have their students transfer from remote to in-person instruction. The deadline for making that switch is this Friday, March 26th. We currently have approximately 575 students who are fully remote at the elementary levels. As of this morning, we have received 61 requests from families that would like to participate in in-person instruction. Please do not miss this deadline of this Friday to notify us of your decision at the elementary levels. I would like to provide some greater clarification. I reached out personally to the Commissioner of Education to ensure that Medford is properly following the guidance from DESE. This week, March 22nd, we have invited our younger elementary students, both kindergarten and grade one hybrid students. They have increased their in-school time to four days a week. Next week, our second and third grade students will increase their in-school learning time to four days a week. Please note that all elementary students switching from remote to in-person will return on Monday, April 5th. Again, all fully remote families that have selected to return to in-person instruction will return to school for five days of full instruction starting on Monday, April 5th. Next week, principals will be reaching out to families to notify them about their child's assignment for the week of April 5th. The principals will be reaching out specifically to students that were formerly in the fully remote model to set up that scheduling. So in order to mitigate the impact of additional students from our remote cohorts, we do require extra planning time to make this happen as seamlessly as possible. And in speaking with the Commissioner and explaining to him what Medford is doing to meet the deadline of April 5th, we are following the guidance that was provided by the Department of, by DESE, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Transitioning, I would like to let the community know about some important events that are happening soon. The emergency preparedness Zoom presentation will be held this Wednesday, March 24th, from 6 to 8 p.m. This presentation is being hosted by the Massachusetts Office on Disability and the Department of Homeland Security, and supported by the Medford Public Schools Universal Safety Committee, the Medford Special Education PAC, the Medford Family Network, the Medford Fire and Police Departments, and the City of Medford's Disability Commission. This presentation will better inform our most vulnerable citizens to be best prepared to respond to an evacuation or shelter in place. We hope you can join us. CCSR has planned An April Fool's run between April 1st and April 3rd. CCSR is encouraging students to dress in costume and tag them on social media. Donations are encouraged, but 100% optional. Please plan to wear a mask while running. Stay six feet apart from others and do not run in large groups. Additional information can be found on CCSR's website and the school blog. Next week, we will be posting an agenda for the Medford Public Schools strategic planning roundtables, which will be held on Monday, April 5th and Tuesday, April 6th. This will provide an opportunity for the public to comment on the school's draft strategic plan and the draft strategic plan that the administration and staff have been working on for the past year. We hope you can join in with us on either April 5th or 6th via Zoom. This Saturday, March 27th, the Citywide Elementary Alliance is hosting an electronics recycling drive from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. behind the McGlynn School. For a small fee, they will be collecting TVs, computer monitors, fax machines, cell phones, and other battery-operated or electric equipment. please support the Citywide Elementary Alliance. I would also like to invite any college students or others in our community who might be interested in part-time work to join our after-school program team. We are hiring Councilors right now. You can find the application on our human resources page on the website. These positions will help us as we are transitioning to five days a week. So lastly, I would like to say, before our next school committee meeting on April 12th, we have many people in the community who will be celebrating Passover and Easter. For our Jewish friends, Passover begins on Saturday, March 27th. Holy week is next week for Christians. and Easter or Resurrection Sunday is on April 4th. For those of you who celebrate these holy days, I wish you peace and happiness with your families. Happy spring to everyone.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Dr. Edward-Vincent. We have Member McLaughlin, Member Ruseau, then Member Van der Kloot.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Edward-Vincent, for that thorough update. I also wanna just thank you for the example that you set around testing and for being part of Ed Week, which is such a great magazine. And it's exciting to see Medford highlighted in that way for positive exposure and no pun intended for positive exposure in the media. And then I also just wanted to add for the emergency preparedness event that is Wednesday at six o'clock that is being hosted by the Universal Safety Committee Although it is being presented by the Mass Office on Disability, to be clear, it is open and available for everyone. It's emergency preparedness in all situations for anyone, for example, with young children, elderly parents or grandparents, individuals with disabilities, any of those needs. We found it exceptional in the past, and everyone that has gone to it has been really impressed and moved by it in terms of their own preparation in terms of emergencies. And if the pandemic has taught us anything, the importance of being prepared. So thank you for sharing that information.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. That was a good update. Excellent update. It was a lot of topics in that particular update. I thought you were done several times. I actually just have one question, and I feel like it's a question you may not actually be able to answer with certainty at this point. But we had a, you know, when we first went into the school year, we had a few classes that were frankly oversubscribed. And you know, that that was worked out. However, it needed to be worked out. But there was also a class that had some rather extensive turnover of teachers at one of the schools. And I just, I'm looking for a commitment that no remote students will be looking at a different teacher in the elementary level. Cause I don't think it's really an issue for the middle and high school level because the hybrid and the remote students have already been mixed together. But I just want to hear, and I think some families that are staying full remote want to know there is a 0% chance or you're committed to not changing their teachers, that they've finally figured out how to have a relationship with. And even if that means they have a really small class, the logistics, as you mentioned, are pretty mind boggling. But I feel like, as another member mentioned earlier, there's a general feeling that the remote kids, not by you, but just because they're remote. There's a lot of people who felt like they were an afterthought and to have any kind of turmoil or change in their schedules should just be an absolute no go. And I just want to hear you say that.
[Edouard-Vincent]: I cannot definitively say that there will be a no go. I think, especially in getting guidance directly from the Commissioner and the Assistant Commissioner over the weekend and up until this morning. In some situations where a classroom could potentially, and again, not having all the numbers, which was the reason why I wanted to present the elementary numbers, approximately 575 students at the elementary level that are fully remote. And as of this morning, 61 students or 61 families have opted to transition from fully remote to in-person. But we're not sure of what the numbers are going to be by Friday. So if in the event that we were to end up with 250, 300 parents that are fully remote that end up stating they want to become fully in person. I don't think the numbers would be that high, but if something like that were to happen, we would then be in a position to not be able to operationalize it. We have a lot of constraints with how many students can fit in a classroom, what's the total amount of students. Even with merging right now, looking at the numbers, our current hybrid classrooms. So I don't want to say that it would never happen. In some schools, there's significantly higher enrollment. So you could have a school that may have 14 or 15 students and another class in another building may have 23 students or 24 students. And so when you collapse and put the two hybrid classes together, you come up with a class size and looking at the square footage, respecting the three feet of distance right now and making sure that the students fit and that we're following all of the guidelines that need to be followed. I would not wanna say that it would never happen. And also, we have another situation where you could have at a particular grade level that may have 16 or 17 students and 14 or 15 of them are requesting to come back to participate in full in-person instruction. Those are the kinds of pieces of data and looking at the numbers that we have to be able to figure out. Total number of students, capacity within the given classrooms, and who the instructors are going to actually be. In the case of the example that you quoted, Mr. Russo, about one of our schools that was oversubscribed and we ended up adding two teachers. So we don't have a classroom space that would be able to accommodate 30 students at the elementary levels per se. And so for something like that, we would have to uncouple and figure out if we had 15 of the 30 students request in-person instruction, And there were two teachers who were working cooperatively with a group of students. If 15 of the 30 wanted to return, then we would need to ask for one of the two teachers, one would remain remote and one would physically come on campus because to be able to accommodate 15 potentially remote students all at the same exact grade level, and the hybrid classrooms that have already been merged are near capacity, there wouldn't be any room. we would then be out of compliance because we would have too many students in one particular space. So that is not operationally, it's a lot of work that it's gonna require. And we are working on that and looking carefully at the numbers that are coming in. And our priority is always the students, but we also are now working with The guidance from DESE, and again, as I said, I reached directly out to the commissioner to receive clarification and greater understanding so that I am conveying accurate information that I received up until today. In all circumstances, yes, we are going to try to not disrupt, but to guarantee you know 100% that that isn't that that would not happen in a possibility of a few cases where we have. larger numbers of students that would not be able to fit into a given classroom, then I would be not honest. And then we would be having a conversation where you would say, on March 22, you said to us, this would never happen. And it happened in three situations. In the spirit of full disclosure and transparency. We are closely monitoring kindergarten and third grade in two elementary school buildings right now. Closely monitoring those rooms because we are perilously close to maximum capacity. And all the principals met this morning with assistant superintendent Galusi And we are closely monitoring those numbers, but we did give families the opportunity until March this Friday, March 26, to give us their final response. And so wanting to communicate frequently, being fair, and letting families know if we're going to make this work, keeping safety, equity, and consistency as our priorities, then depending on the numbers, we may have to, in some situations, make an adjustment. So I want you to know that we're not trying to disrupt or pull someone away, but we're watching kindergarten. We're closely watching third grade. Unfortunately, those are the two grade levels where it seems like thus far we've had the most movement and we do not want to deny families the opportunity to come back for in-person instruction as that was a mandate given to all districts by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. So I want you to know we will do our best to not disrupt but we're closely monitoring the numbers and we are not sure what the final count will be on this Friday.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. I just, you know, Senator Jalen, our state senator from Medford emailed, I think all of the school committee and asked us, you know, to respond really to the DESE guidance. Cause I think the legislature was considering whether or not they needed to sort of take emergency action. And my sense is that that is not going to happen. But I said something that I think is really important to just say, and that is that we are taking a moderately bad situation for everybody, and we're gonna make it better for some kids at the expense of other kids. And that's exactly what will happen to any kid whose teacher is changed at the elementary level. And I just think it's an unconscionable, frankly, if we can take fully remote kids and fit them in, we should. And I think the principals and teachers should prioritize them based on the individual children and the situations. But to take away a teacher from another student who's fully remote, it's unconscionable to me. And I recognize that we didn't vote on it. We don't get to vote on it. The commissioner is apparently literally with godlike powers at this point. But I just needed to say that it's really, it's disturbing is an understatement that we will take away something from kids to give them to other kids in the middle of a pandemic like this. It's just, I just can't, it's awful. Thank you.
