[Lungo-Koehn]: Good evening. Just give it a minute for member McLaughlin. I guess I'll start reading the agenda. Pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the Open Meeting Law, Chapter 30A, Section 18, and the Governor's March 15, 2020 order, posing strict limitations on 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 and general guidelines for remote participation by members of the public and or parties with a 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 could can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. In the event that we are unable to do so, despite best efforts, we will post in the City of Medford or Medford Community Media websites an audio or video recording, transcript, or other comprehensive record of proceeding as soon as possible after the meeting. This is the Medford School Committee meeting, April 12th, 2021. remote meeting by Zoom. 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. Medford Public Schools is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. One of the phone numbers to call in is 1-929-205-6099. Please enter meeting ID 996. 1-930-3508 when prompted. Start with a roll call. Member Kreatz?
[Kreatz]: Oh, yes. Did you want me to do the roll call?
[Lungo-Koehn]: No, I can do it. President. Yes, here. Member Graham?
[Graham]: Present.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Ruseau? Here, yes, present. Member Ruseau? Present. Member Van der Kloot? Present. And I'm present. Six present, one absent. Member McLaughlin? I don't see you, so Member McLaughlin? Hearing and seeing none, six present, one absent. rise and salute the flag.
[Unidentified]: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
[Lungo-Koehn]: We are going negotiations and legal matters executive session. executive session of the Medford School Committee pursuant to General Law 30A, Section 21A, discuss strategy and preparation for negotiations with non-union personnel and with respect to collective bargaining strategy on the basis that an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of the Medford Public Schools, Medford School Committee. Specifically, the Medford School Committee will be discussing upcoming negotiations with multiple bargaining units and district administrators on individual employment agreements. The Medford School Committee reconvene in public session following the executive session.
[Ruseau]: Is there a motion to enter executive session?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Second. Moved by Kreatz. Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member Mustone?
[s_C3Q_KGMQA_SPEAKER_12]: Sorry, I just called Melanie on her phone, on her house phone, so she's coming. She thought it was six. So yes, yes.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Randa Klug? Yes. And myself, yes. Six in the affirmative, one absent. We will head into executive session and Melanie can join us when she gets there. We'll mark the time she arrives.
[Unidentified]: Thank you for your patience, everybody.
[Lungo-Koehn]: We ran a little bit over an executive session. Before we start our agenda, I just want to state that, again, during public participation, or anytime a member of the public would like to speak, just please give your name and address for the record. Also, we're gonna stick by the rules that were set forth in the last full meeting, which are if you plan on, if you insult, swear, use inappropriate language or a different name for anybody in the Zoom session, you will be muted and not be allowed to speak for the rest of the meeting. So I just wanna make that clear before every meeting. Up next, we have number three, approval of minutes, March 22nd, 2021, school committee meeting. Is there a motion for approval? Motion to approve. I remember Graham seconded by? Second. Member Ruseau, roll call. Can you not unmute?
[McLaughlin]: Yeah, now I can. I also can't rename so Peter if you could, Dr. Cushman, if you could do that, that'd be great. Member Kreatz, Member Graham, I'm sorry. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Audio weird for you guys? I'm getting feedback on my audio. Are you guys getting that?
[Lungo-Koehn]: I think it was just remembering the stones now. Should be OK.
[McLaughlin]: Yes. OK. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Marilyn O'Kern.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Minutes are approved. Number four, approval of bills, transfer of funds and approval of payrolls.
[McLaughlin]: Motion to approve.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member McLaughlin, seconded by. Second. Member Kreatz, roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. I'm hearing the feedback too, no.
[McLaughlin]: Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor Long-O'Connor.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Bills and funds, payrolls has been approved. If we can just all mute our microphones unless we're speaking, I think that will help. Number five, report of secretary, if there is one.
[Van der Kloot]: Mayor, there are two letters that we received. One is regarding the mathematics curriculum, which makes sense to read just prior to Ms. Khan's presentation this evening. And the other one is regards to the afterschool program, and it makes sense to read that. The parents specifically asked to read that at the outset of the presentation, as they had questions incorporated in it. So if I could hold those two to them, that makes the most sense.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, the secretary said there's nothing, so that's... Are you talking about public participation?
[Van der Kloot]: Oh, sorry, I was doing an undersecretary's report.
[Lungo-Koehn]: You were the secretary member.
[Van der Kloot]: I was like, what's going on here? Oh, sorry about that, Melanie. We'll just let you get over with it.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, so just stop me and we'll get those public participation reports out whenever you feel comfortable, Member Van der Kloot. So there's no report of secretary. We're going to go to reports of committee. The first one up is actually you as Member Van der Kloot. You're the chair of the Curriculum Subcommittee, and the meeting was held on March 10th,
[Van der Kloot]: 2021. So on March 10, 2021, we had a Curriculum Subcommittee meeting that was to be attended by myself, Member Graham, Member Mustone, the Superintendent, Dr. Nicole Chiesa, and Dr. Chiesa gave a PowerPoint presentation. Now, if you recall, at our last school committee meeting, I asked for this to be held because the PowerPoint presentation was not incorporated into the minutes, and now it is incorporated into the minutes. At the meeting, the first thing we reviewed was state expectations, and then we looked at Medford Public Schools, the district curriculum, professional development, and resources. equity in English language arts and goals and next steps. We talked about the early literacy screeners and, again, the district professional development. There was quite a list that was given and provided. The Hill for Literacy, Crafting Minds, Dr. Nadine Gabb, Lexia training, Lexia Core 5 training, et cetera. We also talked about the Medford Early Literacy Screener. The Alexia Rapid is given at the Brooks, McGlynn, and Roberts. And the NWEA Map Growth is given at the Columbus. There was, of course, some concern about evidence-based instruction and discussion about journeys not being evidence-based. and the bringing in of ECRI. Some parents had concerns that it is not complete enough and are not supportive and evidence-based. There was also a question by member Graham who spoke to the fact that there had been a request for a handwriting curriculum. That did not go forward last year. I'm not quite sure whether it was only because of COVID or also because of funding. So that's something that's still on the docket. There was discussion about the curriculum being more reflective of different cultivating additional programs to support the science of reading, including, but not limited to, ECRI, which is Enhanced Core Reading Instruction, Lexia Learning, and NEWS-ELA. There was also, Dr. Chiesa provided for us a list of price points for various different supports and how much they cost the district. The one other thing I just wanted to mention, oh, was, Equity in ELA, there's been the addition of numerous novels and informational texts by diverse authors, creating an inclusive classroom, inclusion and pacing guides, and also an edition of News ELA, Exploring Identity and Culture, Mirrors and Windows Collection, A Mile in Our Shoes Collection, and Black Students Matter Collection. There is another curriculum meeting this Wednesday at four o'clock, and we hope that you can join us.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member McLaughlin?
[McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you for the information member. I wanted to ask, so I know that you talked a little bit about the equity in ELA and some of those variants about inclusion and other materials, and I don't know if this is a topic for the subcommittee or whether it should be a report or what have you, but I'm curious about An update on a disability curriculum and an update on the anti-racism curriculum, both of which have been discussions for this year. So I don't know if that's going to be happening later in the year or if that's been a topic.
[Van der Kloot]: You know, the problem is we're covering so much in the meeting as it is. I think that while we touched on, you know, resources being included, we haven't had specific, more in-depth conversations. We have another meeting this Wednesday. It's covering two subject areas. you know, we're gonna have to go back and I know we had a follow up. I wasn't thinking it was in the curriculum, Melanie, about the special education resources, but we certainly could do it. Why don't we talk and we'll figure out how to go forward on that.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you, that'd be great. And I would ask that for all of the curriculum, whether there are supplements for EL and special education. So I know that for journeys, and Dr. Chiesa and I have spoken about this in the past, that for journeys there are supplements for special education and for English learners. And when we were in school, you know, in elementary school, we were unaware of that until about third grade. And so, you know, I want to make sure that there are supplements for special education and EL and that families and teachers are aware that there are supplements. So if we could, you know, ask that as well in the context of the curriculum, or again, whether this committee thinks that there should be a presentation, I'm open to either, but I'd like to know What those are and then I would also like to add that this Wednesday at 6 o'clock the Special Education Parent Advisory Council is having a two hour session with a general educator and a special educator where they're addressing differentiated curriculum. So how we're taking grade level curriculum and approach in in helping differentiate it for students who have different levels of learning abilities so. that will be happening this Wednesday, but I'd also like to know, again, an application to these various curricula that we're talking about, how that is differentiated or in which way we're considering those things. So I'm not sure. I guess I'd defer to my colleagues in asking, should that be curriculum subcommittee? Should that be an individual separate report? I'm wondering what folks think.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, member Van der Kloot, I believe you just said your agenda for next week is a little different. So we can look for an update from the admin when they have availability to do that before the end of the session, which is the end of June.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: So roll call on mayor. Yes, member Graham.
[Graham]: I would also say that the question about availability of supplements is something that is intended to be part of the catalog that is supposed to be coming out of all of this work. So that it's clear what is available and what is not. So that to me, in my mind is definitely part of this work and the catalog that we are working towards creating.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you. That's very helpful. I'm wondering, is that something that is expected for the end of this year? And I guess my concern is I don't want to find out after the fact that a certain curriculum has been chosen and it doesn't have a special education supplement or it doesn't have any L.A. supplement or what have you. So I'm just wondering what that process will be.
[Van der Kloot]: I don't know. I think Dr. But at this point, no curriculum has been chosen.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I don't see Dr. Chiesa on.
[Van der Kloot]: Yes. I think we have to hold that question right now, and we'll do a follow up on that. Oh, there's Dr. Marisa.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Yes. No curriculum has been chosen at this point in time. And in regards to the working groups that are going to be working on the math department, teachers will be piloting two, including parents, two to potentially three different curricula in order to make a decision. So while they go through the process of screening and piloting curriculum as they go forward, it will be a fully inclusive process. But that is something that was said at one of our first curriculum subcommittee meetings to make sure that we're being inclusive of both English learners and students with disabilities, our special needs students. And to member McLaughlin's question, We had an asterisk for June as a possible follow-up meeting on disability awareness. So this Wednesday, it'll be world language and science, and then health and phys ed will be coming up. And then we're gonna go back to disability awareness, a follow-up on where we were from the presentation that happened at the start of the school year.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you, Superintendent. That's helpful. And also, I just remember Mustone and I had put forward a motion some time back for an anti-racism curriculum, and I'm wondering if the task force is working on that or how that's going.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Can you repeat that question, please, Member McLaughlin?
[McLaughlin]: Yes, some time ago this year, Member Mustone and I put forward a motion for an anti-racism curriculum, anti-white supremacy, anti-racism curriculum. And I was assuming that the Anti-Racism Task Force was addressing that, but I guess I'm wondering if that's the case now or where that's at.
[Edouard-Vincent]: So with the anti-racism curriculum under humanities right now, Dr. Chiesa is looking with her team, they are looking at supplemental pieces, including in particular, which was said earlier, the Nuzella curriculum, which is infusing greater amounts of articles and literature about cultural proficiency, anti-racism, anti-bias work. So it is being added or folded into the curriculum. They are working, I know that the directors are working in collaboration with their lead teachers and their teams. So that is some of the work that is taking place right now. We definitely will be able to get a presentation to the school committee in the near future on all of the professional development and where curriculum shifts or intentional shifts are taking place with our curriculum.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Motion for approval of number one made by Member Graham.
[McLaughlin]: Seconded by member. I didn't know, I'm not sure what the motion is, sorry. Just to accept the minutes from the curriculum subcommittee meeting. Second.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member McLaughlin, roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
[Ruseau]: Member Ruseau. Thank you. On page seven, the bottom paragraph where I am speaking, the sentence is, there's a member trying to get attention and I don't know the name. I believe I said a member of the public. I certainly know the names of all the members of the committee. That could just be changed to say member of the public.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion for approval as amended.
[McLaughlin]: Second. Motion to approve as amended.
[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 Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Minutes are approved. Number three, committee of the whole meeting. on March 22nd, 2021. That was regarding the capital improvement plan for the school side. We had a very productive meeting. Motion for approval of those minutes. Motion to approve. Seconded by member Van der Kloot. Roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Grant.
[Ruseau]: I'm sorry. Oh, sorry. I did have a couple of small amendments. Could we just update the, there's a couple of places that says $816, it's just missing the K, because it's 816,000 unpaid. And also there's 155, which is 155K. And then on page two, let me just bring this up to a large enough spot, sorry. On page three, there are several instances where Member McLaughlin's name has been inserted as part of what looks like an autofill when somebody was typing. It's clearly the word committee or community has been auto filled with member McLaughlin's names. Those can be removed. And I can send my screenshots to Ms. Weitz for those clarifications. And then there's also a, this one doesn't have page numbers, so forgive me. It says, Mr. Murphy says internally through Mr. MCL, I'm assuming that's Mr. McLaughlin, if that could be updated. Other than that, that was my only question, comments.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion for approval as amended by member Rousseau, you move an approval as amended, seconded by member Van der Kloot, roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Graham]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Minutes are approved. Number four, rules policy and equity subcommittee meeting, March 24th, 2021. Member Ruseau, this proposed policy on face coverings.
[Ruseau]: Thank you, Mayor. One second, I just gotta bring up the right minutes. Okay, thank you. So on March 24th, the Rose Policy and Equity Subcommittee meeting met to discuss two items on our agenda. One, we had a pretty in-depth conversation about the role of the student representatives. More work is forthcoming on that. So I won't get into too much detail on that this evening. I did want to thank our student representatives, David May, and Colin Bailey for a very open and honest conversation and for their dedication to improving how this legislatively mandated role is currently integrated into our school system and into our deliberations in this committee. While it is clear we have not been in compliance with chapter 71, section 38M of the laws, I'm confident that work will begin shortly to get Medford Public Schools into compliance on that. We will have another meeting on this at another time. We did pass. We also discussed the need to adopt policy EBCFA face coverings and voted unanimously to send this to the full committee with a recommendation to approve the face coverings policy was sent to us from the NASC, our association. and we did not approve the one in the summer, we just didn't get to it, but they have now sent us a new one. I do have a note that Member McLaughlin was going to work with the Director of People's Services to come up with a statement to insert somewhere related to IEPs, and if she has not had a chance to do that yet, we can certainly amend that at a later date.
[McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you, Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: questions on the policy? Are there any questions on the policy?
[McLaughlin]: Motion to approve the minutes. With the may I make a wording for the Director of Pupil Services and I need to review for the individuals with disabilities. So I would say a motion to approve pending additional language from Director of Pupil Services regarding students with disabilities. Mayor.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Would it be wise to table it with that language in its entirety and put it on the 26th agenda for April.
[McLaughlin]: Motion to table?
[Graham]: I was asking to approve the minutes. Not the policy.
[McLaughlin]: Oh, not the policy, right. Sorry. Second motion to approve the minutes.
[Graham]: Roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham?
[Graham]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone.
[Van der Kloot]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor Long-O'Karn.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative to approve the minutes. Mayor. Number five, yeah, Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: We did, I know that there's a motion to table the policy to the next meeting, and it's not something we can discuss, so I, Guess I'll have to wait for the vote on that before I can comment.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, motion to table the policy till the April 26 meeting. Motion to table. Member McLaughlin, seconded by Member Kreatz. Roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Lungo-Koehn]: No.
[McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. No. Member Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Long-O'Connor.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Five in the affirmative, two in the negative. The policy is tabled to our next meeting, which is April 26th. Mayor. Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: I see Nurse Ray is on, and I just want to be clear. Medford Public Schools has no policy on face coverings at this time, which means Well, it means what it means. There is no policy. There is no consideration of what happens if people refuse to use a mask.
[Lungo-Koehn]: And it's tabled. We cannot talk about it. We just tabled it.
[Murphy]: I'm just asking. It's important that we clarify, though, that the superintendent has issued a directive that all students and personnel wear masks. There's also guidance and regulations from DESE. I don't want anyone leaving with the impression that this is voluntary right now. The school committee can choose to adopt the policy that would supersede that directive. We'd ask that it be consistent with the directive as it's consistent with public health. But wearing a mask is not voluntary in the Medford Public Schools. Again, the committee can adopt a policy that supersedes that, either consistent or inconsistent with that, and will adhere to the policy. But in the absence of a policy, the superintendent has the authority issue directives necessary to adhere to public health guidelines. And so the superintendent's directive stands and it is the expectation that all personnel and all students and anyone visiting is wearing a mask.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Five, committee of the whole meeting, strategic plan round table, session one, which was April 5th, 2021. That was had a good turnout of 50 to 60 residents, administrators, and committee members. And we discussed a number of questions that relate to the mission statement of the school department. Is there a roll call vote for those minutes?
[Kreatz]: Motion to approve.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Second. Seconded by member Graham. Roll call. Roll call. Oh, Member McLaughlin, you're muted.
[McLaughlin]: Sorry. Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van de Kloop? Yes. Mayor Logo Kern?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. The minutes are approved. And number six, Committee of the Whole meeting strategic plan roundtable session two, April 6th, 2021. Member Van der Kloot.
[Van der Kloot]: Yes, this was a follow-up, a second night of discussion from the strategic plan. Again, we divided it up into elementary, middle, high school and special education. Unfortunately on this night, there were no special education parents and no high school. So we went down to the younger levels. I think that one, a couple of comments that I just, one member said they thought that it was passive rather than active. And I thought that was important. There was some discussion of what's the difference between a mission and a vision. And since one of the parents suggested that perhaps as a part of this or the totality, we liked the idea of a short memorable. And one parent suggested preparing our students to change the world for the better. And I thought that was kind of a neat vision statement. There was a question of how would we have follow-up and how would that we know parents wanted to make sure that they were part of the follow-up as this was, as we spent more time on this. That's it.
[Lungo-Koehn]: motion for approval of those minutes by Mayor.
[McLaughlin]: Actually, I have my hand up. Oh, yes. Member McLaughlin. Thank you. I just also wanted to mention that we had commentary from families who felt like that they had not really been aware of the of the roundtables. And, um, I know that that had come out on the Friday, um, mailing from the superintendent, but there was some family feedback that they felt like there could have been more engagement around. how parents were being reached. And then we had also asked for some demographic information about who is actually attending these round tables, whether there is diversity represented at the table and in what way. I know that there was great coverage for translation and really appreciate that from the district. But I know that a lot of the translators were sitting in empty rooms and I just wanna make sure that we're collecting that data so that we're able to inform as we're talking about the strategic plan, who is not at the table and how we can work to get them there. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Motion for approval by member motion to approve. Correct seconded by Second. Member Graham, roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: 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. Minutes are approved. Number seven, rules, policy and equity subcommittee meeting, April 7th, 2021. Member Ruseau? This is on the proposed changes to school committee meeting agendas, policy on staff conduct and policy on harassment.
[Ruseau]: Thank you, Mayor. So yeah, so we met last week and discussed those four items. We, let's see, we voted unanimously to send these to the full committee for recommend these changes. The first are related to agendas. So the motion that we approved was to append the student representative. Motion is to append the student representatives to the attendance roll call. However, the attendance or absence of the student representative will not be included in the announcement of the number present or absent at the meeting to prevent confusion, such as if they were. Six members present, one absent, plus a student representative. If you said seven present and one absent, it's not clear like, wait, are there seven members present? So the language is in the minutes. And I won't read my very long explanation of that unless there is anybody who wants to discuss this in detail. Motion to approve.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion to approve by member, seconded by.
[McLaughlin]: McLaughlin seconded by actually, the motion is to approve the motion for the meeting agenda portion. Regarding that. Okay, just clarifying. Um Yes. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Second. I remember
[McLaughlin]: 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. Motion is approved. Thank you.
[Ruseau]: Number two, we moved to move the approval of minutes of regular school committee meetings, as well as the warrants, bills, et cetera, to the end of the agenda prior to the condolences. And we voted unanimously to make this change.
[McLaughlin]: Motion to approve.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Seconded by.
[McLaughlin]: Second.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Graham]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van de Kloop.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor Longo-Khan.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative.
[Ruseau]: Motion is approved. Thank you. The next one is actually related to those minutes and warrants and bills. And we made a motion to change the approval of those items to be what's called a consent agenda, which means there will be a single vote. Members are free to request that those be split if you actually want to have a conversation about them. Consent agendas are common, are used in many, many communities to speed things up for items that are not typically That typically have no conversation at all. So the way it would work is that the mayor would, there would be a consent agenda, and she would, it would just list the items, and she would simply say their emotion to approve the consent agenda, and presumably everybody would be okay with it, and then she would move on so there would only be one vote on those items. and any member is free, of course, to request that they be split up for individual votes and conversations.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Yeah, I just, I was gonna help with the clarification of that, but I think Member Ruseau did a good job, so I, nevermind, thank you. I have a motion to approve.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Second. Motion for approval by Member McLaughlin, seconded by Member Graham. Roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin. Yes. Member Mustone.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: 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. Paper passes.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. And number four, although there are still the two policy Number four is that we moved to remove the report of the secretary to be immediately prior to public participation item on the agenda. And amusingly that we had that little thing earlier where member Van Der Kloet thought she was the secretary still. And that's exactly part of it is that the report of the secretary is typically the emails that have come in. So it makes more sense there. So that was the motion.
[Van der Kloot]: Mayor Russo, sorry. So in truth, the night that I was there, I was also, I guess, confused because the truth of the matter is that it is the vice chair who's reading those. So that's not accurate. The big question is, so we have to take that piece out of it. is whether the secretary believes, and we can ask our current secretary, whether she wants to be put on in the position of every meeting being asked if there's a separate report from the secretary, or whether that is just something a holdover from a prior time. Now, I do know earlier when member Kreatz held the position, she approached it in a very certain way, which was great. But the different folks have different feelings about it. So the reason, I just wondered what you thought.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you. I think that there should be some, and this is a conversation that we've had before and I'm sure the rules policy and equity subcommittee of which I'm part will address this at some point, hopefully before the end of the year, where we need to do some orientation for new school committee members so the other piece of it is that it's never really been clear to me what the report of the Secretary is. And so generally you hear me say no, there's no report of this unless somebody has a question typically what I've seen is if someone has a question about the, the bills and they want to ask a question of the Secretary maybe just, you know, in that context, but that to me seems like it would be under bills and I think this is really timely because I was not at the RP meeting when you guys were discussing this but Tonight I was thinking to myself, why do we keep doing this? Why do we keep asking for a report of the Secretary and there's no report of the Secretary? But maybe you guys have some history I don't know about. So please feel free to share. Member Kreatz, then Member Ruseau.
[Kreatz]: Yes. So when I was the secretary, there wasn't really any direction about what to report to the secretary. And I was asked each meeting is a report from the secretary. And I just felt that I had to do a report. So I would, when I was doing the bills, I would just take a few select bills that were interesting, educational, supporting our students. And I would just share a brief synopsis of a couple of the bills that, you know, were interesting. Sometimes it was, you know, a piece of equipment that I wasn't familiar with. And I would find out the information about the equipment, but there was no instructions. I just, because I was asked at every meeting, I just felt that I had to, I had to report out something. But it was never done ever before. And, you know, I would, I would be okay with it being removed. from the agenda because, you know, it's just something that it hasn't been done. And I mean, it was really just picking and choosing some bills that were interesting to me and I would share it out with the committee.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member McLaughlin. Oh, sorry. I think member Ruseau then member McLaughlin.
[Ruseau]: Yes, thank you. I would motion to table this item and just to table this, because I think that the right question is whether we should really be having one at all, which we can bring up in the rules, policy and equity subcommittee meeting as we're continuing to work on the agenda itself, so.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion to table, seconded by member McLaughlin, undebatable roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Graham]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Sorry, let me get my sheet. 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. Motion is tabled.
[Ruseau]: All right, thank you all. So the next item is the policy on harassment, which our attorney had He has sent us a number of policies that we either didn't have or were outdated, needed to be updated. So the policy ACAB on harassment, which is in our packets. I don't know if there, we motioned unanimously to approve this as written. So if there's any questions.
[McLaughlin]: I have a question. Member McLaughlin. Can you not, the public that I don't believe has the packets or access to the packets, can somebody read the motion?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Do you mean read the?
[McLaughlin]: Yes, I do. Read the policy, please. Sure, one second.
[Ruseau]: The public does have it from, I believe.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Is it long? How long was it again?
[Ruseau]: It is, yeah, it's six pages long.
[McLaughlin]: Okay, I would say, can you summarize the policy for the public, please?
[Ruseau]: I'm not sure I can summarize it. It's full of lots of legalese and there's no extra stuff in there. I mean, I sort of look at this as every single sentence is very important. That's why it's in here. I mean, the policy, yeah, I can read the first paragraph. I think that might give you a good sense of what it is. It's a harassment of students by other students, employees, vendors, and other third parties will not be tolerated at the Medford Public Schools. The alleged harassment must involve conduct that occurred within the school's own program or activity, such as whether the harassment occurred at a location or under circumstances where the school owned where the school-owned or substantially controlled the premises, exercise oversight, supervision, or discipline over the location or participants, or funded, sponsored, promoted, or endorsed the event where the alleged harassment occurred against a person in the United States, the policies in effect while students are on school grounds, school district property, or property within the jurisdiction of the school district, school buses attending or engaging in school-sponsored activities. It is backed up by Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972, and by one, two, three, four different Massachusetts general laws. It's a very, excuse me, sorry. It's a very substantial policy. And I do not believe we actually had this on file at all. This was sent to our, by our attorney as like urgently. get this done.
[McLaughlin]: Motion to approve, and we're going to post this on the website, obviously. Motion to approve.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion for approval, seconded by member Bendicourt. Roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Kreatz, I mean, sorry, Member Vandekloot.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor Longo Karn.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Policy on harassment is approved. Next up, we have community participation.
[Ruseau]: Mayor?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yep.
[Ruseau]: Mayor? Sorry, there was one more, the staff conduct one. I know, this goes on all night. This is the last policy. So this was staff policy GBEB, This is a longstanding policy of our association. Medford had never adopted it, but it was recommended by our attorney. And it's a remarkably brief policy, just requiring that staff familiarizes themselves with state laws and regulations. Really, there's nothing new in here other than the fact that it is an official policy. Any questions?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion for approval by member McLaughlin, seconded by member Rousseau. 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. Policy is approved. Number seven, community participation. Public participation emails, questions, or comments can be submitted during the meeting by emailing medfordsc at medford.k12.ma.us. Those submitting must include the following information. Your first and last name, your Medford street address, your question or comment.
[Van der Kloot]: Member Van der Kloot, you said there's only- There's two, and one is in relation to the math curriculum, and the other is relation to the afterschool program. So I thought I might read them at the beginning of each of those sections.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I agree. Perfect, thank you. Number eight, acceptance of the proposed extension of the superintendent's contract by the Medford School Committee.
[McLaughlin]: Motion to approve.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion for approval by member McLaughlin, seconded by member Rousseau. Member Van der Kloot? No, I was going to second. Roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone, yes. Member Ruseau, yes. Member Van der Kloot, yes. Mayor Lengelkern, yes.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Congratulations, Madam Superintendent. Mayor.
[Ruseau]: Member Ruseau. Thank you. I'm just really happy that we can feel confident we're going to have our wonderful superintendent for, I believe, honestly, I forgot some of the details of the contract, even though we just did them, four more years. And I'm looking forward to what those four years will look like, especially after this year. It's definitely gonna be a brighter future, right? Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Hopefully, yeah. Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you. I just wanted to second member Ruseau sentiments and thank the superintendent and we're fortunate to have you. This has been a hell of a year. It's been really good to know you and I look forward to continuing to work together. Thank you.
