[Lungo-Koehn]: in 2021 at 7 p.m. There'll be a committee of the whole meeting held for remote participation. 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, imposing 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 in the general guidelines for remote participation by members of the public, the inner 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 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 on the city of Medford or Medford Community Media websites and audio or video recording, transcript to other comprehensive record proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting. The meeting can be viewed through Medford Community Media on Comcast channel 22 and Verizon channel 43 at 7 p.m. You can call in by using 1-929-205-6099. Please enter meeting ID 995 84910130 when prompted. Additionally, questions or comments can be submitted during the meeting by emailing medfordsc at medford.k12.ma.us. Those submitting must include the following information, your first and last name, your Medford Street address, your question or comment. The agenda will be as follows, discussion of the development of the operating budget and budgetary priorities of the Medford Public Schools for fiscal year 2022, which is July 1st, 2021 to June 30th, 2022, as it pertains specifically to academic content areas, including humanities, science, health, physical education, fine arts, and world languages. Signed, Dr. Maurice-Edouard Vinson, Superintendent of Schools. I will turn it over to you, Dr. Edouard Vinson and Mr. Murphy. Thank you.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Today is our third budget and I just look forward to us continuing to go through this process. And I'm going to thank the team for all the hard work that has been happening in order to present the budget to everyone in this new format, organized in a manner that is much more comprehensible for all to understand. So Mr. Murphy, I pass it on to you. Thank you.
[Murphy]: I hope that that's true, but I look forward to the comments at the end, and we will see whether that assertion is validated or not. So thank you, Dr. Edward, Vincent. Thank you, Mayor, members of the school committee. It's a pleasure to be with you again this evening. As the mayor said in announcing the agenda, tonight we're moving into the first group of our academic departments. We have, as the committee knows, previously presented on May 3rd and May 6th. the budgetary priorities for fiscal year 2022, as they relate to our school communities at the elementary and secondary level, as well as our office of pupil services, under which includes special education health services, counseling, behavioral health, the Curtis Tufts High School, and a variety of other important offices and departments in serving the needs of all students. So for those who are watching their first committee of the whole budget meeting of this season, or any season perhaps, I have over the course of these meetings began this presentation with a recitation of the process that we're in. I recognize that that may seem repetitive or redundant for those of you who are tuning into each of these meetings or attending or participating, but because these meetings live in perpetuity and people go back and watch them at different points, I do think it's important to make sure that we discuss the context in which these budgetary priorities are being developed and the process under which we are going about building the fiscal year 2022 budget. So if you'll indulge me again, I'm gonna go through the first several slides. I have added a few others, either to keep people on their toes or to just give people context. I'm not sure which exactly, but Mayor, do you have a question before I start the screen sharing?
[Lungo-Koehn]: If we could just, right before you screen share, if we could just call the roll.
[Murphy]: Oh, of course, sure.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thanks, Member Van der Kloot.
[Van der Kloot]: Sure. Jenny Graham? Here. Kathy Kreatz is on her way. Melanie McLaughlin is absent. Mia Mustone is, I believe, on her way. So absent, Paul Rousseau?
[Ruseau]: Present.
[Van der Kloot]: Paulette Van der Kloot is present. And Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Member Van der Kloot. For present, three absent as of right now. We have a quorum. We can continue.