[Van der Kloot]: Member Van der Kloot. Yes, I would raise my hand also to express my concerns that it seems like we've made a commitment to our remote kids and it doesn't seem fair to all of a sudden put them in a predicament, though I hear what you're telling us, Superintendent. I think probably right now it makes most sense to turn to the community members who've had their hands raised for quite a long time.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, Member Graham, then Ms. Galussi, then we're gonna go to the community members.
[Graham]: Thank you. I just wanna... make sure that you are aware, Superintendent, that over the last couple of days, I know I have received reports, other members of the school committee may have as well, that this individualized choice is sort of turning into a peer pressure situation of its own amongst parents, particularly in the remote classrooms. There are families out there that are really concerned that want to stay remote and do feel that they are being pressured by other members of the community. So I don't know how you deal with that, but I guess I would just ask that you take special care to ask the families who indicate that they're willing or that they want to or that they need to just exactly what is driving their decision so that we can be sure we're doing right by those children and not that their parents feel that they are being pressured by anybody, and I don't at all think that the administration is doing this, but it is happening in our community. I've heard about it on multiple occasions at this point. And I just wanna be unequivocally clear that it's my position that there's really no circumstance where this is best for kids who choose to stay remote. Consistency for them in April is that they get to keep their teacher because they're not making a change. if there are children out there who are making a change because that is what they want to do, we've clearly laid out, thank you very much for that, the stipulations of what that change could mean. And I would ask that you exhaust every and all options before you would consider changing the teacher in April of even one remote student at the elementary school level. I just, I can't, I can't, I can't fathom how we can talk about consistency and then involuntarily change a student's teacher. Having said that, I appreciate the operational conundrum and dilemma that this causes. And if you need to call an emergency meeting because you need funding allocations or something to make something different work, so that we can preserve consistency and equity for the remote students. I will make myself available any time of the day or night to do so.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Thank you, member Graham. I do want to say that I did mean to mention that the Medford Public Schools also does not support bullying of other parents in any way, shape or form. I was made aware that people were feeling pressured. So I wanna say to the community, I have spoken with the commissioner over the weekend and again today and the assistant commissioner. And I can say that the two options that DESE is offering is full in-person and remote instruction. If there are families that want to remain in the remote option for their personal reasons, medical reasons, that they have selected the remote option, the remote option is still intact. So if any family received misinformation from people bullying them or coercing them to switch models. We, in fact, are not coercing anyone. And that was why, again, I wanted to share the actual data that we have approximately 575 fully remote students. And as of today, 61 families requested a change. Again, we can definitely work with the principals and also have the principals confirm and follow up with those families to make sure that they didn't feel like they were coerced into making a decision that they weren't prepared to make. Ms. Galusi?
[Galusi]: I just wanted to follow up on the superintendent's comments just to kind of mentioned at the beginning, you know, Jesse's guidance was for districts to give another survey. We are always guided by what is best for students, even though sometimes some people may feel that. Maybe that's not at the core, but that really is at the core of what we're doing, which is why we're making this a very personal decision. So we want the conversation to be held at the principal level, not in a simple black and white survey. This way conversations can happen so that the principals can assure that parents are not feeling bullied or pressured into making the decision. There is not a petition that's being given to the principal. It is a one-on-one conversation. We also know that two-thirds or even a little bit more than two-thirds of the year have already passed where students have built positive rapports with their teacher. We do not want to disrupt that rapport. In my meeting today with the principals, as of right now, we're able to absorb it. It is really in just an extreme situation that the superintendent just has to put that. But at this point, we're hopefully able to absorb that. But I just wanted to say that this is part of why we're making sure that principals are having the conversations. In my meeting today with them, they're already starting to plan for the 61 that have put requests in, and those meetings will be set up for next week. But I just really wanted to reiterate that. I'm not quite sure if Mr. Murphy wants to add, since Ms. Graham mentioned the financial piece to that.
[Murphy]: Mayor, if I could just say very quickly, I'm going to be providing a budget update to the committee later in the meeting. One point that I guess I would put out before that is that while I am not at this point anticipating a disproportionate surplus with regard to the close of a fiscal year, I do think we are in a position where if the conundrum that we were faced with was a disproportionate number of students attempting to transition from the remote cohort into in-person learning, we would have the financial capacity to explore adding personnel in a way that should frankly be able to avoid disrupting teachers who are teaching in a fully remote cohort at the elementary level. And so as the superintendent said, it would only be a matter of last resort where the fully remote students would lose their teacher that they've been with throughout the course of this year. And I'll make clear tonight in the budget report, but I'm pretty confident that that would only be in a very, very extreme circumstance. And so I know we don't wanna make any promises or assurances, but given that, and there's a few variables that prevent me from going any further and saying with certainty that it wouldn't be a problem, it's very unlikely that we wouldn't be able to, maybe put it this way, we'd have a bigger challenge just finding prospective educators that we could bring on at this point in the year than we would being able to fund additional positions. And so given that, I think it's unlikely that this is gonna be a problem.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Vanessa, name and address for the record, please.
[SPEAKER_07]: Hi, my name is Vanessa Farsner, previously of cottage street and recently to Barbara lane. I wanted to say first, thank you all and I appreciated the mayor sharing that email address or we can email people I am curious if somebody could put it in the chat because both times it was a little bit too quick and I didn't quite get it. I also appreciated you going over the typical format because now I know that I can email my concern, which I will do later today and ask for more time and hopefully an agenda item at a later meeting. But since I have the floor for this next minute, I just wanted to say that I joined the call today because of an overwhelming frustration with the after-school situation. And I'm sorry if I get emotional, but I am feeling very, very challenged as a working mother. And I know of four families at the Brooks School who are in after-school spots that have able-bodied full-time home parents that do not work. I feel as though the way the system changed to accept students with a simple click of a button on a phone made it so that a different group of people are trying to get into this after school and for school programs that may not have been a challenge in the past because before when you needed it to keep your job, you could get up at five in the morning and go wait in line. And I'm sure that that posed different challenges to different groups of people that probably needed to be solved. But now we're in a situation where families are using this as a play date for their children because they have the means to pay for it to be such and families in situations like my own are left not knowing how we're going to do our jobs and make sure that our children at six years old don't become latchkey kids. And so I pleaded the committee to make this an agenda item at some point. I don't know that it needs more financial resources, maybe just different communication and management. My personal opinion would be to start with a mission statement on why we have a city before and after school program. And that is a child care resource for those who need it. If someone told me that it was full because families of higher need than me were already in, and that it was need-based, and that that's why it was full, then my conversation with you would be, how do we get more spots? But right now we have people using spots that do not need spots. And I find this very, very challenging. Thank you so much for your time.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Vanessa. I reached out to the afterschool director and I know we are actively trying to hire additional personnel to provide additional spots for our students. I don't know if anybody on the call has any other update than that, but that was last week. That's the most recent I received. We are actively trying to hire additional personnel so we can make more room and allow more families to be involved in afterschool program. You have anything else? I know member Ruseau also has a resolution regarding afterschool program. So we can expect an update on this in the near future as well. And next up is Sharon Hayes. just address for the record, please. One second, Sharon, let me get you unmuted. You're good to go?