[Edouard-Vincent]: I just want to say thank you to the school committee, and I look forward to serving Medford Mustangs, Mustang Nation. And next year will be a better year for all of us. And I look forward to working with everyone. Thank you for the opportunity. Congratulations again.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Number nine, we actually have your update, Madam Superintendent. Superintendent's updates and comments, number one.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Well, good evening. My remarks today, there's some breaking news. In Knoxville, the Knoxville Police Department in Tennessee said that multiple agencies are at the scene of a shooting at Austin East Magnet High School. One person died and the shooter is in custody. Before I begin, I'd like to bring your attention to the following. Last night, an African-American male, Dante Wright, was killed by police in Minnesota yesterday, less than 10 miles away from where Mr. George Floyd was killed. A curfew of 5 p.m. was put in place by the mayor of Brooklyn Center, a suburb of Minneapolis. Additionally, I would like to read a statement from the Minnesota twins. Out of respect for the tragic events that occurred yesterday in Brooklyn Center. and following the additional details in this evolving situation, the Minnesota Twins have decided it is in the best interest of our fans, staff, players, and community to not play today's game against the Red Sox. While we don't know what exactly happened, an investigation is ongoing. We send prayers to Mr. Wright's family and all involved. While discussing these events, I also must state how grateful I am that the Medford Human Rights Commission led another community conversation on the uncomfortable, yet extremely important need for racial equity. I'd like to thank Mayor Lungo-Koehn, Chief Jack Buckley, and Mary Ann O'Connor of the Board of Health, who realized the importance of addressing these issues of race in our community. Additionally, there were over 140 members of the community who actively participated in last Wednesday night's discussion. Special thanks to Mr. Neil Osborne for organizing these ongoing community conversations as we work together to improve the quality of life for all in our community. I'd like to say this quote to share with you a quote from Jackie Robinson. I'm not concerned with you liking or disliking me. All I ask is that you respect me as a human being. So as we think about the things that are continuing to happen across the country, let's remember that we should treat one another as human beings. So just transitioning, I would like to say today was the first week of four-day instruction for our students in grades six through 12. Following April vacation on Monday, April 26th, we will return to five days of instruction for our students in grades six through 12 as we continue to increase normality in our schools. Last week, or this past week that just happened, we began five-day instruction for all elementary schools K through five. So they are now on their second week of five days of instruction at the K through five level. I would also like to take a moment to just thank Congresswoman Catherine Clark for choosing to visit the McGlynn School Complex last Thursday. She wanted to see the testing and the students in the classrooms. Both the mayor and myself thanked her for the assistance of the Federal CARES Act monies. The Congresswoman spoke to us about the importance of passing the American Rescue Plan, another COVID-19 relief package that could see Medford receive an additional $5 million. She explained that the funding is intended to help schools with HVAC improvements, technology and PPE, as well as helping students to make up for lost learning time, potentially in the form of summer school or afterschool programs. She was very impressed with the students COVID testing themselves and loved interacting with our elementary students. A special thank you again to Congresswoman Catherine Clark for coming to Medford Public Schools. I also want to thank the members of the community who participated in our roundtable discussions last week around the Medford Public Schools strategic plan. Additionally, I would like to thank members of the cabinet and department heads who actively participated in these important conversations. Please know that we will utilize the feedback as we continue to move forward on the district's plan. I'd like to say that this evening begins Ramadan for our Muslim families, friends, and neighbors. Ramadan continues until May 12th and is considered the most sacred month for the whole Muslim Umar, which means community. During Ramadan, you ask for forgiveness. You exercise self-control. You try to experience the life of the have-not, experiencing what the have-nots experience all the time. It teaches empathy, putting yourself in someone else's shoes. For example, if you thought of a have-not, it could be someone who's homeless temporarily. It is my hope that during this holy season, happiness and joy will fill your homes. Ramadan Kareem, which is said in the Middle East, or Ramadan Mubarak, which is said in Asian countries, such as Malaysia or Pakistan. What that means is enjoy the blessings of this holy month. Last week, Medford resident Lauren Stern, who works for iRobot, visited Mrs. Lasky's remote fourth grade class at the McGlynn Elementary School as part of a computer class lesson about robotics and algorithms. Ms. Stern presented fun examples, particularly on ways Roomba reacts or performs in action. During the interactive presentation, students asked questions and engaged in dialogues about robots. Special thanks to Ms. Lasky and computer teacher, Ms. Elias, who organized the presentation. I also would like to take this moment to extend our sincere thanks to the following organizations who have graciously made donations to the Medford Public Schools. Rich Raymond and Sean Mangan of Armstrong Ambulance for donating stop the bleed kits for the La Conte ice skating rink facility. We appreciate their consistent support and helping to keep our athletes healthy and safe. We'd like to thank Katie Marino of Skin Therapy in Station Landing. She donated seven skin therapy facial kits to a teacher in each of the Medford public schools. Additionally, Katie sent a special kit to Ms. Malloy and took time to stock many of our micro pantries with non-perishable items. Lastly, Skin Therapy raised $275, which they donated to the Mustang senior class. Katie is a mom to Derek, a student at Medford High School, and to Mark and James, students at the Roberts Elementary School. Thank you very much, Ms. Marino. We'd also like to thank Wegmans, who donated over 200 bottles of hand sanitizer for all of our students. And we'd like to thank Tufts University who donated office furniture for teachers and staff who needed an extra desk, file cabinet, storage closet, or bookcase. All of these groups have been so kind to remember the Medford Public Schools staff and students, and we appreciate their generosity. There are a few important dates that I wanna highlight coming up this week. This Thursday on April 15th, from three to 4 p.m. via Zoom, the middle school lottery drawing will be held. Parents and guardians and caregivers, you are invited to call in for the drawing. All results will be posted on our website and blog, and it will be available within a few hours of the drawing. Letters confirming each student's middle school assignment will be sent to all grade five students by April 22nd. If you have not received or if you've replaced your child's unique identification number, please reach out to Dr. Bernadette Riccidelli and she will be able to assist you. Her email is briccidelli, B-R-I-C-C-I-A-R-D-E-L-L-I at medford.k12.ma.us. This Friday, April 16, is the deadline to submit applications to participate in the advisory committee to rename the Columbus Elementary School. So please send in your applications. We don't want you to miss the deadline. Next week. is April vacation week from April 19th through the 23rd. So there will be no instruction during that time. For those of you who might be traveling, please, please, please pay attention to the COVID guidelines around travel. Nurse Toni Rae will also mention this in her presentation later, but please keep in mind COVID safety travel is incredibly important when we're talking about return to school instructions. Please note that the last day of school for this school year 2021 will be Friday, June 18th. And lastly, I would like to take a moment to remember an important anniversary that is coming up this Thursday. Back in 2013, on Patriots Day, April 15th, the sunny spring day brought with it the usual, the ride of Paul Revere, the Red Sox playing at Fenway Park, and the running of the Boston Marathon. but the day quickly turned dark as the marathon became the site of terrorist bombings. One of our own Medford Mustangs, Crystal Campbell, was lost on that horrible day. This Thursday, it is my hope that you will take a moment and remember those both lost and injured on one Boston day with reflection, prayer, and unity. Thank you, and have a good evening.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Dr. Edouard-Vincent. Number two, we have COVID-19 public health update and Metro Public School COVID-19 testing summary and update. Nurse supervisor, Toni Wray. I don't think Marion is on and Mr. David Murphy. Ms. Ray and Mr. Murphy.
[Wray]: Thank you. Good evening, everyone. I will start with Medford city data. The city of Medford remains in the yellow zone with an average daily incidence rate of 25.9 positive cases and a 1.38% positivity. This is little change from the data presented at our last school committee meeting. Medford public school data. Last week, school nurses completed over 3,800 tests and identified four positive pools and four positive cases. Our in-school transmission rates remain low. However, community cases and household transmission of pediatric COVID illness are increasing. There is some promising information coming from the CDC and the Mass. Department of Public Health. More Massachusetts residents are being vaccinated each week, including our teaching staff. And starting on April 9th, eligibility for vaccinations open to all people within the state age 16 years and older. However, there remains concern about the current uptick in COVID cases in Massachusetts. The number of positive cases among younger populations is increasing. We're seeing more cases between the 15 to 40 year olds who have not been vaccinated. The UK variant is quickly becoming a dominant strain of COVID-19 in Massachusetts. This strain seems to spread more easily and more quickly than other variants and has potential to make populations more ill. The UK variant is thought to be responsible for the increasing number of positive cases in children. So this is not the time to let down your guard. We ask that you continue to wear your face mask, practice rigorous hand hygiene, maintain six foot physical distancing whenever possible, stay home when you feel sick, that is especially important, or if somebody in your household has tested positive, and limit the gatherings with people outside of your household. As April vacation approaches, I'm reminding parents and staff to follow the travel advisory issued by Governor Baker, meaning that all visitors entering Massachusetts, including returning residents, are advised to quarantine for 10 days upon their arrival into the state. Students and staff may return to school sooner than 10 days if they receive a negative COVID-19 test administered not more than three days prior to their arrival in Massachusetts, or if they receive a negative COVID test after arrival in Massachusetts, as long as they quarantine until they receive their negative test result. And lastly, travelers who are fully vaccinated, meaning they've had at least, they've had their two doses of Moderna or Pfizer COVID vaccines, or they've received a single dose of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, more than 14 days prior to arrival to Massachusetts, and they do not have symptoms, they do not have to quarantine. I'd like to echo Dr. Edouard-Vincent's message in our communication on Friday, April 9th. Following the state guidance will continue to help keep our school community safe and in school. Thank you.
[Ruseau]: Mayor.
[Wray]: Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. Listening to that, I realized I have a question I hadn't even thought of. So when students, and this is really only elementary level, when students' families, when students travel over April vacation with their families, they are part of the not full remote cohorts. I don't know if we've decided to just collapse the cohorts and call them, they're in-person students. Do we have a new name for that? I don't know.
[Murphy]: This will suffice. We have from a school brains perspective, we have done that just to make sure the fields are clear, but the practical implication is just that it's students who are coming in.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. So for students that are coming in whose family, and again, this is really only an issue for elementary, their families have chosen to travel outside of the state. When they return on the 26th, where will those students Who would those students' teachers be? They're not allowed to come back to school, right?
[Wray]: They need to receive a negative COVID test either three days prior to returning to Massachusetts or upon return to Massachusetts, but you must quarantine until you get your test results. So if you enter the state, let's say on Saturday the 24th, you would be able to get a COVID test on Sunday the 25th at one of the stop the spread sites and hopefully get your results sometime on Monday to enter back in on Tuesday.
[Murphy]: Yeah, I think that Mr. Sun, there's not an option to remote in at the elementary level because the classes that are remote are not the classes that these students are enrolled in. And so if a student is prohibited from going to school because the family traveled and they weren't able to obtain the test, and therefore, in order to comply with the state protocols, they would have to stay home from school. We won't, frankly, have the capacity to police that in the sense that we'll know exactly who traveled and who didn't, but it is our expectation that families will keep children home if coming to school would violate that those state protocols that the governor has issued. But there's not an option. We're not gonna simulcast the class because people violated the state, the protocols. Or we would be violating the protocols if they were committed.
[Ruseau]: And since this is the week before school vacation week, will we be blasting communications to parents about what the expectations are, are we just relying on hoping that they remember, or frankly, the state's guidance have changed many times. Until I was listening to Ms. Ray, I actually had not realized like, wait, if we go away, there's a set of steps to, I just worry about people who in good faith go away and come back and, don't realize that they've violated things. And I know we can't police it, but we also don't wanna shut down a whole building on the week after school vacation, the week after we returned, because there were three or four kids that come back and give it to, these new variants are so much more contagious. So I wanna make sure that everybody knows, and this isn't the place for that, because most people aren't here on this meeting, that everybody knows, especially the elementary kids, because the options just don't exist, that if they go away, that they must have a test, and that's their expectation, even if we can't enforce it.
[Murphy]: I think we will definitely communicate that. I will say, while there has been variability in what the specifics of the protocols, I think that the restrictions that have been imposed on all residents of the Commonwealth, we've all sort of been familiarized with them over the course of the last year. And with every school holiday or vacation, be it when we came back to school in the fall or attempted to and phased in over the Thanksgiving holiday, the holidays over the holiday break in December, February vacation, this is a constant refrain. And so I think you're right that we have to reiterate and reaffirm and emphasize that. But I don't think anyone should be taken by surprise that there are steps that are necessary to travel at this point. And I think that the only other thing I would say is we will be testing on that first Monday. My hope is that people don't come in if they've traveled and haven't received their test, but families should feel confident and comfortable knowing that on the very first day back, we're gonna test every student or virtually every student that comes in. And hopefully that will prevent the type of domino effect that you're suggesting could be possible.
[Wray]: The other thing, Member Ruseau, is in Dr. Edouard-Vincent's communication on Friday the 9th, this was also mentioned as a reminder in that communication. The school nurses are putting it on their virtual classrooms, so we are trying to get out the information as quickly as we can. Yes. Thank you so much. Member McLaughlin?
[McLaughlin]: Thank you. Yeah, I guess I would also just put out in terms of getting the information out. I appreciate the superintendent's weekly correspondence but I'm not sure that everybody reads all of it and so I think I don't know it might be worth at some point asking families what the most effective mode of communication is. And I know in the past when that question has been asked, we've been told all of the above. So, you know, social media, robocall, you know, the superintendent's notices, the classroom. So I would, you know, say all of the above if possible. And then backing it up a little bit, I'm wondering if there's any data on the numbers for the student, for the remote population and our in-person students now that things are starting to, I know that we're not there for the high school yet, but I'm assuming that for elementary and middle, there must be some data there.
[Murphy]: Data with respect to- How many remote, how many in-person for each of our- In terms of how many students are enrolled to come into the in-person delivery? We do have that data. I think that there are one-off situations in which families are asking to essentially do an internal transfer from remote to in-person, but the numbers are relatively consistent with where they've been, where it should be about 60 to 65% of our students in-person.
[McLaughlin]: Across all of our schools, it's 60 to 65% in-person? I think the number is 62%, but there's
[Murphy]: There's some fluidity in that, but I'm pretty sure 62% was the last number that I saw.
[McLaughlin]: Okay, thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Number three, we have report on middle school math curriculum, math director Faiza Khan, Ms. Khan.
[Van der Kloot]: Mayor?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, member Van der Kloot.
[Van der Kloot]: I'm so I do have a letter from the public regarding the math curriculum. I don't know whether I would actually ask Pfizer, whether I should read it at the beginning or at the end of her presentation.
[Khan]: Thank you for the opportunity. I actually received a copy of that letter. Thank you. And it seems like most of the questions are answered in my report, with the exception of maybe one. So I would love to get a lead on which way would you like me to go ahead with it?
[Van der Kloot]: I think just because we've... the person submitted it appropriately, we should read it very quickly, and then hopefully you'll hit the points. Okay? That'd be perfect.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Member Van der Kloot.
[Unidentified]: Thank you, Ms.
[Van der Kloot]: Kahn. Dear members of the school committee, I have some questions for Ms. Kahn about the report on the math curriculum and would appreciate if this letter was read then. One, have the programs that the elementary schools can possibly pilot been narrowed yet, or is that part of what the committee is going to decide? What are the programs that are still in consideration? Two, What is the plan for the current middle schoolers for the 21-22 school year? Will the seventh or eighth graders have an accelerated class? Or are we planning on definitely choosing one of the high school acceleration options? Three, if the advanced pathways chosen that begins, if the advanced pathways chosen that begins in ninth grade, figure four. A, how are the enhanced classes different from the regular classes? How much from pre-calculus needs to be pushed into these enhanced classes for students to be ready for calculus? Could these topics be covered in the regular classes for all students? B, what are the pathways for late bloomers in math to get into the advanced pathway and for students who decide to switch out? C, could there be another option where all students take algebra, geometry, algebra two, and then senior year when students have a better idea of what they want to do after graduation, they split into an enhanced calculus or take one of the other math options? This is very focused on the advanced students, but what are we going to do to close the achievement gap, especially from the events of the last year? How can we close the gap without relying heavily on summer school, excessive afterschool tutoring, excessive homework, or keeping students back? Thank you. Submitted by Michelle Chiccolo, 28 Douglas Road. Thank you, Ms. Van der Kloot.