[Murphy]: Great. Thank you. So I'll bring this up. I would also just note, as the committee knows, we did have a few technical difficulties in the district, particularly at the high school over the course of the last two days. That did result in a delay in you receiving the documents that you typically receive prior to these meetings. So I apologize for that. And thank you for your patience. It also resulted in me not editing the cover slide, as you can now see, because we've already discussed people services. But prior to this going up on the website, we will rectify that. Let me just, okay. So we've discussed the, this is the sequence of the budgetary process that began at the beginning of the calendar year with the development of budgetary priorities for the district and continue with a series of internal meetings. This is leading up to the superintendent's recommendation to the school committee for a proposed FY22 budget, which will then lead to the school committee's vote, which will constitute a request to the municipal government. The municipal government weighing all the various priorities and interests of the city will then make an appropriation will then reconvene as the school committee prior to the close of the fiscal year to review the appropriation that's been made, the budgetary priorities that will be fulfilled. And at that time, the administration will ask the school committee to take a vote to adopt an FY22 budget. There are a lot of variables, many of which concern the external funding that is realized on an annual basis and a significant amount of external funding that will be realized for FY22 as it was for FY21 due to the various COVID-19 pandemic mitigation funding sources that are flowing in primarily from the federal government, but the state government as well. So this is where we are right now, as we have been throughout these committees of the whole. We discussed in the pupil services budget, this is the organization that will be in receipt of the tens of millions of dollars that we're discussing. And I did, similar to how We built the flowchart as a way of pointing out to where we are in this process for those tuning in midway through the process. On May 3rd, we discussed the school budgets based at elementary and secondary level. You'll recall Ms. Scalucci, Dr. Cushing, and representatives from our school leader cohort presenting to you about their information related to the priorities and how they affect their schools. On May 6th, we discussed the Office of Pupil Services. and the special education budget and the various offices under Ms. Bowen's supervision. And tonight, we're discussing the academic content areas. And we will be hearing from Dr. Cushing and Ms. Galusi about some of the high-level priorities that are being developed within these content areas, as well as Dr. Chiesa, director of humanities, Rocco Seri, director of science, Dr. Ricciardelli, director of curriculum and instruction, who is and has been for some time overseeing world languages and fine arts. as well as Rachel Perry, our Director of Physical and Health Education. So that's what we're talking about tonight. And then just a little bit more with regard to process. As we've discussed, the funding comes through our Chapter 70 allocation from the state, as well as our local contribution from the city. Those are numbers that we have a general idea about, but are still in a developmental stage, as they always are during this time of year. And again, the variable distinguishing FY22 than your normal fiscal years, your pre-pandemic fiscal years, is the significant injection of external funding coming from the federal government with the intent of mitigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. And as we've discussed and we'll discuss as well tonight, as we build this budget, there is the idea that the two sort of conflicting ideas that we've discussed in this forum, One that our ESSER funds, those are funding coming from the federal government, earmarked for schools and meant to mitigate the impact of the pandemic. One school of thought that they should be incorporated into the operating budget, and that's their intent because everything we do is in some way related to mitigating the impact of the pandemic from an instructional perspective. And then another school thought that the ESSER funding should be walled off and used solely for priorities that are derived from the impact of the pandemic. And as we've discussed in the previous two budget forums and meetings previous to that, adopting either of those two positions in a sort of hardened sense is really untenable because our priorities are integrated in many respects between our normal operating priorities and those that we are pursuing for purposes of mitigating the impact of the pandemic. And at the same time, we know that there are additional expenses that our school district and school districts across the country are incurring as a result of the impact that COVID-19 has had on students and the disruption to their instruction. So we are, as we develop this budget, identifying those priorities with the strongest nexus between that pandemic and the work that we're trying to do in the district. And we're identifying those so that as the permissible usage of those external external funding becomes more clear, both at the city level with regard to ARPA funding and at the school district with regard to ESSER funding. We're keeping those priorities very clearly articulated so that we can be mindful of the sustainability of the priorities that we pursue and also mindful of our obligation to respond in an aggressive fashion to try to ensure that students' academic careers are not defined by this difficult period. Again, I appreciate everyone's patience based on the fact that you've heard this, many of you have heard this several times over the course of the last few weeks. So when we went to our principals and our department heads and asked them to give us their feedback on what they are seeing with regard to what is going to be most useful for purposes of repairing and bringing remedy to the difficulties and challenges that the pandemic has caused, we asked them to essentially bucket their budgetary priorities in three main areas. Personnel and staffing, which for those of you who have been around school budgets