[Hays]: Yes. Okay, thank you. Sharon Hayes, 69 Ripley Road, and thank you, you did read my email earlier, so I won't talk a lot, I just, would just like to express and I don't know for how many I can't know how many other parents I speak for but as a person who chose a family who chose full remote out of a lot of concerns for the health of our children no no specific medical needs but and we continue to feel that way so we will stay full remote. I am My kids are struggling and I will be clear and honest about that. They are really, really, really struggling. And when we talk about equity, know that not everyone you look at may look like they're struggling. But there are lots of people who are struggling. And when you talk about, well, the numbers may play out that we need to pull a teacher, we can't guarantee that. I totally understand the competing needs that you have to deal with. But the number of things that have changed over the course of the year for my kids in their classroom, I'm at a point where I've really lost trust and faith in the leaders of the school and whether they really apply their equity lens to everybody. Because to change their teachers potentially, change their classrooms, I understand you're saying it would only be in a crisis situation or an emergency or whatever. I feel like we've had a number of those where that's been said and oops, that's what happened. Two months out of the school year, I don't know what we'll do at that point. And my, you know, again, my faith and trust right now is not very strong in how you guys are making the decisions for our kids. So I get it. I get there's multiple things you're doing and it's a hard, I can't even imagine trying to do it, but we're struggling and this just makes it harder. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Ms. Rocha? Three minutes, name and address for the record, please.
[6kKbcFkpEqA_SPEAKER_07]: Hello, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Yes, my name is Leticia Rocha at 3600 Mystic Valley Parkway. So I just have one question. What was the district's rationale in not asking for a waiver from the new DESE guidelines, especially if according to the superintendent, there are buildings or classrooms that are perilously close to capacity?
[Edouard-Vincent]: So the waivers are being distributed in a sparingly being distributed. But the fact that Medford is one of the communities that is providing testing multiple times a week, and we are able to, we're one of the communities that we were able to have students in person. We are really essentially not requiring a waiver at this point in time. When I said perilously close, meaning that we may have classrooms that would have 21 or 22 students. once you collapse the two hybrid sections together. So some classrooms, because of the amount of students that are participating in the remote academy would have lower numbers. So we could have some classrooms that have 15 students and you could have other classrooms that could have 22 or 23 students in person. It just depends on the grade level. So that's what I was referring to.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Dr. Edouard-Vincent. Okay, next up we have number two COVID-19 public health update and Medford Public School COVID-19 testing summary and update. Nurse supervisor, Ms. Toni Ray and Mr. David Murphy.
[Wray]: Good evening, everyone. Thank you for letting us present our information. I'll start first with the city of Medford COVID data. The average daily incidence for rate for positive COVID tests in Medford is on the rise. This is also in congruence with the data that we're seeing across the state of Massachusetts. Data published on March 18th showed the average daily incidence rate increased from 16.7 to 19.5 cases per 100,000. And the percent positivity rate increased from 0.78% to 1.10%, maintaining the city in the yellow zone. In the schools, we administered 28, 48 COVID tests last week, resulting in four positive pools. All members of the positive pools received a follow-up rapid antigen test and an individual PCR test. Contact tracing was completed by the school nurses in conjunction with the board of health and close contacts were placed in quarantine as per our DPH guidelines. Today, Massachusetts entered phase four, step one of the reopening plan, and I'll just highlight a couple measures of that plan. For the schools, this morning we returned kindergarten and first grade elementary students to in-person learning for four days per week. and we will phase in over the next couple weeks for the elementary schools. I want to reassure the community that we are continuing strict mitigation strategies, including mandatory masks, hand sanitation and hygiene, classroom sanitation, classroom ventilation. And now according to the new CDC guidance, we will be maintaining three foot physical distancing as supported by a research study that was done in the state of Massachusetts. There are also changes in the gathering orders and outdoor gatherings will continue to be limited to 25 people and indoor gatherings limited to 10 people. Effective today, the Massachusetts travel order was replaced with a travel advisory. And because there are many situations that constitute an exclusion to these travel advisories, I just ask that if you as a family are traveling, please open a conversation with your school nurse. She will be able to provide you with recommendations that apply to your family situation so that we can give you proper guidance on safe travel and reentering into Massachusetts and the schools. For the vaccines, we are currently in phase two, people that are 60 and older, people with two or more medical conditions, people who live or work in low income and affordable senior housing, K through 12 educators, school staff, and childcare workers, and other certain essential workers such as grocery personnel may register for a vaccine. Eligible on April 5th, we are increasing to people who are 55 year old and older and people with one medical condition. And then on April 19th, phase three opens and that includes anyone who is 16 years or older. You can pre-register at vaccinesignup.mass.gov Or if you'd like to search for an appointment at a local pharmacy or a smaller vaccination clinic, you can go to vaxfinder.mass.gov. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Ms. Ray. I'm going to move on to Mr. David Murphy, number three, budget update presentation.
[Murphy]: Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to share a document momentarily that I'll be happy to share with the committee after this presentation. It is a collection of slides, the vast majority of which you've seen in one version or another in previous presentations. They're being shared with you this evening as part of what we said in previous meetings would be regular updates on our budgetary process. Tonight, in particular, and in response to questions that were raised by the committee on February 22nd, we're focusing on closing fiscal year 2021 and giving you a sense as to what work is being done within the operating budget from FY21. I included the slides that you've seen in one version or another in previous presentations, because I think this conversation, and particularly these conversations at this time of year in the budget cycle, it's particularly important to provide as much context as possible when we're discussing these fiscal matters, because any stray piece of information coming out of this conversation I think could very easily be misunderstood or misinterpreted to suggest either that we are in a better or worse financial position than we are in. So I'm gonna present this information, the slides that you've seen multiple times, I'll probably go through in an expedited fashion, but in just a few minutes, I'm happy to take any questions that you might have. And again, these are regular updates that leading into the budget, approval process we'll be putting on the agenda going forward between now and the close of the fiscal year. So you remember this slide from our February 8th presentation discussing the three routes toward the school budget and the funding sources, including the external funds, which are not a big part of the conversation tonight, frankly, because we're focused instead just on the operating budget made up of the local contribution and the Chapter 78 that comes in. What is unique to FY21 and FY22 is there is a significantly higher number of external funds as a result of COVID related funding. There are also funding sources that the eligibility of which in terms of certain expenses have changed at various points throughout the last calendar year. And that as we'll discuss in a moment is why The closing out FY 21 and preparing for FY 22 is particularly challenging because there are a lot of moving targets as we make a determination about what can be charged to certain accounts that frees up other funding and then gives us the opportunity to essentially backfill. And that's one of the things that we've been working on and will continue to work on. as we get closer to the close of the fiscal year. So I make sure I didn't miss a slide there. So on February 8th, you may recall that we identified seven or eight significant challenges that we were anticipating coming into FY22. And they ranged from diminishing revenues to unfortunate timing with regard to the state's charter school reimbursement formula, stagnating chapter 70 projections that were being seen in the initial proposals coming out of the state house, escalating costs related to special education and transportation, which aren't particularly unusual, but become particularly challenging in this type of environment. And I apologize, I fast forwarded too quickly there. That's all still true. However, some significant variables have changed since February 8th. And generally speaking, I would say those variables have changed in a positive direction in the sense that the federal legislation that was passed two weeks ago is providing federal funding that is flowing toward ultimately toward the school district in a way that we're going to be need to be really thoughtful and really strategic over an extended period of time. But some of those potential fiscal cliff edges maybe a little further off than we had initially anticipated when we last did a budget update on February 8th. So again, tonight we're focusing on the close of FY21, but although this slide just details some of the other work that's taking place. If you look at that second bullet with the ESSER II funding, that deadline of March 31st, that's a strategic decision that needs to be made in the coming days And it's a fairly complicated one, and one that we're still working through. But essentially what the state has said is that if the district wants to access the ESSER II funding, that's the $2.3 million that was highlighted in a previous slide and that we've discussed with you before, we need to map out what we would use all of the $2.3 million for If we plan to use it during FY21, not to say that we'd have to use all $2.3 million, but if we want to access any of that $2.3 million, we would be required by the state to detail by March 31 how that funding would be used. And that's over an extended period of time. It would be neither the Medford Public Schools nor any school district is going to be able to articulate with specificity exactly what the funding priorities will be over the next two fiscal years by March 31st. There are just too many variables and too many uncertainties. We could present a plan knowing that we'll have to make amendments to that plan in order to access the funding for FY21, but it would be, I think, to a certain extent, a disingenuous exercise because if we were to map all of that out, the vast majority of the 2.3 million would be put in reserve for use in subsequent fiscal years, and the uses of that, the true uses of that would be identified later. The state has been very clear that we can amend that, but it's still, it's a difficult position to be in to map out a plan that you have every intention of amending sooner rather than later. However, when we refer to the previous conversation about having some urgent priorities that relate to our current fiscal year, such as maintaining consistency in the classroom amongst cohort D students, it may be the case that we want to make sure we have access to that funding so that we can be sure to retain whatever staff is necessary to not disrupt student-teacher relationships in cohort D. I don't think that alone is going to be a reason to access the ESSER II funding right now, and I'll explain why as we go here. So these are some of the variables that have changed, and I've alluded to them already in the previous slide about additional funding sources have been identified, external funding sources. The eligibility criteria has evolved