[Khan]: Ms. Khan. Thank you. I will, I had prepared a slide deck, but I believe it's best if I read directly from my report because members of the school committee have a copy of my report. I'm not too sure if the public does. So the first thing I wanted to mention is that the report actually, the title is Mathematics K-12 Update. And the intention was to give our community an update on the state of mathematics in Medford public schools. So just a minor correction with the label in the actual agenda, but the report is on K through 12 mathematics. The report starts out with an update on elementary schools. So the subscription to Medford Public Schools Elementary Mathematics Program, currently we are using Envisions, Envisions 2015 version. It expired in June of 2020. In October 2019, the Medford Public Schools Mathematics Department formed the Elementary Mathematics Program Review and Implementation Committee with representation from all Medford elementary schools and teacher groups. The purpose of this committee is to assess a variety of math programs We will connect research studies concerning mathematical pedagogy while keeping the district's mission and Medford community at the center of our decision-making process. The committee recognizes that the standards detailed in the 2017 Massachusetts Mathematics Curriculum Frameworks balance conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, and applications of the content, and the committee's goal is to choose a final program that will be closely tied if not fully tied to these frameworks. We are aware that DESE recognizes mathematics as a language for describing and understanding the physical world and the change in mathematics teaching and learning pedagogy. The value in mathematics instruction and learning has shifted. As a result of this shift, mathematics teaching and learning in MPS must emphasize on learning and not performing, mistakes are valuable, questions are important, depth is more important than speed and is achieved through interesting and engaging mathematical problems that encourage connections, conversations and modeling. As a result of the ongoing global pandemic, the committee's work was paused in March 2020 and will resume in April 2021. The next steps in the committee's work will be may invite parents and community stakeholders to participate. June, parents selected from the applicants. Summer 2021, select up to three programs using the established analysis rubric to pilot in all schools at various grade levels. Fiscal year 22, pilot and evaluate efficacy of the programs. April 2022, recommend program for adoption. A few questions that I would like to answer from the elementary mathematics program committee's perspective is that we did start out initially by choosing seven programs and out of a long list. Those seven programs were basically chosen by me. I went to ed reports and I saw what are the top programs, which ones are the ones that are very closely tied with the frameworks and are getting top rankings, just like we did in the mathematics programs. Out of those seven programs, we are inviting the publishers to give us presentations and the committee members will be choosing up to three programs. These three programs that the teachers in the committee will choose will be piloted at all schools. It could be that we choose two programs instead of three. However, the intent is to pilot in all in all four elementary schools at different grade levels. It was important for us that we keep the community at the center of it. So parents will be invited to be part of the process. We just wanted to be sure that after listening to the presentations from the publishers, that we have narrowed it down to three and hence the timeline reflects that. A parent, Ms. Moncada, also had emailed me and she asked me if, you know, it'll be at, if the teachers have chosen to be part of the committee, have they volunteered it or was there another process? And yes, it was by choice. And we are lucky enough that teachers at every school and different grade levels have volunteered to be part of the committee. The seven programs that were again initially chosen and we have yet to narrow them down to two or three. One of them is a ready is ready I ready, you might have heard about it. And basically all these seven programs are the top programs right now bridges investigations three by Turk. Math Expressions by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Illustrative Mathematics, which is our middle school program, Envisions 2020, which is a newer version of Envisions 2020, and the last one is Into Math, also by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. So this is the list of seven programs that we started out with. The committee was looking at these. We had attended, I believe, one presentation. So we have yet to go through many presentations and then choose three. The rubric was agreed upon by the teachers. And we do have a rubric in place. And we'll be happy to share it with the parents. with any parent who asks for it, and definitely with the parents who are part of the committee. With that, I'll now give an update on the middle school and high school, and then I'll answer the questions that pertain to those, the middle and high school, and then any questions that were not covered by me, I'll be happy to answer those. So, For middle school and high school, Medford middle schools are using the adopted illustrative mathematics program in standard grades six through eight. While challenging, teachers have used this rigorous program in the school year 2020-2021. in their classrooms to the best extent possible. The eighth grade algebra classes in school year 2020-2021 are using the Big Ideas mathematics programs. The department did not offer accelerated mathematics to students in seventh grade this school year 2020-2021 due to the pandemic-induced learning gaps. The mathematics department will reinstate the accelerated middle school program for fiscal year 22. The curriculum modification for this accelerated group will be in line with the Desi pathway recommendations for standards in 2017 Massachusetts math frameworks. Our previous middle school acceleration is not a recommended pathway in the 2017 frameworks. The mathematics standards for grades six through eight are coherent, rigorous, and non-redundant. thus making these challenging. For those students ready to move at a more accelerated pace, one option is to compress the standards for any three consecutive grades and or courses into an accelerated two-year pathway at the middle school level. And I'm happy to show my presentation in which we can see the slide where we are taking, as per Desi's recommendations, we are taking grade eight, grade seven, grade eight standards and teaching half of them in seventh grade in the accelerated path and the other half with algebra one in students' eighth grade experience. I'll be happy to show that figure to you shortly. That will be figure two as Ms. Ciccolo's email mentions figure four. And the Medford Public Schools Mathematics Department recognizes that presenting a variety of course-taking pathways encourages students to persist in their mathematical studies. The department has formed in MPS 6th through 12th grade equitable math pathways and program review committee with the philosophy of exploring pathways and programs that will help all students in Medford public schools and Medford high school achieve their full mathematics potential. Using the NCTM, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, access and equity in mathematics principles as the guiding pillars, the committee members will assess the program's pathways and offerings in Medford public schools, grades six through 12. So I'll be, I'll show you figure three and figure four, which was mentioned in the email very shortly. And one of them is already being offered, figure three in Medford Public Schools. The committee will be giving its, due consideration to figure four. So the email comes right in time. The sixth through 12 grades equitable math pathways and program review committee will review the ways to effectively and cohesively deploy the illustrative mathematics program for all middle school students. This committee will review the focus, clarity, rigor and alignment between our middle and high school programs with the goal of preparing students for advanced mathematics. The Medford High School Mathematics Program, which includes Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II, through Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, as its publishers, will expire in June 2020. The committee will, the timeline is April 2021, will be recruiting secondary teachers. That process has started. It'll include a general education. our EL teachers and our special education teachers. May and June 2021, we will start work to establish a rubric and the pedagogy review. For 2021, we'll finalize program review rubric and review aforementioned DESE pathways, which is figure four. and in addition to figure three. December 2021, call for parents and community stakeholders to participate. Winter 2022, parents selected from the applicants. Spring 2022, select up to three programs using the established analysis rubric to pilot. FY23, pilot and evaluate efficacy. of the programs and April 2023 recommend programs for adoption. So with that, let me bring up the email so that I'm happy to, so that I can cover that. So Ms. Ciccolo's question three is if the advanced pathways is chosen that begins in ninth grade, figure four. Let me pull that up. Dr. Cushing, do I have screen sharing? Yes, I do.
[Van der Kloot]: Fiza? Yes, Paulette? Ms. Khan, will you be able to post your entire presentation perhaps on the school website so that people can see it?
[Khan]: Yes, I surely can.
[Van der Kloot]: Okay, that would be great.
[Khan]: Absolutely, I'll do that. So actually, this is where I will start and I will share the report with you and we'll be able to see the figures. So this is the electronic version of the report. And this figure is right out of the DESI frameworks. As you can see, the acceleration decision point is at the end of sixth grade. But the way we have restructured is now in line with this figure, too. We will be taking part of eighth grade standards and compressing them with our seventh grade. you know, the rest of the part of it will go with the algebra one. This is the accelerated path. And that was figure two. I'm going to scroll down so that we can also see the acceleration at the high school level, if possible. So figure three and figure four, as you can see now, is basically acceleration at our high school level. So students, for some reason, if they are not ready to take the accelerated path in middle school, they do get a chance at the high school. Currently, we are going about it using figure three. And just one point to note is that the new frameworks that came out in 2017 These recommendations came with the 2017 frameworks. The previous way that we were accelerating in middle school by teaching two years worth of standards in one were a better fit for the 2011 frameworks, which were not that deep. Once they were revised, the new recommendation was to split the eighth grade into seventh grade and algebra one. And now this is the high school level. The way we are currently doing it at MHS, MVTHS is by taking, by making sure students have solid foundations by taking Algebra 1. And then we are doubling up in the sophomore years when we are having Geometry and Algebra 2 as to math courses. This is the recommended pathway, just because we need, you know, in-depth knowledge of Algebra 1 in order to do Geometry and Algebra 2. Geometry, as was taught in 2011 frameworks, was mostly numbers. Now, In the new frameworks, it has algebra embedded in it. So it's very important that the students get a solid foundation of algebra one, and then they can apply it in geometry and algebra two. Then we can see that they go to pre-calculus and to calculus. I'm still on figure three. Figure four is the enhanced pathway in high school. So this is another way that our students can get to calculus. And as we can see, there is no acceleration happening in middle school. However, the courses are Enhanced Algebra I, Enhanced Geometry and Enhanced Algebra II. So to answer the question of pre-calculus, this is the way to go. There will be no pre-calculus as a standalone course. The standards from it will be basically spread through Algebra 1 geometry and a lot of it in Algebra 2 so that students can reach calculus. So our Equitable Math Pathways Committee will definitely explore this option. um because um all of our students um um sometimes it's it's it's difficult to uh study math in a very structured algebra one geometry algebra two way um a lot of another name for this enhanced algebra one enhanced geometry and enhanced algebra two is integrated algebra one integrated geometry and integrated algebra two so um We don't have that option right now. We would love to explore it and implement it if possible. So this will be one of the parts that our six through 12 committee will explore and see where we land with this, if it's feasible and what part of our student community will be interested in that particular pathway. And let me see if there are any other questions. So the last question is, I hope I'm not skipping any question, but if I do, please feel free to ask that. But the last question is, this is very focused on the advanced students, but what are we doing to close the achievement gap, especially from the events of the last year? How can we close the gap without relying heavily on summer school, excessive after-school tutoring, excessive homework, or keeping students back? This is a very important question, and I believe something that will really shape our teaching and learning next year. We know that a lot of this school year was gone with our students learning remotely, and it really took a long time social and emotional toll on them. I would prefer that students do not rely heavily on, that we don't rely heavily on summer school, excessive after school tutoring, excessive homework, or keeping students back. just because none of them is actually fair to them. And it's very important that we keep equity at it and also the social and emotional health of our students. So we will explore and we are in the middle of exploring. I am constantly listening to what NCTM is suggesting. One of the suggestions has been as it was from last year, that we do not spend excessive time on reviewing at the beginning of the year, that gaps be filled as we find out through our quick formative assessments and just do a one-day review on a particular topic. But then again, this is something that we are still exploring. But it's good to know. It's in the back of our mind, I think, all the entire educator community is right now concentrating on this particular question. So if I don't have an exact answer, but we are working on finding ways so that our students' mental health is not compromised and that we give them enough time to be outdoors whenever we return to normalcy. We'll keep exploring, we'll keep looking, and we'll keep working with our students. So any questions? Hello?
[Van der Kloot]: Mayor Paul has his hand up. Oh, sorry, I couldn't see him.
[Ruseau]: Member Ruseau. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation, as always. an awful lot of questions that I had. But of course, the presentation can't be three hours long. So I did find some questions I still have. When the rules, policy and equity subcommittee met two, three weeks ago, there was a brief conversation about who is in our honors and AP math and other courses as well. And I was just wondering about, you know, the accelerated math and whether or not, so there's this whole concept of tracking, which all the educators here know very well, and it's also not, you know, for as positive as it can be, it is not a very good, it's not a force for equity for sure. And I'm just wondering if the accelerated math course is really a, just a tracking with a different name. That's one question.
[Khan]: Okay, great. Thank you, Mr. Russo. So one thing we must admit is that it definitely serves a certain population. Now, it's important to review the process and it's important to have proper structures in place so that that helps us place the right students in the particular class and the accelerated class. We also have in the past, and I believe we should continue to honor parents wishes who know their student the best and mentioned that they would like their students to be in the accelerated pathway. We always have honored them, even though we have given our advice and we have given our recommendation. So the accelerated pathway is not for everybody. Desi has mentioned that. I have seen that from my own personal experience. So I cannot say that all students will be able to do it. I was not able to do it when I was their age in middle school. So And I believe that sometimes it plays with students' confidence if we place them in an incorrect class, whether it's a student who needed to be in the accelerated pathway and we just put them in a standard class. And if it was a student who should be in standard class, they want to take their time maturing and learning mathematics. And here we have put them in accelerated pathway. So we will continue to advise and suggest and recommend to the best of our ability using the data points that we have. We do ask parents, we always will honor their wishes, but I believe that there needs to be a level of trust where parents take the recommendations of the teachers and really I would say sometimes that if they give their students the due time, the students will get to calculus if that is the case. We also know that whenever there's a lot that's being taught in the accelerated pathway, even with this modification, there will be a lot being taught. A year and a half worth of, Standards in mathematics is is no easy feat for the educator and for the students. So we need to be very careful with that decision as educators, teachers will be careful as as somebody who finally gives an okay or advises, I need to be looking at all data points in and especially for this coming year and I believe parents just need to be very sure that that's what students want as well and that it's not them you know, making a decision for the student without knowing their student very well. I hope that answers the question, Mr. Russo. And if not, I can go in more depth.
[Ruseau]: It does. It leads me to my second question, which I think will be my last question, because you've answered so many of my other ones already. So, um, you know, I believe this committee has asked, and I don't lose track of which year was and whether it was even Dr Edouard-Vincent for demographics on students that are in accelerated math. and as well as honors and AP courses across the district, the students, you know, when we, at that subcommittee meeting a few weeks ago, the students, and these are students that are there now, we're not talking about people who remember when they went to Medford High, we're talking about people who are literally still there, are very clear that the demographics, if you go to these courses, you do not see what you think of when you think of Medford. And, I listening to your you know the the advice that is given about whether students are appropriate for the particular course or not, I certainly think that's important. You know, but I also recognize that there's a human quality to that that I mean the evidence is quite clear when. And, you know, it's not about intent. So I never want anybody to think that, but teachers are people too. And, you know, the exact same set of characteristics presented in two different students, whether it's, you know, whether it's race or, you know, socioeconomics or disability or a number of other factors, the same, qualifying characteristics of a student for accelerated coursework doesn't end up with the same results when people of good intent look at them and decide which ones should be moved up. And, you know, I know that I talked about, you know, this issue around girls in math, which is obviously a very specific and very important issue and I know important to you as well. But I do, I just want to know that there's an active open conversation going on about how you are selecting students or recommending students for accelerated coursework and trying to purposefully work against the realities of being a human. And And I just want to hear you say that you are, or that you think there's more work to do there.
[Khan]: Yes, there is no doubt about it, that there is much work to be done there. Because I'm very well aware of the fact that we all have our own biases and that's a big factor in the decisions that we make. The first step I would say is that all of us, the educators in the committee and educators in general, is that we really reflect upon our biases and we look at the structures in place. And it's no, again, it's no easy task. I am hoping that with this committee, that will be the overarching umbrella. And that's why we wanted to be sure that the name reflects the mission is equitable. We would like it to be as equitable as possible. We will review what we can do in the best of our capability. Um, and, um, and, and we have been having these conversations, um, you know, Dr. Vincent and I, and, and Dr. Kuching and, and Ms. Gallucci. Um, we, we would like to do our level best, but you know, it's a work in progress. Um, I just want the, the members of the committee to know that I'm very well aware of, of these. I was trained in Boston public schools, and that was a very tough thing for me to come to reality that even I can have biases, but I did. So I believe that the first step in the right direction is that the committee members review what is in the back of our mind. Is that what we we would want to pass along? Are we serving our community well? Are we serving all of our students well? So, you know, sometimes it's actually many times it's unconscious. We are not aware of it, but I think the reflective practitioner piece will be very helpful in this particular regard, as it is in all regards, but all the more, this is where the work needs to be done in middle school and high school.
[Van der Kloot]: Mayor. Member van der Kolk? Yes, I wanted to, we received another letter. Yes. It says, dear members of the school committee and Mayor Lungo-Koehn, I am watching the school committee meeting on the public access station. I am watching the math presentation. The question that has not been answered is what about this year's seventh grade students who were not given the option to accelerate? I thought they would be given the option in eighth grade, but based on this presentation, it does not sound as though any option is being offered that will address them. I would appreciate if someone would ask this question. Sincerely, Juliet Gainsborough, parent of a seventh grader and a 10th grader, 115 Alston Street.
[Khan]: Thank you. So the seventh graders this year, and I apologize, it's not in the presentation, but the seventh graders that were not given an opportunity last year at the end of sixth grade will be given an opportunity to choose the Algebra I option at the end of this year, which is in June. So I hope that answers that question.
[Van der Kloot]: Thank you.
[Khan]: No problem. The letters will be going home, letting the parents know of the sixth graders and of the seventh graders. We will be having placement tests at both levels, and we'll make our recommendations based on many factors. Placement test is just one of them.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you so much for the presentation, Ms. Khan. Number four, we have before and after school programming. Ms. Megan Fidler-Carey, Dr. Edouard-Vincent, and Mr. Murphy.