in some cases by statutory amendment, in other cases by changes in the regulatory guidance that we've been provided So I think the key here to understanding how the work within the FY21 budget is that there's always reclassifications that are occurring in a normal school year. And you're always, generally speaking, trying to use the operating funds last, because the external funding sources generally have narrower definitions as to what those funds can be used for. And so you're leaving yourself more flexibility, provided that you're tapping the operating budget last. In this case, the number of external funding sources multiplied as a result of the assistance provided by the state and federal government, such that there's that much more reclassification that is occurring at all times. And at the same time, so many new expenses are coming up as a result of pandemic-related challenges, whether it be air quality or personnel or PPE or whatever the case may be. There are more things to pay for. So this slide is sort of a continuation of our conversation on February 22nd. The operating budget for the school department that was approved in June of 2020 was $61.25 million. In late August and as brought to the school committee on September 9th, there was about $1.1 million used to supplement that operating budget and which brought us to 62.3. Again, that's not including the $2.98 million of our traditional external funds. That's chapter one, excuse me, title one, title four, various special education grants and things like that. That amounts to about $3 million. But if we were talking about an all in funding analysis, we would include that. But in terms of the operating budget approved by the committee, it was the 61.25 and then supplemented later in the year when the additional Chapter 70 funding became available. And in September, we discussed the various personnel needs that the district had identified, some of which had been identified even prior to those funding supplement coming through. And others we anticipated would arise as a result of the pandemic related personnel challenges that the district was uh, in early September anticipating and then later in the year experiencing. And so if you, if we were to, it's a little difficult to, some of these are, um, instances in which there were expenses that were then reclassified because there was a determination that some of those external fundings, funding would, um, be available for use. But generally speaking, the 1.1 million went toward various personnel needs, and COVID-related expenses. So there were three classroom teachers added. There was a restoration of instructional specialists. There was some central office support added through the business office and the parent information center. And then the CPT stipend positions were an effort to coordinate instructional alignment amongst at the elementary level where The schools were obviously operating in a very different model than they had before and with large section of the students being fully remote. And so in order to maintain sequencing and ensure that there was that horizontal alignment, there were stipends offered to the teaching personnel. A few other various related items, but this does not add up to 1.1 million necessarily, but then this is also taking into account unanticipated savings that may occur in other areas within personnel line items that is just part of the normal flow of any budget cycle. So this is where we currently stand and I can go into greater detail and I'm anticipating presenting it with more specificity, the state of each individual revolving account. One of the bullet points earlier that I probably, I should have emphasized when we went by it was in addition to the unique challenges around all of the reclassification efforts that are necessary in this fiscal year due to the significant number of external funding sources, we have also attempted throughout the course of this year to remedy instances in which reoccurring expenses were being charged to revolving accounts in a way that wouldn't necessarily constitute a best practice from a financial perspective. The revolving accounts generally should be used for targeted funding purposes related to fees that may in fact fluctuate, but the understanding being that the services would then fluctuate along with the demand. So if you have a department of staff and the number of staff is dependent upon the number of people paying into the revolving account and receiving the services, it would be appropriate to fund those personnel through the revolving account and through the fees that are collected. However, if there's an administrator overseeing that department that will be there regardless of the scale of the program or the level of funding in the revolving account, that administrator should be considered a reoccurring expense in charge to the operating budget. And so that's part of an accounting effort to remedy our accounting that's been going on throughout the fiscal year, irrespective of the COVID related challenges. And so what you see here is that, and hopefully the disclaimer is explicit enough at the bottom of the slide, but this is not to suggest we are have a million dollar surplus on our operating budget because that's not true. Although on the ordinary expense line, that number is probably inflated in part due to the non-essential spending freeze that we imposed in January. Part of the reasoning behind the non-essential spending freeze that we imposed in January was due to concerns over some of the revolving accounts that were likely to be running deficits. later in the fiscal year, those deficits being attributable to the fluctuation in incoming funds that have to do with the pandemic. So there are fewer people using some of the venues, there are fewer people participating in some of the programs, that's producing deficits. The largest portion of the current revolving account deficit is attributable to the revolving account known as the lunch program, but is slightly more encompassing in food services. That number we expect to decline significantly when additional reimbursements come in. The other variable that's clear from this slide you can see is not determined yet is how much of the external funding will be put toward some of these challenges that we have. as an example and an illustration of sort of the machinations that happen within a budget that's made up of so many different funding sources. The guidance from the federal government is that the funding's part of the funding that they are allocating is meant to bridge the gaps in the lunch, again, what's called the lunch program and the revolving account, because it's something that's happening in virtually every school district across the commonwealth because there are not as many students in school. There are not as many students participating in lunch program. And so almost every district is experiencing some type of deficit in that revolving account because the participation is just not there. So it's the intent of some of this funding to go toward bridging that gap where the expenses have outpaced the revenue on the food services side. So with that being said, right now, we are at about even if you factor in the totality of the revolving account deficits. Again, we know that that number is going to shrink. And so as a result, we are confident we'll be in a good position. And when you factor in the external funds that will be available, that's why I said earlier that I'm I'm confident that it would only be in an extreme circumstance where we'd be in a position where we'd have to disrupt the student teacher relationships in cohort D. It doesn't mean it couldn't happen, but it's more likely that if it were to happen, it would be due to a thin applicant pool of additional staff that we'd like to bring on as opposed to insufficient funding at this point. And this is our timeline of the budget process that you've seen before and it's still intact. So I'm gonna stop sharing my screen because I anticipate there'll be questions and I'll be able to respond more easily, but I'm happy to circle back to any slides that folks might have questions about.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. I appreciate it. And I'm glad you're doing it all again because I think it's one of those things you have to hear multiple times. In that last slide, is there a date yet for when, and I realize the mayor may not be ready for this yet, but is there a date when the number will be handed over on a napkin? What's the budget number?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, we were on with Tony Roselli, our outside auditors who is following ANF and DLS. very closely. And as of Friday, there was no guidance to the federal stimulus. So I'm hoping to get guidance as soon as possible with regards to the restrictions and how that can be spent. And then we will figure it out and give the schools a number as soon as we can.
[Murphy]: I would just say, Mayor, if I could add that the lack of guidance with regard to federal restrictions is why that number in the column on the far right is TBD because we're confident that there's gonna be funding. The numbers they're talking about, frankly, are such that it's gonna have to be pretty tight restrictions for us to not be able to use the funding to bridge some of these gaps just based on the totality of potential funding. But we can't say with specificity what it will be because we don't know how those restrictions will work. And as has been the case with the external funding sources that have come in in FY21, there could be restrictions That essentially means we can't use the funding for purpose one, two, and three as we would prefer. But if we're able to back out of the operating budget purposes four, five, and six, then provided there aren't restrictions around supplanting, that's the type of strategy that we would use to make the budget whole. But sometimes that does take some time to work through and to fully articulate that rationale.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. And my other question is, you know, is sort of a, you know, considering the unknowns, and, you know, we had this problem last year, obviously, we were really getting into the pandemic. So in fact, it was not the same as this year. But, you know, there are communities in Massachusetts that develop a school budget, they don't know what the mayor's number is gonna, well, usually they're not committees where the mayor is on the committee. So it's a little more politically and operationally easier for a school committee to just come up with a budget, here's the number, send it off to the council and the mayor's like, we can't do this or whatever. But this happens in multiple communities around the state they send up an $80 million budget and they get 70 million. The world doesn't fall apart, they get 70 million. And then the superintendent and the school committee have to figure out, well, what are we gonna do with that $10 million difference afterwards, which is probably no fun. But we've always taken the approach where we all send up to the nickel, the amount we're gonna get. And if we're doing that in February, that's different than doing it in June. You know, I guess my question is why do we not just try this other approach? We develop the budget we think we need. We send it to city council and the mayor has a number on her budget. She sends the city council. They won't be the same. The world won't fall apart. The school system won't close. And then we deal with the amount we get. To me, it seems actually like the more rational approach. And I'm just wondering why we aren't taking that or even considering that approach. Cause it sounds to me like you all in your departments are gonna do a boatload of work, all work you will have finished before the number arrives. It's to me, if the mayor comes back and says, here's a number, it's bigger than you would even imagined. All the departments have finished doing all their work and figuring out what they need. I mean, you certainly are not gonna say no to the mayor who says, here's $5 million more than we thought we could imagine getting. But if we start from the approach of we aren't gonna get anything or we're gonna get level funded or whatever, we're sort of, we're behind the eight ball. If we end up with millions of surprise dollars that we definitely know based on last year's budget, we could easily spend to improve the educational outcomes of the students, which is supposed to be what the school committee's principal job is. So I guess my question is, why do we not actually just build a budget, not be worried about what the number is that we're gonna get, and then deal with the difference afterwards, which is happening in other communities and it's happened traditionally in other communities year after year?
[Murphy]: Well, One thing I would say, Mr. Rousseau, is that this is going to be a unique fiscal cycle this year and next year, frankly, for a few different reasons. One is the amount of potential funding is going to be of a magnitude that I think we have to be really thoughtful and really strategic. The other reason is that that funding is intended to stretch over a period of time. And so the type of, I would say, more organic process, I'm not sure if that's the right description or not, but hopefully you'll allow me to use it for the time being, may well play out over an extended period of time, but not in the sort of typical two to three month window of time that we are used to diving in and dealing with budget issues. It may be the case that we end up with millions of dollars more than we were anticipating, but that funding may be intended to be expended over the next two to three fiscal years. And so I would suggest that it would be better to have a more prolonged prioritization process, maybe one that moves well into fiscal year 22 with the understanding that we can develop those priorities and ultimately execute on them over an extended period of time as opposed to just lining everything up and being ready to expend everything on July 1st, 2022. So I agree it would be rare for a school district to say, no, we don't want those $4 million, but under these circumstances, and again, I don't know what the restrictions are gonna be so that this money may not materialize, but I do think this is sort of a rare instance in which it's conceivable to me that the school district might say, we don't want that money right now. We might say, we appreciate that money, We're going to put together a thoughtful strategic plan and we're going to expend it throughout FY 22 and maybe FY 23 into FY 24. But it might be the case that it takes an extended period of time in order to develop that. The last thing I would say is I think that the work that you did in the last budget cycle of identifying the priorities that were not able to be funded have helped, I think, across the school department to serve to allow the sort of narrative to be a continuation, that places where we wanted more support or we wanted more intervention-oriented personnel or some of the technology priorities that we wanted to be able to pursue, while there's been a number of boxes checked as a result of all the COVID-related funding, a lot of it is still there and is work that has to be done. And so I don't think that we're starting from scratch right now. And I think that relieves a little bit of the type of pressure that you correctly identify occurs when you are waiting to just make sure that everybody's numbers are aligned with one another. I think you're on.
[Ruseau]: Sorry, thank you. When I first got onto the school committee, a little under four years ago, I was kind of surprised by the maintenance budget, which is sort of the easy low hanging fruit of a conversation because it's just technically not complicated like education and curriculum and these other things. And since I've been on the school committee, we've actually cut the maintenance budget each year from a shockingly low number to a number that frankly, regular little businesses probably have in their budgets. You know, if you told me we had $4 million extra this year to spend on maintenance, I would be shocked if you didn't have $4 million worth of maintenance that we haven't done for the last 35 or 40 years that could be done this year. When a teacher who teaches in our school can't open windows, when he last opened a window was when he was a student at the school. Those windows don't open now either. we could blow $4 million or $10 million in maintenance in this district without even breaking a sweat. And we don't have a sex education teacher. We don't have reading teachers at the high school if you're not on an IEP and you can't read great, too bad. So the notion that, as far as I'm concerned, if you gave us an $80 million budget, I would call it a zero fluff budget. So when we get our $61.25 million budget this year and it does nothing for the kids, it gives them what they had last year minus inflation and contractual requirements. And Maurice and you all figure out who else are we gonna cut from the last three people that we haven't cut out of administration? We are the people, all of us on this meeting are the people that need to make sure that the public knows We are not underfunded by a few million dollars a year. We are 30 years since that, well, however many years is it? 25 years since the 1993 ed reform act. Actually, it's been 30 years or more since prop two and a half. We've been cutting budgets since 1986, every single year. Don't look at the number, it goes up. Guess what? A candy bar doesn't cost five cents anymore either. We should be talking about that at every meeting and not talking about how we're going to make it work because we haven't been making it work. All the kids graduating from our high school that don't get reading services, for them it's not working. And I just, I get tired of the conversation about how we're going to manage. We are going to manage. We're the adults. We're already, we have careers and jobs and families and houses if we're lucky. you know, we're gonna manage. It's the kids that aren't gonna manage. And, you know, I just feel like I'm a broken record and I'll just let somebody else talk.
[Graham]: Member Graham. How much money is the city of Medford slated to get through the Federal Stimulus Act?
[Lungo-Koehn]: 39.26 million.
[Graham]: And what is the term that it has to be spent over? It's several years, is that right?
[Lungo-Koehn]: It's for revenue loss from last year until 2025.
[Graham]: And then the ESSER money that will come directly to the schools, what is that amount?
[Murphy]: ESSER 2 is approximately 2.3 million, and we anticipate ESSER 3, we don't have an exact number yet, but it's estimated to be between four and five million.
[Graham]: And are they 2025 end date as well, or do we not know?
[Murphy]: ESSER 2 is through FY 24, I believe, and I am assuming ESSER 3 is through FY 25, but that's an inference I'm drawing based on the municipal numbers.
[Graham]: And I'm sorry, Mayor. Did you say when you expected to have that information?
[Lungo-Koehn]: I would expect it soon. I was set up the meeting for last Friday, expecting the outside auditors would have that information and just wasn't available yet from DLS. But Mr. Heath was from A and F was working on it. So I would expect it this week or next next the latest. Okay, thank you.
[Murphy]: For whatever it's worth, I was talking with a counterpart of mine in a different district today, and he had just walked out of a meeting at City Hall in that community at the exact same timeline that was provided by their auditors and state representatives. Yes.
[Graham]: Great, thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Up next, we have update on summer programming, summer fund programming, Medford Vocational Technical High School summer Discovery Program, Dr. Peter Cushing, Mr. Bob, Bobby Maloney and Principal Chad Fallon.
[Cushing]: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Really appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight. We've begun working on make Mr. Fallon. So we've begun working several weeks ago on planning for our summer events. There are numerous things that we have to take into consideration. First is our nursing needs and the ability to continue to address safety concerns through ongoing testing. So those are some of the issues that we're starting to look at. We are also currently examining multiple options to support students not only for the learning loss, but also for the social emotional welfare. We're looking at the traditional summer fun, summer school and the MVTHS summer discovery program. I'd like to offer Mr. Fallon a chance to speak on the summer discovery program at this time.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Mr. Fallon, welcome.
[Fallon]: Thanks guys. Good evening, everyone. So each year we traditionally do a program for 6th, 7th and 8th graders over at the vocational school and they come up for a couple weeks and they rotate through a few of our programs and it's always been something the communities loved. We didn't do it last year for obvious reasons but this year we're going to try to go for it again. I have a survey out to my teachers now to see which weeks works best for them because you know, when I've done summer programming for a long time and I've learned that you plan around the teachers because we have to be realistic. They're working all year, especially this year was a tough one. So I'm just trying to gauge and see if I can get enough interest of teachers, which I think we will. We already have a few so far. So that will run either the first two weeks directly after school ends or two weeks later. So basically into the month of July, but that's what we're planning. And so we're hoping that, you know, the numbers keep trending in the right direction where we can have kids in, but, I was a little disappointed to hear Toni Wray's report tonight, because it seems like they're on the rise a little bit, but we'll ride the wave. Questions about that program? Okay.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Mr. Fallon. Member McLaughlin?
[McLaughlin]: Yes, actually, I do have a question, if you don't mind, Mr. Fallon. Can you tell, I know that you said they rotate through the program. How many children do you generally have that have been participating in that? on that programming and I'm assuming children with and without, or children on IEPs and not on IEPs for that program as well.
[Fallon]: Yeah, I mean, I'd say in any given year, it's anywhere between 30 and 45 students, 45 being probably a high year. They usually pick three programs that they wanna go through. So three of our 15, and of course it's open to all students. You just really just have to be in grade six, seven or eight.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you. And is it all day like a regular school day?
[Fallon]: No, we usually do it 830 to 1130.
[McLaughlin]: Great. Thank you.
[Fallon]: Welcome.