[Van der Kloot]: Mayor, I received a letter which specifically asked me to read it at the outset, if I could, on this topic. Please do. Thank you. Dear school committee members, I, Teresa Fernald from 13 Whittier Road, Medford, am submitting this request and a question on behalf of almost 40 families who have joined together in support of the expansion and further development of accessible, equitable, and inclusive afterschool care in Medford, Mass. We request that I be granted five minutes instead of three during the afterschool topic, agenda 9.4, and that the below questions be read aloud during the meeting prior to our five minutes for this agenda item. Medford parents for better after and before school care. We have built a network of approximately 40 families who are ready, willing, and eager to be part of identifying and executing solutions related to the afterschool crisis in Medford. To build the MPS school committee mission round tables to build off of, I'm sorry, held April 5 and 6, we know the current mission statement is changing and we support this change. However, we would like to ask the following as it relates to the mission, calling for MPS to be a partnership of school, family, and community. What is the best way for parents to get involved in brainstorming and execution of solutions for the city's afterschool crisis? Beyond attending a school committee meeting, how do we start a conversation towards solving the afterschool crisis that builds toward a true partnership between parents, school, and city leadership, in addition to the larger community? Thank you, Parents Working for a Better MPS Committee. And there's Andrea Quinn and Emily Parada, Christina Roberts, Dallas Scott and Haskell Kent, Daniel Blackwell, Deirdre Hausler, Emily Jameson and Dennis Anderson, Nicole Dillon, Teresa Pernald and Vanessa Forsner. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Member Van der Kloot. Dr. Edouard-Vincent, Mr. Murphy, and Ms. Megan Fidler-Carey.
[Edouard-Vincent]: I want to just say, as this presentation takes place, I just want to thank everyone who worked on it, contributing, and we hope that many of the questions that were being asked and questions that were shared during last week's roundtable sessions, that the community will see that Medford Public Schools is making a specific and a specific targeted approach to looking at our before and after school programming. I thank Megan Fidler-Carey, who's our director of that program, for being with us tonight, and Mr. Dave Murphy, who will be guiding us through a very comprehensive slide deck. Thank you.
[Murphy]: Thank you, Dr. Robinson. I'm going to share a presentation now that Ms. Fidler-Carey, and I will be walking through. We're doing so on behalf of Ms. Galussi, who I'm sure is defying both the superintendent's and director's orders by watching tonight's meeting. But obviously, her leadership and oversight of the program is critically important, and we're happy to to be speaking on her behalf as well. So in tonight's presentation, there will essentially be three parts of what we'll be discussing and answering questions about. The first is an annual consideration that the district has to take up each year with regard to the establishment of tuition fees. The before and after school program is intended to be a self-sustaining program, meaning the fees that are assessed and the revenue that is generated is then put into a revolving account that supports the delivery of the service that the district offers. The second piece, as the superintendent alluded to, is in response to some of the concerns and concerns questions that have been raised in recent weeks related to the structure of the program. And we'll be informing the committee and the community of our intention to expand the seats in the program, but also talking about some of the logistical and financial implications of that. And then finally, the third piece that we'll talk a little bit about are the additional considerations that reflected perhaps of the offer that was made in the public comment immediately preceding this presentation, that the community and the school committee will need to take up, we would recommend taking up in the coming months and potentially beyond that, because there are some significant strategic and structural decisions that have been made related to the decision to offer this service. They are not necessarily the decisions that other communities have made And ultimately, I do think it is the school committee that has to render a decision as to if to invest and if so, how to invest in providing particularly afterschool care. And we'll talk a little bit about the distinction. This is the department that Megan leads is before and afterschool care. And those two services are obviously related to each other. We'll be providing background and context on the overall before and afterschool program, But the recommendations, and we'll get to this in a moment, with regard to some changes, are specific to the after-school component. There are a few reasons for that. Some of them are related to coming out of the pandemic and this being a year which we're not doing before-school programming, we haven't to date. And then some of them have absolutely nothing to do with the pandemic. There's just, there's a different set of implications for those two aspects. So I'm going to turn it over to Megan now to talk a little bit about the context and the background of the of the programming that she is facilitating, and her staff is facilitating. And I will say that, as is the case with almost everything we present to the school committee, you are hearing from members of the leadership team and the managers who are responsible for it. But And again, this is really true for every single thing we talked about here. There are dozens and sometimes hundreds of people who actually do this work and they work extremely hard and they are responsible for making sure that the district as an organization is able to provide the service and the services that we do to the community. And so while oftentimes before the governing body, we're talking about the sort of big picture and the vision, this strategy, what we can do to improve. I don't want to lose sight of the fact that there are staff in the dozens that make sure that the children of Medford whose families are using the service have a safe place to go and are able to receive care on a daily basis. And so we certainly extend our gratitude to them. So again, because I don't think we should dive into a conversation about some potential changes before talking about where the program is right now, even though I know many people watching this may already be familiar with this, we wanna provide some background and context to the department. So Ms. Fidley-Curry, do you wanna take it from there and you can let me know when you're ready to advance the slides and then I'll come back and talk a little bit about some of the changes that we are recommending and or planning to take.
[0SdCkR9KuqQ_SPEAKER_07]: Sure, thanks Dave. And thank you so much for mentioning the importance of the staff and honoring them. I know some of our afterschool staff are on this call right now, which I was really excited, but not surprised to see because that's how dedicated they are. They are very, very much working hard to make this program as excellent as it is. So I'm actually, and this is what I always do in interviews when I meet with people, I'm actually gonna say as much as I can about what are on these slides, Assuming that not everybody knows that much about the program, that way I don't leave anything out that I think is important that I wanna make sure everybody knows. And I know that certainly there are some new to the district families on this Zoom. So it bears going through the history of it. So we provide afterschool care from dismissal until six o'clock, five days a week at all four of the elementary schools. The before school programming, as many of you know, was suspended this year because we just couldn't guarantee the safety and cleaning protocols that we needed to feel comfortable and to keep everybody safe. But we are planning to run it next year. So that's good. We've got it in motion. We're making sure that staff are coming back and staffing up for that. Before school programming and after school program have increased. over the last several years, we, by hook or by crook, steadily figure out how to chip away at any wait lists and meet demand as we can safely in the program. So we're glad to have been able to see an increase in both of those programs over the last several years. Forgive me for those of you who've heard this a million times, but for those who haven't, I am part of a group of people called the Network of Extended Day Directors. So those are other people in my same position that have district run afterschool programs in Massachusetts. And we, not this year, but typically we meet monthly to go over best practices, shared challenges, to bounce ideas off of each other, to figure out, you know, what, how to, if anybody's come up with great ideas for problem solving. And it's a fantastic and phenomenal resource for me and for each other to find out, you know, who else is running into any problems. So based on their best practices, that's where we determine a lot of our kind of things that we take for granted now. But for example, that last bullet on there is the ratio. We keep a 10 to one ratio, 10 students to one staff member for all of our sites. Okay, Debbie did go the next slide. All right, we strive for accessibility, number one, we wanna make sure that as many families as need this have access to this and access come in, meaning know about it, know it exists, can afford it and can get to it. And I know that that's challenging for some, so, So we've kept the rates in line with what other districts are doing. We tried to keep it really accessible, thinking about affordability and looking at other programs around Medford and across the state too. So currently that looks like what you see on the screen, we for ease in economics and accounting, we keep it to 10 monthly payments, 10 of the same monthly payments. So we pick figure out a day rate and multiply that by 180, which is how many school days there are, and then divide that number into 10 equal payments. That's easier for accounting on both, both ledgers. So you'll notice that the before school programming is 140 a month for five days, and the afterschool programming is 432.50 a month for five days a week, which averages out to about $24 a day. When we've spoken to other districts, which I do frequently, both through NEDS and closer to Medford districts that maybe aren't in NEDS, some of the things that we find out about how they address challenges are they have caps where they just, they don't grow, or some of them have said that this, Programming is a lot of work and so that they outsource it. So it's not a district run program. I believe district run is better for students. It's better for staff. There's continuity of information from the school day to the afterschool. As Medford Public Schools staff members, the afterschool staff and I have, we can be in the building as staff members. and speak to the nurses and speak to the daytime teachers and find out kind of what's the pulse of the day, you know, are there students and did something happen during the day that we should know about in the afterschool that we can carry into it, that a private provider coming in and just kind of operating on the premises wouldn't be able to ask those questions because of confidentiality rules. So I think that it's better for students in that way. Hold on, I'm reading this last. I don't want to leave any bullets out. Oh, about the fees that are comparable, right? So yeah, so we'll go into the next one. So the organizational structure of the program is the assistant superintendent for elementary education, Suzanne Galussi, oversees all of these. This is under her purview. And then I manage the before and after school programs. But then at each site, there's what's called a superintendent, I mean, a site coordinator. And I like to pitch that as the principal of that after school program. They're the person that is looking over all of the logistics, logistics to making sure that the staff knows where everything is and what they need. I'm checking in with parents, making sure all the attendance is organized. And so I'm sort of there to support them and oversee. the sort of vision of policy and make sure they have everything they need. And then the next in line at the Brooks, our biggest program, we have what's called a senior group leader. And we realized we needed that because we had so many staff at that program that we needed somebody to train up our brand new staff, because we were having to get new people on board so fast that the site coordinator couldn't do it all by herself. So we have this senior group leader who helps to mentor and train up staff. And then the group leaders are sort of like teachers. They come up with the activities. The after school day is divided into four parts, homework, snack, physical activity time, and enrichment time. And the group leader comes up with that enrichment time. So getting to know the students in front of them, they decide what their interests are, their personal interests are, and how they can translate that to helping out with the kids. And then we have assistant group leaders, and then also our very valuable high school aides. And all of those people that I mentioned besides me and our, oh, and we have our administrative assistant who's in the office with me too, who's sort of making sure that all of the finance and all of the nuts and bolts is operating and that nothing falls apart. She's there to make sure we have everything we need and that the tuition and payments are all paid. All of the staff at the schools are paid through the revolving account. I did have one other thing that I wanted to just quick include. So this year especially, but every year in general, I think it's important to note that we don't pitch ourselves as an academic program. It's not an academic after-school program. When I first started out, I sort of wanted it to be. I said, let's infuse academics and learning in everything we do. But we realized that so many of our students just need social emotional support. They need social emotional skill building and they need to kind of blow off steam. They've been in school all day. So besides homework and homework help and tutoring, we really don't heavily focus on academics. This isn't I don't pitch this to say to parents like sign up and you're going to get a better grade on the SATs. It's not about that it's sign up and we're going to teach your kid how to be a better buddy and a better neighbor and you know an advocate for themselves and an upstander those sorts of things. So we've really tried to focus on social emotional and open circle and we're carrying in the social emotional learning and language from the school day into the afterschool program so that the kids have the consistency of those practices. And that's where our focus lies. And I'm really proud of the work that we've done.
[Murphy]: And your team should be as well. So we're going to move forward now and to focus on some of the recommendations or attempts that we have with regard to the modifications of the program. hopefully also walk through the rationale behind each of those potential changes. And so just to sort of finish up in terms of background and context, this is a sizable program. There are hundreds of students and students across four elementary schools who receive this after school care and before school care as well. The personnel costs are in the vicinity of $500,000, depending on the size of the program, that has an impact on the size of the staff. But as is the case with almost everything in Medford and every public school system, when you break down the budget, most of it is going to be in personnel costs. There aren't a lot of, there are some supplies and we've made sure that we have the appropriate amount of play equipment. And obviously we need snacks. We don't want to not have snacks at the end of a long school day. But the vast majority of the funding goes toward paying the staff responsible for keeping students safe and providing the type of programming that Ms. Fidelicari was referencing. So that's how the budget is currently broken down. There is a modest grant that the program receives, and the revenue is typically in excess of a million dollars. If we look back over the course of the last five years, there's been some fluctuation in terms of the size of the program. But we can usually, if the program is at capacity, which it has been for the last several years, and as Mr. Pillicari referenced, it has grown steadily. And so we would project about 1.2 million based on, just to be clear, there's a little variability here, okay? Because you have some students who will be enrolled in the program for the entire school year, and some that will not be enrolled for the entire school year. You have some students who will be there received before school care three days a week, and some that will have five days a week, and some variability in terms of the total number of days students are in after school as well. So in order, in terms of making this projection, this is based on what we, on average, would receive. As we referenced, the current tuition is $43.25 for after school for the year. that doesn't mean we generate $4,300 per student. So we would usually use an average of somewhere between 33 and 3,700. You factor in revenue generated by the before school program, which is much less than the after school program. And this is about, it's been pretty steady. It's gone up a little bit, but this is about what we would expect. And the difference in terms of the 200,000 that's referenced on this slide is that would be, assuming we move forward, with our intent to expand. And just so there's, we're clear in terms of what the administration is presenting to you tonight and what we are intending to do, we are going to be asking the school committee to, I'm maybe a little ahead of myself, so I apologize, but we're gonna be asking the committee to, for a modest increase in the tuition in order to ensure that we have the budgetary capacity to do some of these other things. And we'll get into sort of how these five challenges are connected to each other. We have generally grown the program in terms of the total number of students enrolled based on our spatial capacity, frankly. And so we would like to continue to expand the program to make sure we provide the service that is being requested. But there are some other inherent challenges that it's clear to us we will need to make in order for us to be able to make that expansion And I would also just say that in order for the program to continue to be successful, and Ms. Fidelicari can expand upon that when we do questions, but hopefully we'll make clear sort of why it is we're taking the actions that we are, or asking you to take the action with regard to the tuition. So the five challenges that we'll address over the next five slides are, one, we wanna make sure that we maintain affordability. Ms. Fidelicari spoke about the importance we place on access to this programming. We have a challenge, both with regard to the operationalizing of the current program and our desire for an expansion, because of staff turnover. And for that reason, we'll also be asking for a wage increase for the staff. The rationale being, if we're able to stabilize the staffing, we can more responsibly expand the number of seats and ensure equitable access to Medford Public School students whose families would like to avail themselves of the service. There is a spatial component to this, that's number four here. And we have identified a strategy that we've worked with our elementary principals and our technology department to make sure that we're prepared to identify that space and move forward as necessary. And then we are also facing the challenge, and this is sort of one that's sort of hovering over this, is that there has been a dramatic decrease in the amount of revenue being generated this year because there are significantly fewer students enrolled in the program. Now, based on the registrations, it would appear as though our enrollment is going to be back up. And that will be a good thing with regard to the revenue. But there is a need to maintain a robust balance in the revolving account because of potential unanticipated staffing challenges that we might have to face. And that is frankly part of making sure that we maintain equitable access to the program. So with regard to the request to the school committee to raise the tuition, It's my impression that this is not something the committee has voted on in the past. Typically, this type of fee being assessed to members of the community would be voted on by the school committee. And so we're asking you to approve our proposed increase to $25 per day. This is, again, it's maintaining the approximately 3% increase that the program has seen in the past. So it's not unusual or departing in any way from what the district has previously done, but we would ask that you endorse that tuition increase. The second piece that we're doing again is to raise the wages right now vary to some degree. There are individuals in these positions and their wages, what they have in common is that they're all modest, but they range anywhere from $14 to from the assistant group leader to senior group leader who has Megan said are sort of the people occupying the sort of teacher type roles. Those wages range and there's different levels of responsibility and we've established proposed wage increases commensurate with those responsibilities. But in order to try to stem the tide of staffing turnover, which leads to instability within the program, we are looking to increase these wages according to the table that is before you. And again, this is not affecting the operating budget. This is the revolving account, which is dependent upon the revenue generated from the fees. So the total budgetary impact of these wage increases on an annual basis is estimated to be about $120,000 