[Cushing]: And so just just want to mention to, you know, in looking at our regular summer school, the traditional summer school for students, we're also looking at ways that they can be outdoors ways that we can that as well as addressing the learning loss, find opportunities for them to re-engage with their peers, re-engage with their surroundings that they may have been isolated from. We're working with Stacey Shulman on this and also we'll be having pretty regular conversations with nurse Toni Wray as the fact is we are still in a global pandemic.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Dr. Cushing. We have report on activities planned for senior class 2021, Dr. Peter Cushing, principal.
[McLaughlin]: I'm sorry, Mayor, excuse me. Mayor McLaughlin. Thank you for the, did we miss the summer fun program or was that not? I'm sorry, did I miss something?
[Lungo-Koehn]: I think they were all inclusive and just said they were working on all three programs, but is there anything else you wanna clarify Dr. Cushing?
[Cushing]: Mr. Maloney had a previous commitment, so he wasn't able to make it tonight, but we are working on the summer fund program as well and looking at the ways that we can, you know, infuse learning into that more traditionally summer camp style program to be able to support students coming off of, you know, this really disruptive last 15 months, despite the best efforts of our educators.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you. Mayor, may I?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you. I respectfully would ask that we move that agenda item to the next April 12th meeting then please. What's happened historically on the summer fund program is we're not finding out until very, very late. families aren't finding out until very, very late in the year when they're needing to make these decisions. And I know that a lot has been up in the air, but we're starting to put in motion other programs and really, we're getting our kids back to in full time. I think we should be really giving some serious consideration to our summer fund program. It offers a lot of social emotional opportunities for our students, for our students with and without disabilities. It's been a really successful program in the past. And it's something that I think is really an important community building aspect of our schools. So I would ask that we include the summer fund program on the April 12th agenda. And hopefully Mr. Maloney can make that, thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: So in Dr. Cushing, the athletic department runs the summer fund program?
[Cushing]: I believe it's through the community schools.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Community schools. Which is the athletic department. Correct. Okay. If we could have a second on the motion to get a further update and have... Second.
[McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot. Sorry.
[Van der Kloot]: Member Van der Kloot. I wanted to ask another question. Why don't we vote on this one first?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay. Motion that the summer fund program further update be placed on the April 12, 2021 agenda by Member McLaughlin, seconded by Member Van der Kloot, roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. This will be placed on our summer fund program update. Further update will be placed in the April 12th agenda. Thank you.
[Van der Kloot]: Yes, I just want to ask. I mean, the programs that we spoke about this evening are also the programs that have taken place before, so it's great to have an update about them. But are we anticipating any further remedial type programs for students during the summer? I was kind of curious about where we're going to go with that.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Mayor? Oh yes, Dr. Edward. Thank you. Yes, we are in the beginning stages of thinking about whether we could try to call it I don't know if I should say summer, maybe summer intervention. We're trying to think creatively about using the summertime to not only try to provide students with an opportunity to do some academics, but also have it coupled with movement, exercise, activities. So trying to just think about a way to address the whole child. Students have gone through a lot, social, emotionally. And so we're trying to figure out how that would be able to work out. And we know that this has been a very, very stressful year and we're trying to think of creative ways possibly using more than one location to do some type of academics and summer fun combining it somehow or offering more than one program. So that's still in the works member Van der Kloot, but we are trying to see what we can come up with and see how many students we would be able to service and at what levels. So it is on our radar. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Number five, we have, again, report on activities planned for our senior class 2021, Dr. Peter Cushing, Principal Paul DeLeva, and Principal Chad Fallon.
[Cushing]: Once again, Madam Mayor, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak and have those two gentlemen with me here tonight to also support the report that was given to you. The guidance from the Commonwealth concerning graduations at high schools, college and universities was issued late on Friday as this report was being written. So we were able to put a lot of those requirements in here. Right now, our dates for these events, the last day academically for the class of 21 will be Friday, May 28th. We have tentatively scheduled a prom for the class of 2021 to be held on Thursday, May 27th. Right now we're really trying to conceptualize this the right now the maximum number of participants at an outdoor event venue, which is a ballroom. Any space that can be rented outdoors was the guidance that I saw today for safety standards and checklists. is 150 people, so hopefully those numbers will expand by that date. Otherwise, we'll figure a workaround working with Toni Wray and Marion O'Connor if it's somehow two proms or split event or something along those lines to make sure that our seniors have an event. The Medford Vocational High School will be holding their annual banquet I believe that Mr. Fallon might have a definitive date on that. It was listed as May 6th or May 13th, depending on further information, but I'll defer to Mr. Fallon momentarily. We'll are also currently working on the traditional annual leadership, academic and scholarship ceremonies. And then graduation right now is tentatively planned to be held outdoors at Hormel Stadium. on Wednesday, June 2nd for the class of 2021. The guidance was issued on Friday, as I mentioned. There's no capacity limit right now, but they are listing that the groups must be spaced at six feet. Ceremonies must be kept as brief as possible. The attendance is limited only to faculty, administrators, speakers, graduates, and guests. Guests have to pre-register and attest to certain things that were included in the report. So there's an attestation process that goes with that. Following the event, any participant who tests positive for COVID-19 must notify the Medford Public Schools so contact tracing can begin Face masks will be required for all attendees at all times with the following exceptions. Graduates can remove their masks at designated photography locations and speakers may remove their masks during their remarks. And we anticipate limited, very limited number of tickets for students depending on how we map out the seating and all of those various aspects. So I would like to also offer time for Mr. DeLeva and Mr. Fallon at the chair's behest.
[D'Alleva]: Thank you, Dr. Cushing. Thank you, members of the school committee and mayor. First of all, I want to thank Mrs. McLaughlin because I think it was her that put this initiative to come out to the school committee to discuss this. A little bit further, due to her ed talk video that was produced and listening to some of our students that were dealing with, you know how they were feeling as seniors. One thing I do want to give credit to is our two staff advisors. Ms. Riley Jones and Ms. Cheryl Giordano, they worked tirelessly with the officers to try to figure a lot of things out. One thing I will say, which is better this year than last year, obviously, is we were always trying to figure out things as we were moving forward. Being this year, we're kind of always, we're still adapting, but we have a better sense and a handle on things. So for example, when you're talking about the last day of school, we were, In debates, whether should we have a last day of school, but or was there enough academic, you know, was there enough academic time for our seniors to stay and get out of their normal time but we also understand that's a tradition. In most cases, and we want the seniors to feel as happy as they possibly can. I will say that obviously all our events, we would like to try to do, like I said, our senior leadership awards night, and our senior academic night, if possible, I mean we're trying to think outside the box but obviously everything will go through the approval of The Board of Health. If you guys remember last year for graduation we were almost there. We were very close with that same vision that Dr. Cushion just kind of announced and my hope is that the, the earlier date will help us get there. And personally, I have a little soft spot of going back to Hormel. I think sometimes old traditions are good to come out. So with the pandemic, I think that that is something that will be unique, but also give an old school feel of it being our graduation. If some people don't realize, I think there's a misconception sometimes, and I always thank Tufts for what they do for us, but there is a cost. a significant cost of renting out the space in the Cousins Gym. So going to Hormel and figuring this all out and even making it more of a personal experience of having even parents next to their graduates is sort of the same kind of plan that we had last year, but again needs approval by the Board of Health and Ms. Toni Wray who is very close with that. I'm excited because, you know, nothing warms me more than knowing that our students are trying to get the best that they possibly can. So hopefully we can do this, but I do, again, I thank everybody, Dr. Cushing, especially, he's been really a really go-getter of making sure that we're getting these things through and presented. So thank you for listening, and I hope, on my fingers crossed, we are able to get these events through for our seniors. Mr. Fallon, I'll turn the mic over to you.
[Fallon]: Peter, did you want to speak?
[Cushing]: I'll go. I'll finish after you, Mr. Fallon.
[Fallon]: OK. So For the senior banquet, something we did, it's been a tradition for years. Instead of having it off site at a lodge or places we usually would have it, we're gonna do something more intimate on the campus. It'll be much more abbreviated, but we'll do something special for our graduating seniors. And speaking of the seniors, the 107 of them, this is the first year that the diploma, when a student that was on a CTE pathway opens their diploma, they'll have a certificate on both sides, a high school diploma and a certificate of technical occupancy. So I'm really excited about that. From what I mean, that's the way it was when I was in high school. And from what I hear years ago, that used to be what happened at the high school, but I don't know, we got away from it. So I'm happy it's coming back this year. Really what Mr. DeLava said, I echo these advisors, their energy is infectious. And Alice Beth Fitzpatrick and Dave Blouk, they're just the dream team making this all happen for the seniors. So they're really, it's everyone's making it feel special. I just wanted to say that, but thank you guys.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you all. Member Van de Kloop?
[Van der Kloot]: Yes. Do we have a rain date for graduation?
[Cushing]: We haven't moved that far down the planning line yet, but we will.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Member McLaughlin?
[McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Weber, Mr. Fallon, and Dr. Cushion. And also to the advisors, Ms. Jones and Ms. Giordano and Ms. Fitzpatrick and Mr. Glauck for your work with our seniors. I know that this has been a really tough year and I appreciate Mr. DeLave, are you sharing the senior conversation for the ed talk? And students produced that show, I executive produced it, but I walked away from that show feeling really concerned and upset and really actually also moved that our students were willing to be so forthcoming and sharing their feelings with us, right? And what they've been going through. And this senior class is unique from any other senior class. The previous senior class had, not that we're diminishing what was taken from them, of course, but they had from, you know, September through March. This class didn't have their junior prom and did not have this year at all. They've been extremely isolated as I know that you all know, and really feeling forgotten as they shared in their conversation in the ed talk and lonely and a number of other things. And I think we're all to some degree feeling that. And I think it's easy to forget when we see really children in, you know, 17 and 18 year old bodies that they're not, adults yet, right? They're still children and they're still developmentally, you know, figuring things out. And it's been a really, really tough year for them. And I want to know how we're addressing the social emotional needs of our kids, of our seniors specifically. We have nine weeks left with these kids until they're gone for good from our district. And, you know, we, many of them have been here since, you know, preschool or kindergarten. It's been You know 12 years that we've you know that you've taken care of them nurture them brought them this far and then we were all gobsmacked by this pandemic right but we literally have nine weeks left and. I know that there are community members that are willing to help. I know that there are students that are willing to help. I know that community members have come to the BH, the behavioral health and the special education subcommittee meeting to speak specifically about how they'd like to help and what else can be done for our seniors. So I think it's great. I mean, it's so important that they have a prom and that we have a date for graduation and we can get excited about that. And I know that Dr. Christian and I had talked about some of the things that have happened in the past around even just signage congratulating our class of 2021 and those sorts of things. But, you know, and I know that there are also our student advisors and the class officers that are working on things. And I was really glad to see Mr. Blauck and others posting both on Facebook and Instagram and, you know, every means possible as suggested by the students, because initially it was, you know, the students needed to check their email and, you know, this generation of students are not email students, right? This generation is not an email generation. I think they're really feeling overwhelmed, frankly, by their emails. I think that they've got thousands of emails in their inbox. I know my son does. I don't know that they know that they can delete them, but I think it's overwhelming, right? And I think that we need some guidance. So I wanna know, and if we don't have an answer tonight, that's okay, but I would like to know when we can have a meeting to brainstorm some ideas about what we can do as a community to uplift and celebrate these children in the next nine weeks. Graduation and prom and the leadership event, aside because those are the things that we normally do and they're wonderful and I'm happy about them and I don't want anybody to think that I'm not, you know, genuinely pleased that those things are moving forward, you know, again with the, with the, with the hope of a pandemic, and I know what happened last year. We were headed that way, and it, you know, things turned suddenly, and that just was so sad for so many, I know. But I just, I want to know how we can, what else can we do?
[Lungo-Koehn]: So can we do- I don't know, I just want to make sure you're coordinating with Ms. Catalo's efforts, because she had somewhat of a community parent meeting that my office was involved in a week or two ago, and so the ball is rolling for different ideas.
[McLaughlin]: So I just want to make sure you know, so I haven't heard about that. And and I don't know that it's on that. Well, we'll circle back. But I'm not sure how these this is part of the issue that we're experiencing. And I appreciate that's great that you guys had a meeting and talked about that. But I think that that's part of the difficulties we're hearing from families that they're not getting information or from students that they feel like they're not getting information. So we have to think about how we're coordinating the communication about what that was.
[Lungo-Koehn]: My meeting, it was we learned about it the day of and I just had sent somebody to my office to learn, learn more. It was a parent group that had the discussion. So I'd say that's great.
[McLaughlin]: The administration share. Do you guys know what that's about? No.
[D'Alleva]: I haven't heard anything, but I do know again the PTO has been working on on certain things as well, but there hasn't been a nail down so I think, Miss McLaughlin what you're what you're what you're stating here which is true is that there's just a lot of factions that want to help.
[McLaughlin]: Yeah, definitely.
[D'Alleva]: And if I could make a suggestion, I know it's there's tons of committees, but maybe it's a committee of the whole, where we get these groups together presenting what they need to do. But that's my only suggestion of keeping everybody sort of intact. Or it doesn't even have to be a committee of the whole. I mean, it could be a high school meeting. That's just high school, and we can get the groups together.
[Unidentified]: Yeah, I appreciate the solution oriented, you know, approach. I'm sorry, Mary, I didn't mean to interrupt. Mr. Bowen, raise his hand.
[Fallon]: No, I just wanted to say, I think we did know about Ms. Catalo's efforts. I'm pretty sure we all knew about that in the PTO. So I just want to give credit because I know she's been from the very beginning. I just wanted to say that.
[McLaughlin]: Yeah, no, that's great. And I would love to hear more. And I did see that she has a, I think there is a Facebook page that's specific to her event. I don't know that it's that we need to merge. There's a couple of different Facebook pages going on. So I guess I'm looking for somebody in the administration and perhaps PTO in school committee that we can collaborate.
[D'Alleva]: I think it should be more on a high school level and getting the PTO involved and whoever wants to come, because I think you guys also have plenty of other meetings there, but I think if we isolate it just to the high school, I'm down to schedule whatever, I'll work with PTO and we'll get it out for everybody.
[Fallon]: Yeah, I'd be happy to work with you on that, Paul. I think you can rest assured, we'll pull everyone together at this point.
[Unidentified]: Yeah, we'll pull them together.
[Edouard-Vincent]: I just wanted to add that I think with all of the dates and getting the information that's out there right now, the intention really was to let the students know, start looking for prom dresses, start looking at tuxedos. We're gonna work with the guidance and the guidelines that we have. We have to work in collaboration with the board of health to make sure you heard Dr. Cushing mentioned that there you know, if, if there is a limit of 150 students by the time we get to May, then we're talking about two proms. And are we going to have to split the class by alphabet, A through L and N through Z, or figure out what the numbers are, that would be a nightmare. I see member Vanderkloot shaking her head. But I'm just saying, if it's only 150 students, then how do you do a prom with 150 students when you have twice that in terms of the entire class? But we wanted to at least get those dates out there and let the seniors know that we're going to be working together, working proactively to try to give our seniors some sense of a true senior experience. But we just need to do it safely. And so we have to keep that as a top priority as well. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Okay. Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Yes, I see. We have a community member also that has their hand up. So thank you. And thank you all. I appreciate the dates. And you know, I know that we have a lot of, you know, smart people in the community and in the room here. And I'm sure we can come up with some great and interesting ideas about what we can do for prom and I'm excited to have the students start shopping for their outfits and things as well. So, and I'm sure, you know, Kelly Catalo would welcome help from the community and others so it would be great to know how people can get involved and I know that the meeting will, I'm sure, share that info. So I look forward to that. And if we need to discuss it at the next April 12 meeting to update people, we can put that on as an update as well. I'm sure maybe in the either in the superintendent's update or another agenda item. Is that okay, Mayor?
[Lungo-Koehn]: that it's up to the superintendent.
[Edouard-Vincent]: I mean, between now and the next meeting, we should be able to have additional information. And I can definitely, if it's enough to do a separate report, depending on the total number of reports, if not, I'll do it in my report. So we definitely will be able to have additional information between now and April 12th. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, Heather, name and address the record. You have three minutes.
[SPEAKER_14]: Hi, Heather Rumina, 57 Harvard Lab. I just wanted to thank all of you. Thank Melanie for speaking up about seniors. Thank all of you have been trying to help out the seniors and planning things. One thing that I was wondering is, is it possible to move the event for the prom to have everybody together, like having it at Hormel or having it at a place where these kids have not been together for over a year? And the prom kind of loses its point when they can't all be in one place. So that's one of my main points. The other one is, I'm just, it's very confusing, like thinking all these different things. I mean, I'm on the PTO and we've been trying to plan events for the seniors, but from what I understand, we can't plan anything until the class officers come forward asking us for money for the events that they're running. So it's not like we can just come up with these events, like, hey, why don't we do this for the seniors, except for sponsor a senior, which we're working on. Other than that, our hands are kind of tied. So that's where things kind of fall apart. And hearing how people are trying to help. Kelly Catalo, like I would encourage her. I don't know if there's a, I can maybe find her email or if somebody knows her to get in touch with the PTO because I haven't heard of anything that she's doing and I think it would be great to all coordinate together. I'm happy to hear she wants to be involved. And you know, we're ready. There's parents waiting. We have, there's quite a few senior parents on the PTO who wanna help. So again, like we're running out of time. And I feel like there hasn't been one thing that I've really seen that's involved seniors. I think they just need some signs or something that people are interested in and know that they are there. So I just appreciate all of you talking about this. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Heather. We have been talking about it for a while. I know the admin's working hard on it. We have some surprises that are coming. So they're getting there. Dr. Cushing, anything you want to elaborate on as well?