or $125,000. Based on the stability of the revolving account over the years, we're confident that that's a cost that can be absorbed. And these wages have been generated in part by our research in terms of other districts that we've done. And we think that this would put us in a position where we'd be paying a comparable wage, but a competitive one, and hopefully be able to stabilize that staffing situation. The third piece is with regard to the expansion. This is based on really two factors. One with regard to the identification of space, which has been the previous up until this point has been sort of a limiting factor. We'll talk about that in a minute, but as we've identified space that can be used, and we know that there is this demand in the community, we feel a 60-seat expansion, which will put us back over the number that was enrolled at the last time we were at full capacity, which was during the 19-20 school year, prior to the shutdown, and then a slight increase, which is consistent with the trajectory of the increases over the years in terms of enrollment. So we feel as though we can, this number is based on, as I said, the space that's identified, but also what we think we can, with the wage increases, expect in terms of the stabilization of staff. We're looking at the number, the amount of turnover we typically have. We're hopeful that based on the wage increases, that will stabilize. We think we can add the probably seven to 10 staff members that would be necessary in order to maintain the ratio that, as we said earlier, the industry considers to be a best practice. In terms of the utilization of space, and again, this is not a surprise to our elementary principals, we have computer labs that were built into each school. There are three in three of the elementary schools and two in one of the schools for reasons I'm not frankly totally sure why. But we're in the process of refurbishing the tech labs that are used specific to the technology classes when the elementary school students have their technology special. There are other computer labs that are referred to as the open computer labs and they're used on occasion. But frankly, the technology there is increasingly in those labs is increasingly obsolete because we're moving to a one-to-one ratio with regard to Chromebooks. and therefore they're not in each school terribly well utilized at the moment. I'm sure each principal who is always thinking creatively is using them for something and that there's good work happening there, but this doesn't exclude the principals from using those rooms during the school day, but it is a way of avoiding having to take, utilize classes for afterschool programming that is, that are typical traditional classrooms. As it says here, If the program were to expand, it very well might be the case that some classrooms would be utilized. And that's something that we would communicate ahead of time to teachers and make sure that we discussed with them and their representatives the impact of that potential change. But right now, based on what we're intending to do in terms of the seat expansion, the use of these sort of unassigned open computer labs would be sufficient. And that would put us in a position to expand by 60 seats. Just to be clear, this is an important factor. We can't expand the program if we don't know where the students are going to be. But the use of the elementary school classrooms besides the tech labs is not a limiting factor. We're not not expanding because of the classrooms that we would have to occupy through this programming. It's just that we think right now the responsible expansion is by 60 seats. And so we're not going to take over more classrooms than we need to. And at the moment, the need would be satisfied through the use of the open tech labs. So again, with regard to the revenue, it is down, but we do have a healthy balance of approximately $800,000 in the revolving account that's there. This coupled with the wage increase would allow us to stabilize the staffing and expand the seats. But I referenced that account balance with the very important caveat that the nature of this programming requires us to maintain a healthy balance. And so we're not in a position to spend that down any further. But again, we wouldn't recommend it anyway because we're trying to expand the program at a responsible rate and pace. And so I said the third part of the presentation that we'll touch upon here are what are the considerations and the questions that the committee and the district need to uh, be mindful of going forward. And, um, as I, as I said, I think that I know there's been some offers made by members of the community to collaborate that over collaborate over these, these issues and questions. And it's something that the administration has always, uh, uh, certainly, uh, receptive to, and we're eager to, um, work with both the committee and members of the community as we determine what the best direction forward is. Um, that being said, there is a one question that this committee, I think does have to just be cognizant of. because it's a question that all school committees do, is whether to continue offering this service. We think there's a very significant benefit to that. We think if done at a responsible rate, we can expand and offer the service. But that doesn't mean that we can just expand indefinitely. And I think that when we talk about sort of the concepts of a wait list and public education, that That's a combination that doesn't really sit terribly well together. And I think all of us who work in public education know that, that if we're offering a service, the idea is to not have to wait around for it. And I think that's true whether we're talking about after-school programming or an AP class that students wanna get into, or an intramural sport that middle school students wanna play. If we're offering it, access should be a critical part of it. But at the same time, if we can't offer something responsibly and equitably, then we have to, as an organization, I think, strategize around whether it is the right investment. So you're not hearing a recommendation that we don't continue the program. That's certainly not the case. But I do think we have to be cognizant of the fact that it is a strategic decision that the organization through the school committee makes. And then from that point, we have to administer the program in the most responsible way possible. an immediate or disproportionate expansion, I don't think would satisfy that responsibility, which is why we crafted the strategy that we have. I think Ms. Whitley-Curry talked a little bit about sort of the evolution in her own thinking with regard to the type of programming. This isn't something that we have a recommendation on tonight. It's not one that I anticipate we'll be making in the next several weeks or even before the 21-22 school year. But I do think that every single program and service that we offer, has to take into account the significant disruption in the instructional experience to students going through this pandemic. And there's some strategizing and prioritizing and conversations that should take place in that context. Something that I know, or it's been told, has been discussed at the school committee level in the past is whether to implement a graduated income-based tuition system. That is something, frankly, that we discussed in the formulation of these recommendations. It's not something that we think we have the capacity to implement right now, which is why it's not a part of that, but there is certainly room for a conversation there. And then finally, with regard to the, go back to the spatial issue, there will be some potential strategic decisions that have to be made in the future if we are to continue to expand as to whether to continue utilizing in-house space or potentially partner with other organizations, which will in turn raise the costs of the program. And as I mentioned in the beginning, the vast majority of it now is personnel. It's not to say that we couldn't theoretically expend some resources, but it may be the case in order to maintain that healthy balance and make sure that we're able to provide equitable access if necessary, it may be the case that we would have to consider some type of raising of the tuition fees in order to be able to withstand the potential use of other facilities. So those are sort of five nuggets of information that I think is the sort of common thread there is that we will be revisiting these issues in the future. There'll be some strategic decisions that have to be made to that effect. And I think That's not this side, one last thing. So this is just sort of walking through it again. The point of this is just to demonstrate that all of these things are connected. The first box, we decide whether to have after-school programming. That's a decision for the school committee right now. The organization has decided, yes, we will. Second, we decide to expand. That is reflective, again, of the sort of internal conflict, or inherent conflict, rather, between having a public education something that an element of the school system that is inaccessible. So to address that we have to identify space and we have to stabilize staffing. So where our recommendations are we're going to intend to use the computer labs and we're going to intend to increase the seats and the way to do that we think responsibly would be to stabilize the staffing which is why we are asking for the the wage increase to members of the staff. So I appreciate you carrying us out on all that. I know this is a multifaceted presentation, and I certainly hope that no one will be shy about asking questions, even if they think the information might have been tucked away somewhere. We're happy to revisit any or all of the pieces of information that we've submitted tonight. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. I appreciate that we got this presentation ahead of time. I don't think I could have digested it all right now. I first would like to acknowledge that our director still needs to actually have a title of director. Everybody wants to refer to her as the director and she should be the director. So I look forward to that being corrected, hopefully in this budget. I think one thing that's missing here is the impact of failure to meet this need. Our tuition, our charter school tuition this year is $8.7 million. And the frequency with which I hear parents, well, I mean, they don't end up in our school system, but you see it on Facebook, you see it in the parent group. And they're like, well, I went there because I could get guaranteed after school. And, and I understand the dynamics of not having unions in the charter schools, and they can do things we really can't do. But one of the things they also do is is take up a many, many millions of dollars a year. And I think that You know, the word affordability is a reference to the families, but I think we also need to acknowledge there's an affordability to the district to not having every single person who wants to use this program have a seat. It's $13,000 a year for 13 years that we send money out of the district. And it's always these kindergarten parents who are like, first kids can't get a seat. They have two or three or four kids. And once the first kid goes off to the charter school, they don't, kid number two, they're not putting into the lottery. So instead of it being 144 or whatever the number is, thousands of dollars, it's times the number of kids they have. We are talking about literally flushing vast sums of money down the toilet every year. And I think that worrying about whether it's $29 an hour or $35, I mean, The number, the amount of money we're losing to this dwarfs the entire budget of the whole program. So I think that that, and I know that's like, it's like imaginary money that we don't have and it isn't like we can't, we don't have a ledger. And I understand like it's harder to talk about because it is sort of like the money that's not in front of us. It's not in our budget and it's not gonna be. I think of this very much like we're looking here and the problem is just so much bigger. So that sort of was a really important point that I don't see in the presentation. I also don't know how it would fit. So I'm not criticizing. I would just add, I am 100% opposed to privatization of any sort. The word privatization in public education those two things being discussed at the same time feels almost like as a very strange thing. It's very much similar to the whole point that Mr. Murphy made about talking about wait lists and public education. They don't go together for a reason and privatization and public education in my mind don't belong together either. I would couch that slightly and that if you told me we could privatize this all the employees would be paid at wages that we agreed to, and they all got health insurance and retirement benefits and a private company. But that's not what happens when you privatize. Everybody gets the least imaginable amount of money possible to make the business work.
[Murphy]: If we're able to maintain that level of control, but I understand the point.
[Ruseau]: Yeah. So, um, I don't wanna be the only one to speak, but I just wanna quickly ask a couple more questions. We have a few words that we actually don't define in here. And again, it's a presentation, it's not a paper. Affordability isn't defined. And I think it's important to acknowledge that the goal of affordability is really about affordability for people who are resource constrained. We are not talking about affordability for people with $250,000 in household income. When I looked at the survey results for the superintendent search, just not related to this, the number one responding in their income category, and obviously this was not a scientific sampling of Medford, But of the people that responded to the demographics, the most common answer to their household income was over $250,000. We are not living in the middle ages. There are lots of people in Medford who would think that these numbers that we're talking about, those aren't affordable, they're laughable. They're kind of like, that's it? Well, sure, whatever. Like they don't go and look in their budget to see if they can afford it. They look at these numbers and they're like, Jesus, why would anybody not take this service? So I think we have to nail down a bit on what we mean by affordability, because by focusing on just the fact that we wanna keep it affordable for those that are resource constrained, we're missing a huge opportunity, frankly. That's how I view this. And I recognize that we don't have the systems in place this year to start doing things around, you know, a sliding scale or income base. And those technical requirements are not something you can snap your fingers and accomplish. But when I heard the, well, I heard $540 a month, although I realized it's not that number. I thought, well, is that a week? I thought it was a week. And I mean, has anybody here hired a nanny? I haven't. If you tell me you can get a nanny for $540 a week, I'd be surprised. So, you know, I think we have to, we're not valuing the convenience of in-place transfer for your child from their classroom to their afterschool program. We're not valuing that. We're comparing it to a kid that would have to be picked up and transferred to GraceWorks or six acres or wherever, like those are not comparable, no matter if they were doing exactly the same programming, they are not comparable. And where are we adding the value and figure out how much this is worth around the fact that your kid just goes either from the second floor to the first floor, or maybe even they're in the same classroom. There's a huge value there. And I'm not saying we check the rates up for everybody, but for people that have the resources, these numbers make absolutely no sense. that we're charging. And I am not a fan of 3% increases in the future. I certainly will vote for that tonight, but that, you know, and maybe we get to a whole new structure and then we go 3% going forward. But like, once we switch or can get to an income-based, I do not expect you to get, like a presentation says we're gonna charge them 10% more, like that's, that's not thinking outside the box or valuing the service that is being provided, in my opinion. The staff turnover, I think that was well covered, is a major issue. And I was super happy when I saw the slide with the increases in the wages. It was much bigger than I anticipated, honestly, and that made me feel very confident that we're working towards really dealing with this. There is a word equitable accesses in here two or three times, and I'm just wishing we had a definition and maybe there is one, but we do need to define that because there is no, it's not like math. There is no answer. It's a value judgment that we as a community make to decide what equitable means. And I expect that that changes year to year, you know, as Medford changes and as the committee changes, And then that was all I had for the moment. I appreciate this. This is, I think, excellent. And when we get through lots of questions, I'd be happy to make some motions. Thank you.
[Van der Kloot]: Thank you. Yes, thank you, Mayor. So the thing is, first I want to thank Megan and Fiddler Carey and David Murphy and Suzanne Galussi and everybody else who's worked on this. And certainly there are a lot of positive changes in this. It looks You know, the increased wages hopefully will help in securing people who want to work in the afterschool. It's always been a difficult position to hire because it's for a limited amount of time in sort of an awkward part of the day. I will tell you that I've visited the afterschool on numerous occasions, and I've just been so thrilled with the staff members and their dedication to the kids. They clearly take their responsibilities very highly, and I've heard such wonderful feedback. Having said all the positives, the only thing is if I'm looking at this and it was from the first slide with the numbers, we're adding projected 60 spaces, but we've got 144 on the wait list. That means if I understood this correctly, there were still 84 families who are being disenfranchised. And so then the question comes back and saying, Okay, great, fantastic. I understand you're trying to be realistic in your projections. I understand there are some issues about space, although Mr. Murphy said it was not space alone. Probably the hiring, I would guess, is one of the most difficult things altogether. But how are we going to accommodate the other families who are not accommodated in this? And what, what else can we do. I wondered and I realized, I absolutely get that there's a whole nother oversight needed. We've parents have mentioned that they wanted to be cooperative players I've remembered the days of preschools. where there were cooperative preschools and parents volunteered maybe to work on a Monday and Wednesday, and then their kids went and other parents took over in other days. And again, I fully appreciate that's a whole nother level of organization. But if hiring is the issue, And if we're looking still at this gap of 84 families, and I don't know if it's spread throughout the district in particular, that seems to me that's the next challenge and what are we gonna do about that? But again, I say this almost kind of like torn, because I wanna tell you, I very much appreciate the work that's been done and the steps that are positive moving forward.
[Murphy]: Mayor, if I could just briefly respond to both Mr. So and Ms. Van der Kloot. I, the first thing I think everyone should know is that it's not uncommon, particularly in Ms. Fidler-Kerr, correct me if I misstate anything here, but it's not uncommon to have a wait list at this point. And there, the likelihood is many people on the wait list will ultimately, I don't want to get into the quantity, quantifying it, but there will be people on the wait list who in all likelihood I'll end up with a C. And so if it's 84 right now, it should be fewer than 84 by the time September comes around. So that, that being said, Ms. Vanden Heuvel used the word disenfranchisement, and I think it is necessary to know that this is not a core service of the district. Now, that being said, okay, the district has decided to have an afterschool program. And I think we all agree on the inherent conflict and problem with having a service that's offered that we can't afford to everyone. But that is why, as we consulted with other districts, some districts ultimately did decide to privatize the service because they couldn't identify the capacity internally to be able to provide the service to everyone who asked for it. And so, that is like the sort of conundrum that we find ourselves in, that we make the strategic decision to do this because we wanna provide as much service as we can, but we have to be honest about our capacity to offer the service in the way we do our core mission, which we have a moral and legal obligation to provide to everyone. And so there is a distinction there. And I just wanna say because to the point that Mr. Russell made with regard to the wages, the wage increases, that is like everything. And I wouldn't necessarily say that the things that we put in here are undefined because they're based in part in comparisons we did to other districts. So the definition I would say is generally by trying to be comparable, both with regard to tuition fees in terms of access and affordability, and with regard to wages. At the same time, and there's some variability with regard to the scope of the increase, depending on the position, because there's some variability with regard to our ability to retain people. And so that is sort of what's driving this. And I do have to mention, as we approach budget season, that again, this is a self-sustained program. And so these increases are based on the fact that there are heightened fees being generated and a revolving account to which these are charged. So this is not, this classification of employees really can't be compared to any other group of employees. And I appreciate the time to offer those explanatory notes.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Graham, then Member McLaughlin.
[Graham]: So if we, move forward with it via the hopes to expand to these 60 seats and you find that you have qualified applicants in excess of what you need to expand the program, I'm making an assumption that you would expand the program beyond the 60 seats. Is that true?
[Murphy]: I can go back and see if I got the word incorrect, but it's an approximate expansion of 60 seats, because while I do think we should come before you on an annual basis to ask for the tuition increases, I wouldn't say that the administration should come before the school committee to ask about the number of seats, because that would be like showing up to ask, you know, how many kids do you want us to put in this class? We provide the service that we can. So that's an approximation, definitely, but I would say that I don't think, it's based on one, the spatial factor, which I don't think we're going to immediately like have a new wing of a building or clear out like classrooms. I mean, there's, that doesn't mean we couldn't theoretically use some classrooms. I mean, we could expand that, but there's two other factors. One, there are additional challenges that are created the more students that are in a building. There's administrative challenges that become posed. There are safety and security challenges. There are health services challenges. All of those things have to be taken into account, which is one of the limiting factors and why we wouldn't want to quadruple in size overnight. That's a factor. The other factor is, theoretically, if we were to grow and not have space in one place, we might have to look at some options that currently are not on the table based on the current budgeting. you could see a world in which this expands in a way that fourth and fifth graders are transported to a central location. Well, maybe we could do that logistically, but that might change the nature of the service such that there might not be the same level of demand. And so that's something that we'd want to think long and hard about before we were to take that up. The final limiting factor is that we know we have staffing challenges now at our current size, we think that increasing the wages is going to stabilize that. And we think we're going to be able to hire the necessary staff. We could be wrong about that. And if we're going to be wrong, we'd rather be 20 students overenrolled and find out that we have a staffing emergency than to be 80 students overenrolled and have a staffing emergency, which is another big component of why we would want to grow gradually.
[Graham]: Yeah, and I get that. I certainly don't think we can be in a position where we overcommit and cannot deliver in a big substantive way, because I think at that point, you would have no choice but to shut down big swaths of the program, which would not be what anybody is looking for. But I will say that this committee has been told unequivocally by past administrators that space is not an issue that constrains us and at the time I didn't particularly believe it although I think the message was it's a it's a constraint that we can overcome with enough lead time. So I guess what I would ask of all of you is if if the hiring becomes the If our changes to the wage structures are such that staffing is no longer like the long tent in the pole, and you need something from this committee to allow a more rapid expansion than you're planning on, that you would come back to us and make sure that we prioritize taking action on that as as fast as we possibly can. Because I do think there are a lot of families, you know, there are families on the wait list. We're not even talking about the families who don't try to get on the list because they didn't even know they were supposed to be on a list. Like we, you know, I think even if we found a seat for every single person on the wait list, we're sort of We're only solving the part of the problem that's sort of loud and in our face, but we're not necessarily, I don't think we can say that we have solved the entire problem of afterschool care amongst elementary schools. I do think there has to be some evolution here. Yeah.
[Murphy]: No question there are people that are not, we don't know about, either don't know about it or aren't bothering to advocate. So there's no question it's a much bigger issue. And that's one of the issues here is that As we solve some of it is that we will have more problems challenges being generated. It doesn't mean we don't want to address them, but we have to address them responsibly.
[Graham]: Yeah, completely agreed. So, um, I, I would like to make a motion that we adopt the recommendations provided to us that provide wage increases for the afterschool program. staff and the recommended rate increase for tuition for the after school program.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Seconded by many. Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you. Um, I'd like to hear from some from some parents before voting on the motion if we could because I'd like to hear perspectives and I'm going to forego my place in line right now so I can hear from a number of folks and then I'll circle back around. Thank you.
[Theresa Fernald]: I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can I can We prepared a brief statement from our Medford parents for better before and after school. And we recognize that during the meeting, as you've been talking, you know, we should qualify what better means and that means more accessible, accessible after school care. We appreciate Megan's report tonight at the meeting. However, the report and the recommendations that she and David went through, they do not provide relief for the families that are excluded from the program, as member Van Der Poot mentioned, the disenfranchised families. So before afterschool care is more accessible afterschool care. And we appreciate the context David is saying tonight about the programming not being, I don't wanna misinterpret your words, but not being part of a core service, but this is a fundamental issue for our community. As Paul mentioned before, families having to choose to leave and not participate in public school by sheer need is really important. So I just wanna provide some context related to my email. I registered my oldest child of three So in that kind of situation that Paul mentioned, for kindergarten, a few short weeks ago, my husband and I worked full time, both of us, like many families in our organizing group. And we entered that after school lottery. And many families in my child's pre-K received a similar email being added to a wait list. And our understanding is not what you mentioned, David, you know, describing how the waitlist works very briefly after finding out, you know, even in this. So we're already thrust in a stressful situation. We don't, we're not in, we don't have a spot in the program. Our understanding is that very few new kindergarten students are accepted any given year. So those would be disenfranchised families. And then there are the significant number that's mentioned on the waitlist, even though that number will go down if the spots are added. The reality is if you don't get that spot during your kindergarten year, it's very small chance that you ever get off that waitlist. Most of us when we reached out about our position, those families who have rising kindergartners, we were told that we were at the bottom. Many of us were. There are very few other local afterschool options in Medford, particularly for kindergartners through third grade. This is a community issue, not just a school issue. So we have a brainstorming group, we did a lot of knowledge gathering in March and just a few short weeks, we've gathered insights by talking to Megan, by talking to school members like Jenny and Paul, we gathered insights from talking to Marie at Metro Family Network to get that wider community context. And we have grown a network of families, nine of us who are organizing and 30 other families who are interested and and at various levels wanting to at least stay informed, if not participate in that brainstorming. So just building off of that vision, mission and vision that most, a lot of us in the organizing group attended last week. And we appreciated that outreach by the school and the committee to participate in that conversation as it relates to making Medford a strong, vibrant community. that's inclusive for all working family situations. Our blue sky goal is that every family in Medford who needs a spot in the after and before school program should get one, particularly after school. And so we must strive for a future reality where zero families are forced out of the public school system altogether. Choosing those private private or charter school. And they're worse yet, there are families that don't have the means to find out, to find private care. So we have to address this in an equitable way. equitable does not mean equal also in terms of the affordability question. So to my email point before I'll wrap up, we have this network of families to build on that mission and vision. We are ready, willing, and eager to participate in a partnership. As someone already mentioned, I think, David, this could require a set of solution. And we're at the table asking how to be part of that conversation, how to be part of that brainstorming, how to be part of executing. solutions to. So, you know, maybe not today. You have an answer. But how do we have those conversations and, you know, come to the table with you to make this a community solution set? Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you very much, Teresa. Vanessa.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, my name is Vanessa Farsner of 17 Barbara Lane, and I want to also thank you for the presentation for sharing that information with us I really appreciate it I'm sure it took a lot of time and effort, as it has, you know, appreciate the time and effort of all the other people that I've been lucky to work with on this and try to move things forward. Things that I want to bring up again and make sure that I feel like the after school, the people working on the after school program are really hearing is that this isn't just about us getting a spot. This is about equity in our community. And I'm very disappointed to see that there is just a statement that working on a sliding scale fee right now is basically, it seems like too complicated. This is essential for us to meet the need. I unfortunately during this meeting had some trouble pulling up my numbers. But I ran the numbers on the free and reduced free schools across our community, and three of the schools are closer to 40% free and reduced lunch, and then the Brooke School is at about 13% free and reduced lunch. Yet, I have been told time and time again that the wait list for the afterschool program is significantly higher at the Brooks School than any other school. To me, that draws a clear line conclusion that it means it's not affordable for parents at these other schools. So to say, again, that we're meeting the need by filling 60 seats is just absurd to me. We're not coming close. There are so many families who just don't even see the fee that you have as something that they can put their money towards that they're not even looking at this as an option. So how many latchkey kids are out there because we're not offering an affordable program? And I 100% agree with Paul, where you have so many families out there who would pay the $650 plus that families in Arlington and families of Winchester are paying. Nobody is questioning, nobody in our group, I feel, is questioning the quality of what the students are receiving once they're in the program. we're questioning the accessibility of this program to students across Medford, not just in the Brooke School. And so I feel like it is essential for a sliding scale fee to be developed and be focused on. I also think that this issue of space, I haven't once heard anyone talk about other locations being used? Why can't the buses drop off kids at the high school and have a program run out of the high school or one of the middle schools? And if there's a reason, then let us be a part of that conversation so that we can understand what the reasons are and see if there are barriers. The idea that the staffing is the issue, clearly private organizations have found ways to fill the staffing. I think you've taken a great step by suggesting an increase. I agree with Paul and I'm so happy to hear you suggest that those pay increases should happen, but ask some to pay more so that you can have even greater pay increases. What you stated for the pay increases will not meet minimum wage come January 23rd. I'm sorry, January of 2023. Massachusetts minimum wage is increasing to $15 an hour as of January 1st, 2023. So you need to think not about just today, but about how those wages need to increase over time. And I really think that you're missing a huge opportunity in the ability to charge others more. I'm sure I'm running out of time, so I only have two more points. One, it continues to frustrate me that there's a four-day week option. I think a three-day week and a two-day week mean that there's a student in that spot every day of the week. And this four-day of a week just seems like a discount and not something that is getting into position at one time. So three days, two days, five days, why do we have a four-day week option? I would really like to hear an answer to that at some point. And lastly, really, transparency, more transparency going forward. I understand if you're not comfortable saying this is exactly your spot, but a communication, understanding how many spots there are in each grade, I think is something that we need. And we need to hear from you guys on where we can sit at this table. This whole presentation was put together. And while again, I appreciate it, I feel like why weren't we asked any questions before? Why wasn't a survey put out? Why aren't you asking what the actual need is? And please, please do not continue to say comments like, I'm sorry, Mr. Murphy, I've appreciated so many things that you have said. But when you said that so many spots do get filled, I am someone who's been on the wait list for over a year. over a year. So please do not say statements that makes people feel like they might get a spot as it is today. But I do thank you guys for looking at options and hope that you make us a part of the conversation in the future. And please don't forget that Andre did have his hand up. Okay, so he has it up again. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Andre. Name and address for the record. To try to limit it to two to three minutes, that would be great. We have a couple more pages. Name and address for the record.
[s_C3Q_KGMQA_SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, can you hear me now? Yeah. So my name is Andre Quenna and address is 19 Johnson Ave in Medford. So I'll keep it brief because the you know, I think a lot of our points are similar since we've been discussing a lot of this as a group. The one thing that I'll add is, and to Paul's point and to Vanessa's point, you know, I see it a little bit differently in that, you know, we again are a family that, you know, we have a child going into first grade because We weren't able to find an afterschool option last year when our son was going into first grade, so he's in private school this year. And next year, we're really hopeful that we can figure out a way to have him in public school, but that's gonna come at a cost. You know, what we're looking at, so we've looked at other options, Grace Works, they've told us they're bringing in maybe two to three additional spots next year that aren't filled by existing students within their program or siblings of students in their program. So we're on that list. We're not hopeful that that's going to be an option. We believe right now that our only option is to hire an individual caregiver for our son if we're going to go to private, to public school. That's going to come at a cost of $10,400 to cover that cost for him to receive care. And that's $10,400 that we're paying. And you're talking about, you know, should we or shouldn't we have variable rates based on income? That already exists. like we're going to pay twice as much for care for our son next year, and that's twice as much that's going to go, it's going to be lost from this after school program. We could be paying more into this program and not only having a spot for our son in this program, but potentially offsetting the cost for a family that can't afford it. So like we shouldn't be considering is there or isn't there a graduated program? There already exists, it already is there, it's just you're not taking advantage of it and you're not using it to increase access to the program and increase equity to the program. That's the only point I'll make. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Andre. Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. I want to thank the parents that were here tonight it was really good to hear from all of you it's really encouraging to see you all coming together, asking for to first eat the table, and to be a part of the community, and I think that you deserve that and I think we have to figure out a way to make that happen. And I want to get back to what another colleague was saying, several folks were saying about some of the definitions of the items that folks are talking about. Clearly, you all have put quite a bit of work into your organizing and your discussion around this. So I'm sure you've had a lot of discussion around a kitchen table or Zoom or what have you around these issues. And equitable access is a huge part. As I hear you talking about this, I'm really, really encouraged to hear people talking about offsetting costs and sliding fee scales. And I know we had, you know, a colleague talk about hundreds of thousands of dollars that some people make, but and there are people, you know, in our community that don't. And so how we're figuring that out is really critical and equitable access for all. I think I know that Megan has been really great about ensuring that students with disabilities are included in the program, that there's that there's a statement right on the application that families know that the program is accessible and that there's hiring of staff that should be trained to work with students of all abilities, students of all languages, and that those factors are being considered as well. So I am encouraged by the community rallying around this and the participation, and I would love to take a vote on member Graham's motion around the wage. a motion and I would also like to ask what the next steps forward could be in terms of sliding fee skills because there are very much families who can't. I know that access around building access and room is obviously one issue, but also the sliding fee skill is another really big issue and I want to know what training is going to be available for staff or students with disabilities as well in our individual learners. So.
[Lungo-Koehn]: So that's a second on the motion. 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 Long-O'Connor.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. The motion is approved.
[McLaughlin]: And I would like to make a motion, Mayor, if I might. Yes. I'd like to make a motion that there's a meeting that can be held with the parents that have supported this process and the administration and school committee members if they're interested. that we could put something on the books for that maybe within the next month. So I make a motion that we schedule a meeting to meet with the parents of the Medford parents for better after school and before school care and that within the next month or month and a half. So April 12th, May 12th, by the end of the day.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion for approval by member McLaughlin seconded by member Van der Kloot role.
[Van der Kloot]: I actually have a question on it.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yep. Remember Van der Kloot?
[Van der Kloot]: Yeah. So I just have to raise my concern because I've looked at the schedule just to try and get more meetings in with our budget meetings and what we're expecting of our staff. I mean, maybe we have to ask, um, Megan to spearhead this sort of meeting. I just have to express concern that, you know, I think we had 22 meetings last month and I wanna be as responsive to the parents as possible. I wanna have maybe, you know, is there a way of working committee but a formal school committee meeting to meet with all the parents? It just doesn't seem like the most effective way.
[Lungo-Koehn]: HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, Select Committee on Disability, Inc.: : Maybe. So you want to amend it that miss look Harry has a listening session. HAB-Michael Leccese, Moderator, Select Committee on Disability, Inc.:
[Murphy]: : I think, I think if the committee would like the administration to meet with the community members who have voiced his concerns. HAB-Michael Leccese, Moderator, Select Committee on Disability, Inc.: : And certainly, by all means, take a vote of if you would like to, but it's certainly something that that we will do. I will echo Miss van includes concerns with regard to the 22 evening meetings convene in the month of March that I think it might make more sense, particularly when you've now adopted it via a unanimous vote, essentially a plan for the 21-22 school year. I don't know. Certainly, we can meet with whoever needs to meet with us in the next month. That won't be a problem. But I'm not sure that directing a staff member to this type of meeting in a highly prescribed timeline is going to really have a major consequence in terms of the eventual structural changes. I think that there's a lot of meetings that have to take place and a lot of conversations and we'll make sure the appropriate staff is present at them. But I'm not sure, I'm not sure that I understand a formal school committee meeting about this in the next month. I just, I'm not sure what we would have on the agenda for that when there's a lot of back, like sort of research that has to be done to make sure that we can actually have like informed conversations about where we're going to go from here.