[Cushing]: Yeah, so I'm happy to work with Mr. Fallon, Mr. Loeber so that we can pull everybody together to try to make sure that we're all firing and all cylinders and all the oars on the mystic are pulling all in the right direction. And so I'm happy to work with our two leaders of our high school to make sure that happens and as well to bring the students together. I also just wanna really, like send a message out to those seniors and senior parents who are on this call right now to please make sure that you're following protocols with masking and social distancing and everything that you need to do. That high school graduation is very much about the seniors, but it is the penultimate experience of a school district for all of those years from kindergarten all the way up through when a student finally walks across that stage. It is very much about the seniors, but it is literally the biggest opportunity for a community to say, this is the Medford Mustang. This is a student of Medford to walk across that stage. It is quite possibly the single most important experience just in the importance of itself. You know, class presidents have the opportunity to give great speeches that will be memorialized now on YouTube forever. And, you know, everyone gets an opportunity to celebrate those members of the senior class. And I just really beg and implore students that, you know, as these events come close and fast together, That we are very careful that we are very focused. And I think it was a community on the North Shore that I recently saw some students had a big party, all those things that you might want to do, please remember that your actions. could have seriously detrimental effects for us to be able to carry out these plans. And we beg you, as a leadership team, trust me, one of the reasons why I got into being an educator is because it's just a really awesome time to work with kids and to be a part of these types of things. And as a former high school principal, there's no greater events than the ones that come in these culminating moments. And I'm just begging seniors to please and their families to please do everything possible to make sure that we can have all 300 plus seniors walk across that stage on June 2nd and that we don't have COVID protocols placed upon us because of a few careless decisions.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Dr. Cushing. Mayor. Number six. No, Mayor. member van de Kloot.
[Van der Kloot]: Yes I just I want to it's I've received another email and I did note that the speaker was was here I see him but it's from Matthew Page Lieberman of 15 Canal Street. His question is I'd like to know what options are available to a MHS senior I recently met who told me of her struggles to get the assistance she requires for her mental health from the school system after attempts have failed with her guidance Councilor. I can answer a couple of things.
[D'Alleva]: Because I do know that we've had groups So we've had advisory periods once a week. We've allowed students to go and meet with adjustment Councilors during those times. I know that Stacey Shulman has given me resources to blast out to the community in a lot of ways. So, but on the other hand, I mean, we're trying to communicate but we're not seeing a great number of participation and that could be feelings too. I don't want to say that it's not, but we are trying a lot of different scenarios. As a matter of fact, I have to blast out with the group some of the strategies that a group during that advisory comes out with. to our seniors, but as Mrs. McLaughlin has said, they might not be an email kind of group. So I try to send it out to families, and I try to send it out to students on top of that, so someone will catch it. But these are things that we have offered. Yeah, I'm sorry.
[Van der Kloot]: Go ahead. So can I direct the sender to tell the student to contact you directly?
[Unidentified]: Absolutely.
[Van der Kloot]: Okay, and that you will make sure, or superintendent, go ahead.
[Edouard-Vincent]: I was gonna say you can have this, send that email directly to Stacey Shulman, who's our director of behavioral health and counseling services. And so she will be able to, if we need to reassign or just get additional social emotional supports to that particular student, that we will do that. That was gonna be my recommendation. Thank you. Okay.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I'll send it forward. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Great question. Number six, report on the solar panel project at the Andrews Middle School. Ms. Alicia Hunt, director of energy environment. And I did tell Alicia that I could handle this. I know we were all given the documentation from Dr. Cushing today. And the main gist of the request is for us to approve that the city may lease rooftop space on Madeline Duggar Andrews Public School to a third party for the purpose of installing solar panels to generate electricity for use by the school building and to lease a portion of the parking area to install carport solar panels. No parking spaces will be removed to accommodate the carport solar panels, which will be supported above the parking spaces. This request is a step in the project that was previously before this body to install solar and storage at the Andrew School. The solar and storage is intended to offset the energy use at the building, reducing the cost of electricity with the school and allowing the building to operate off grid in the event of a major electricity outage. The approval of the school committee will allow the city to enter into an agreement with a third party to allow it to install, operate and maintain the solar panels on the roof and in the parking lot and to sell the electricity generated to the city at a price which would not exceed the price the city would presently pay to its existing energy providers. The panels will be financed and owned by the third party.
[SPEAKER_07]: Motion to approve.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion for approval by Member Ruseau, seconded by Member Graham. Roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
[Van der Kloot]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. In light of recent events in Boston regarding the participation of the student representative to the school committee, conversation with the current representatives, Colin Bailey and David Mai, will take place at 4 p.m. on March 24th, 2021 at the Rules, Policy and Equity Subcommittee meeting to understand how they are experiencing participation as our student representatives, as well as what changes may be necessary to better integrate their voices and respect their participation as critical members of the committee. Motion for approval.
[Graham]: Motion to approve.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion for approval. Member Graham, seconded by Member Ruseau. Roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Zero the negative paper is approved. Offered by member Rousseau. As Medford public schools continue to work towards implementing our value of equity and taking action to root out systems that work against equity, the after school and before school application processes will require demographic data on the students and families that apply for our limited enrollment in these programs. This deep data will not be used to select applicants but will be used in the future to guide new policy decisions and in our efforts to create a more equitable system. Data will be connected to applicants so that we can understand how changes in policy affects enrollment and wait lists. Motion for approval. Unless member Ruseau, do you want to say anything or motion for approval?
[Ruseau]: I just wanted to quickly, just briefly point out the main gist of this is we don't know what the starting point is. So any plans or goals and it's hard to get somewhere if you don't know where you are. And so that's the whole point of this, so thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Member Ruseau. Motion to approve. Motion for approval by Member McLaughlin, seconded by Member Ruseau. Roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, I'm in the affirmative, zero in the negative. It says that might've been offered by Member Ruseau and Member Graham on my next page, page four. So thank you both. We have school committee condolences. The Medford School Committee expresses its sincere condolences to the family of Helen Alpers. mother of former superintendent of schools, administrative assistant, Denise Chiesa Mahoney, aunt of administrative assistant for early childhood program, Cheryl Alpers, and grandmother-in-law of director of humanities, Dr. Nicole Chiesa. Also, the Medford School Committee expresses its sincere condolences to the family of Robert Olson, a former custodian for the Medford Public Schools, husband of Lee Olson. The Medford School Committee expresses its sincere condolences to the family of Susan Bratton, known to many as Sue, was a graduate of Summerville High School and proud of it. She received her bachelor and master's degree from Boston College in the field of language, Latin, which was her love. She began her career over 20 years in the Medford Public Schools as a paraprofessional. She started her employee at the Franklin School as a one-to-one with a student who had mobility problems. Later, she spent time at the McGlynn Complex doing what she loved to do, work with children who needed special care. Susan touched the lives of many students, parents, and faculty alike in the Medford Public Schools. If we all may take a moment of silence. Thank you.
[Graham]: Mayor, we have somebody with their hand in the air.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. I don't want to mispronounce the name. Does anybody? I don't want to mispronounce your name. Miss Scott.
[SPEAKER_08]: Hi, can you hear me?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Name and address for the record.
[SPEAKER_08]: Dallas Scott, 29 Blaisdell. I just wanted to say this is my first time joining one of these sessions today. I have a daughter who will be in kindergarten next year. And I just wanted to take a moment to echo the concerns of Vanessa who spoke earlier about afterschool care and to give a voice for all the other parents that I've been speaking to who also are at a loss for what to do next year with after school programs. We recognize this is going to be, we have to zoom out pretty far to figure out how we create a shift. But there's a lot of us that are engaged. And I just want to say thank you to Paul and Jenny, who've been really fantastic in even letting us know that this is going on tonight and that there's going to be a topic on it. So I just want to voice my support for as much as we can do to figure out not only the afterschool care program, but all the other initiatives for our public school system. So thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Is there a motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn by Member McLaughlin, seconded by? Second. Member Kreatz, roll call?
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Vanden Heuvel?
[Van der Kloot]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: May I, Lungo-Koehn?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, 70 affirmive, zero in the negative.
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