[McLaughlin]: Yeah, I didn't ask for a school committee meeting on this. So for clarification, I am fine with a, you know, a working group task force group, but what have we, whatever, you know, sort of is, is most workable for folks. What I want is that the conversations and the data and the information that the parent group is collecting is shared with administration and is ultimately shared with school committee so that we can see what their recommendations are. So we heard from tonight what the administration's recommendations are. I am looking for family and community engagement for this family group. So whether that's a work group or, you know, whatever you want to call it, it doesn't matter to me. I'm happy to be involved in it. I'd like to be involved in it. And I'd like it to happen, you know, by the end of May.
[Lungo-Koehn]: for approval by Member McLaughlin, seconded by Member... Can I just ask a question?
[Graham]: Member Graham. So I guess I certainly would like to see that meeting happen, but I don't think it's reasonable for it to happen before the end of May. And specifically, there is a tremendous amount of rebuilding work that has to happen in order to put the staff in place to even enact the the votes that we just took. It is also budget season. I haven't heard what our budget numbers are so I have to imagine that will be like a broad scale massive scramble because it is the end we are approaching the middle of April at this point and we haven't you know we we haven't as a committee discussed the budget at all. So I just I would like to make sure that the administration can make good on the directive the policy directives that we just provided around pay increases and more importantly the hiring that we think it will enable because we need to know sooner rather than later if that doesn't work. So we need There to be some prioritization of these activities so that we don't find ourselves heading into September without answers to this question. And I think we need to give the administration the space to actually act on the policy directives that we've just issued so. I'm completely on board with having a listening session. I think Miss Fiddler-Carrie is perfectly capable of doing that. I understand it here in Medford that there is a strong feeling that if you want something done, you must talk to the superintendent and the superintendent alone to get something done. And I do look forward to a day where that is not the general feeling about how things get done in Medford, because I think the staff is much, much, much more capable than that. But in the meantime, if we are insistent that that happens, I think we need to give the administration the space to make sure that this meeting occurs. perhaps before the start of the next school year so that they can actually do the work we've just asked them to do.
[Murphy]: I anticipate more than one meeting between now and the beginning of the school year on this topic with a variety of stakeholders including members of the community. So I don't want anyone to think that we're going to have check a box by sitting down at the table having a conversation and say well you know good thing we we talked to those people that the school committee told us to. I mean there are a lot of stakeholders and constituents that have a lot at stake in these strategic decisions that have to be made. And I think I appreciate Ms. Graham, that more plausible timeline. And I think that we will be able to engage with them on an authentic basis to have the conversations so that we can, the administration can continue to keep the committee informed as to what are the implications to some of these decisions. And ultimately the school committee has to decide what you feel is best for the community. But I anticipate we'll be, there'll be a robust engagement on this in the coming months.
[Graham]: Mayor. Member Graham. Can I also suggest that before we wrap in the month of June, that we get an update on this activity so that we know if we're well positioned to head into September or if we have additional problems we need to solve.
[Van der Kloot]: Member Van der Kloot? Yeah, I was actually going to suggest the same thing. I think, Mike, my initial concern is we need to make sure that we're giving our administrative people space to do the budget. But this clearly needs to be in the mix. The one thing about this topic is we've got to, this isn't one where there's opposition or we're at loggerheads. We all want the same thing. We want this to happen. Everyone here, I have no doubt, wants this to happen in a positive way for our families.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, that's definitely obvious. Thankfully, we've been able to add the 60 spots. The admin worked very hard over the last week or two. And I know they want to continue to add those spots, but let's get people hired and figure out a plan moving forward. And I'm sure we'll add as many as we can, depending on the space. and personnel and how it plays out over the next few months. Member McLaughlin, and then let's move on. We have another few pages to go and I know everybody's a bit tired, go ahead.
[McLaughlin]: So I would like some idea of what the process is gonna be for getting feedback from the families. So I made a motion that we have some process by which we're getting feedback from the families for the before school and after school program. And I appreciate that we all have a lot to do in the next couple of months with budgets. And I also appreciate that families are putting a lot of thought into this and clearly I know that the rest of my colleagues do as well. And so whether it's end of May or in June, not really, you know, I want to make sure that we're getting data from families, that we're understanding what it is their experience is. I know we've heard from some of them tonight. We haven't certainly heard from all of them and, you know, what this will look like, whether it's with, you know, Megan. And I don't, I never said that the superintendent had to be at this either. I think the superintendent certainly will get feedback from her staff and you know we can come back around but we've had round tables we've had discussions this is clearly an ongoing issue and I think that this is something that we need to have a discussion over that's not at 10 30 at night um you know in bits and pieces so I'd like to move the motion forward I'm sorry what I just what what is no we're just waiting for a second and I don't know if I don't know if there is one is there so
[Van der Kloot]: Mayor?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, Member Vendaclute.
[Van der Kloot]: I fully support that we want to make sure that we are talking to parents and engaging with parents. Whether we need a formalized process right now, I'm just trying to say, you know, I think we have a pretty good idea of what the issues are. Personally, we've got a very active, engaged group of parents who have, you know, clearly been able to make their voices heard and their express their concerns. You know, there's nothing, Melanie, you're sure we can vote on your thing, but I don't want to formalize process and say we're going to have this survey and that survey and whatever. I don't know exactly what it is that you want, that we're not I'm responding to short. We can't trust our staff to do. I trust our staff is going to talk to these people.
[McLaughlin]: I have no doubt. I don't think that it's a matter of trust through the chair to member Van der Kloot. I think it's a matter of structure and putting things in place so that it actually happens. And what I heard from families tonight is that, you know, they were wondering why they weren't, you know, incorporated into the presentation tonight they were wondering why they didn't have feedback on that tonight. And I think that we hear this a lot from families and then we hear that they are going to be spoken with or you know this will happen. And what I'm looking for is something. a little bit more concrete that families know that there's actually going to be a session where more families can come at a reasonable time and share their concerns and those concerns can be documented. We could collect data on them and we can have that to inform our decisions moving forward, not just with relation to pay, but to all of the other issues that we heard tonight.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Or we could just put a motion on the floor that this is a great, great first step and we're gonna continue the conversation internally and externally with parents to try to do all we can to create as many spots as possible before the next school year. I mean, that's what the admin has been trying to do. And within the last two weeks, they've created 60 spots and I have faith that they're gonna do everything they can to create as many as they can.
[Murphy]: As we responsibly can, I guess would be the one to qualify.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Responsibly, safely, yes.
[Murphy]: And there are, there's a lot of complexity to that. I would say, and I think this is known, and I appreciate Ms. McLaughlin's and Ms. Banneker's comments about the having trust that the administration will do this, but we are engaged with families on a variety of matters on a daily and sometimes hourly basis. I think that's a critical component of our job as district leaders. And certainly at the building level, principals are communicating with and engaging with families all day, every day to make sure that we're being responsive to the needs of the community and making sure that we are putting the needs and priorities of the community in the context of what is best for students, which is ultimately what we're charged with doing. And so I think that this will be an instance in which we will continue that engagement. We will continue that communication. We will certainly update the school committee prior to the conclusion of the school year as to where those conversations stand and any challenges that we're potentially encountering. But frankly, that would be the case whether this presentation was made tonight and whether the advocacy that was exhibited was exhibited. We as an administration have a responsibility to keep an open door and to keep that engagement happening on a continuous basis. And that will be the case for parents who have voiced concerns. And also it will be the case for parents and family members who haven't voiced concerns. And for whatever reason, aren't positioned to be able to advocate on behalf of their children. Our obligation is to engage with those families as well, to hear their concerns, to try to be responsive, but always to put the needs of students first in terms of our strategic decision-making and recommendations to this committee. So I fully expect that that will happen in the remaining months of this school year, over the summer, throughout the next school year. And for as long as we are charged with of serving this community. That's just part of the job. There's nothing terribly unusual about this, frankly.
[McLaughlin]: Point of privilege, Mayor.
[Murphy]: Just keep going.
[McLaughlin]: Point of privilege, Mayor. So I understand this, but what we're hearing is that we're hearing from some folks who are saying, we do family engagement all the time. We've been doing family engagement. Our family engagement is great. Our door is open. And then we're hearing from other folks who are saying, you're not including us, and we want to be part of the conversation. And the motion that I've asked to put forward is that before the end of the school year, I'm willing to make it so that it's not May, but the motion that I've asked to put forward is that before the end of the school year, we have a listening session with families about the before and after school program so that we can collect data from families about what their needs are above and beyond this school committee meeting. That is what I'm asking for in my motion. Thank you. And I'd like to move the question, please. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: is on the floor. There is no second of the motion. I'm sorry, Melanie.
[Graham]: Mayor?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Graham?
[Graham]: Through the chair to Member McLaughlin, I just want you to know that this was the primary substance of the conversation in the strategic planning roundtables for two nights in a row at the elementary school level, which is the group that I led. So we actually did talk very extensively. Ms. Galussi was there. both nights, I believe the superintendent was in and out as she was with all the groups. So I do want to make sure that you know, because we couldn't all be in all of those groups, that that was happening in our subgroup amongst a bunch of other dialogue. So we have done some of that work already. But I would definitely encourage the superintendent and Ms. Fidler-Carey and Mr. Murphy to reach out to some of these parents and engage with them further because they may, you know, they just may have perspective that helps solve problems a different way than in school administrators are thinking about. I don't know, maybe half of them want to spend two days a week working in the afterschool program and they create staffing for us that we just don't know about yet. So I do want you all to do that. I just think the logistics of a big meeting may not be the most effective way to do that. So I do want to defer to the superintendent and her team about the most effective way for them to collect this feedback.
[Murphy]: We'll absolutely have those meetings and report back.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. If there's no further questions we have.
[McLaughlin]: May I just like to ask, through the chair, I'd like to say thank you to member Graham for that information. And this is when it would be helpful to have data from the feedback session. So I'm assuming that we were gonna be getting data from the round table session so that we understand what the feedback was at the elementary level, because we weren't all able to be in the different sessions. So that would be very helpful. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, thank you.
[Van der Kloot]: Yeah, it was referenced in the minutes that we received tonight. And I was in the elementary meeting on the second night. So I did hear the parents extensively. And I realized that you weren't able to be there. So that may be why we've got a slightly different perspective than you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: OK. Thank you. Thank you for the parents that are on and that spoke. We hear you. We hear you. I thank the administration for doing this work and continuing the work. Next up, we have old business. Go to the order offered by member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: I'm going to table that and ask that we include that as part of the agenda for the next meeting so that it's not old business, but it's rather part of the agenda. That's what the motion is. It's supposed to be a monthly aspect of our agenda. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion to table by Member McLaughlin, seconded by Member Ruseau. Roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham?
[Theresa Fernald]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor Longo-Karn.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Motion to table has been approved. Number 11, communications. I don't believe we have any. We've handled five and a half hours of communication. Number 12, new business. Do you wanna do this tonight or you wanna move it to the next agenda?
[Graham]: Can we do the first one tonight?
[Lungo-Koehn]: for the first one tonight, okay. Resolution in support of expedited COVID-19 vaccinations for students. Whereas of April 12th, 2021, the coronavirus pandemic has infected over 30.4 million individuals in the United States and resulted in more than 551,638 deaths across the country and 17,185 in Massachusetts. Whereas our strong public education system, which is essential to the individual and community well-being of our society, is facing unprecedented challenges due to the coronavirus pandemic and lack of clear national, state, and local directional resources. These challenges include, but are not limited to, the academic and social emotional toll on students, as well as the need to rapidly pivot to distance learning, clean and equip school facilities to adapt to new health protocols and social distancing, assess and address the risks to teachers, staff, and students, whereas vaccines have proven to be the most effective strategy to reduce and eliminate the spread of infectious disease and are an important and necessary tool for eradicating disease and vaccines are anticipated to be approved for use for some school-aged children in the coming weeks. Whereas the current Commonwealth vaccine distribution system created access issues for eligible residents that could create greater access disparities among school-aged children. And whereas the Medford Public Schools is committed to the health and safety of its students and staff, now therefore be it resolved that the Medford School Committee, number one, calls on the state legislature, the governor, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, create a vaccine rollout plan for school-aged children that puts the distribution in the hands of local officials and eliminates accessibility barriers to students and their families. Number two, calls on the Massachusetts Association of School Committees to publicly advocate for local control of vaccine distribution for school-age children. And three, directs the district superintendent to transmit official copies of this resolution to the following, the commissioner of DESE, the governor of Massachusetts, Senator Warren, Senator Markey, Congresswoman Clark, Senator Jalen, Representative Donato, Garbaly, and Barber, and the Massachusetts Association of School Committees. Offered by Member Graham and Member Ruseau. Is there a motion on the floor with a second?
[Graham]: Motion to approve. I move to approve.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Seconded by Member Ruseau. Roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham?
[Graham]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz?
[Graham]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. The motion is approved. Motion to table number two. Motion to table number two, seconded by member Van der Kloot. Member Van der Kloot, roll call.
[Ruseau]: Mayor.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: Is this a table to a date specific or just table?
[Graham]: For the next agenda.
[Ruseau]: Thank you.
[Graham]: Roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin. Yes. Member Member Van der Kloot.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor Long-O'Karn.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Number two is tabled.
[Ruseau]: Are we missing number three?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, I'm missing number three. I have, I'm sorry.
[Ruseau]: I think we just have the count is wrong, that's all.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I have the condolences. Number four is my page five, for some reason. Yeah, I think it was a misprint.
[Edouard-Vincent]: The condolences should be number three.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay. School committee resolution condolences. The Medford School Committee expresses its sincere condolences to the family of Mr. James F. Jim McKinnon, a former English teacher, head football coach, and submaster at Medford High School. Also, the Medford School Committee expresses its sincere condolences to the family of Mr. Alan K. McDougall, former Mustang football captain of 1985 Greater Boston League champions, and former freshman football coach at Medford High School. The Medford School Committee expresses its sincere condolences to the family of Mr. Leon Appiani, the son of the late Mr. Leo Appiani, former math teacher and varsity boys basketball coach at Medford High School. Also, the Medford School Committee expresses its sincere condolences to the family of Mr. Alfonso J. Citrano, great uncle of Mrs. Gina Citrano of the Medford Public Schools Business Office. The Medford School Committee expresses its sincere condolences to the family of Ms. Amitunisa Bagam, mother-in-law of Math Director, Ms. Faiza Khan. If we may all take a moment of silence. Thank you.
[McLaughlin]: Motion to adjourn.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Is there anything else you guys want to discuss?
[McLaughlin]: Motion to adjourn. Your humor?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion adjourned by Member McLaughlin, seconded by Member Graham. Roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
|
total time: 20.96 minutes total words: 2855  |
total time: 1.27 minutes total words: 210  |
total time: 7.53 minutes total words: 1155  |
total time: 26.19 minutes total words: 3819  |
|
total time: 20.59 minutes total words: 3331  |
total time: 18.02 minutes total words: 2661  |
total time: 15.9 minutes total words: 1918  |
|