for some time know, this is the biggest bulk of our budget is always going to be staffing. We are a people-led organization that is responsible for the well-being of other people. And so people is where most of the money is always going to go. Materials and infrastructure, and what are the key pieces of materials and infrastructure that may have always been important with regard to having an impact on student outcomes, but is even more important under the conditions in which we're operating with regard to the pandemic, and then training and professional development, which you'll hear a decent amount about that tonight, in part because the external funding that became available in FY21 positioned the Medford Public Schools in a way to really have a good sense as to, and this is actually true for materials and infrastructure as well, but it positioned us and put us in a position where we are able to capitalize on that funding and identify best practices and identify resources that can have a lasting and meaningful impact on our students and our staff. And that is something that I know our directors, as well as Dr. Cushing and Ms. Galussi, will be referring to later this evening as we talk about at a high level what our budgetary priorities are and then field your questions. With regard to the types of investments we're looking for, again, staffing is going to play a significant part of that. We also know that we need to target and engage in intensive interventions with students who have those who have become disengaged from their schooling process or more disengaged than they otherwise would have been. That's, frankly, students who are, in some cases, it's students who are learning remotely, in some cases, students who are learning in person. The effects of this disruption are profound and we are being very cognizant of that as we develop these priorities. There's a number of programming-based initiatives that, again, based on the departments that you're hearing from tonight, that's a piece that will be returning to, and then as we've talked about before, we've made a substantial investment in the vicinity of $2.5 million with regard to instructional technology. And so while there'll always be other priorities that we have to address on a technology front, that is something that we've made significant progress on in the last year. With regard to the projections that we're looking at right now, as you know, we're coming in with an operating budget of $62.3 million. We look, as we always do at this time, at what are our fixed costs, what are the increases in the budget that are necessary based on contractual obligations, compliance obligations, or the need to just maintain the level of services that we are providing. This is always an estimate in part due to the unrealized external funding that will come in and will offset some of these increases in fixed costs. But at the moment, we would project that at approximately $2.1 million. The middle bucket here are some of the pieces that we'll talk about tonight. And these are some of the priorities that we want to address. And we know that we'll have an impact on students. That is sort of our goal and our priority bucket. And then our 750 to 2 million are the pieces that, as we know, with nine expiring collective bargaining agreements and that major variable that's as yet undetermined, we know that the, and I apologize, there's still a people services bullet in there too, but I'm going to fast forward so nobody sees it. we know that that variable is still undetermined and something that we will be addressing in the coming weeks. The ESSER fundings, we're looking at approximately $7.6 million, but again, this is over an extended period of time. But we are identifying those priorities as we go, in part because of the degree to which these priorities are intertwined with one another, and also because of the urgency of some of these priorities. We are in the process of developing what our summer initiatives will be. Those summaries and initiatives, again, are being developed in the context both of needing to have a sense of urgency with regard to the remedial support that students will need after two years of disruption and also being cognizant of the fact that of the exhaustion that students and staff are feeling as a result of the challenges that they've lived through over the course of the last two years. And what I mean by that is we know that we can't just open up a six-week intensive academic camp and expect somehow that's going to magically repair the disruption that's been caused. And frankly, there's an element of fatigue that we have to factor into all of this as well. But we're trying to be smart and we're trying to be strategic with regard to that. So with that, I'm going to pause for a second to talk a little bit about the departments that we're going to hear from prior to asking Dr. Cushing and Ms. Galussi to walk us through the high-level priorities that they're seeing at their respective levels. And then we'll go through department by department, starting with the humanities department to talk a little bit about the specific initiatives that we will be identifying as our chief priorities coming into fiscal year 2022. So these departments, again, you remember the middle bucket, they're ranging from humanities, science, typically we would have math as well, there was a scheduling conflict there, that was entirely my fault, and you will hear from Ms. Kahn on May 18th, but the rest of the academic departments, World Languages, Fine Arts, and Health and PE will be, again, they were asked the same questions that our principals were asked as to what are the priorities that we think will have the most significant impact on student outcomes in the context of recovering and repairing the damage caused by this disruption. So I think we'll start maybe at the, if it's okay with you, Ms. Gosi, at the elementary level. to talk about some of the high-level priorities that cut across these departments. I think if you could just give us a brief overview, we'll go to Dr. Cushing, and then we'll go department by department. And then at the end of that, after the hearing from each of the directors, we'll be happy to take your questions. If that's okay with you, Mayor, I'll ask Ms. Kalusi to talk a little bit about our high-level elementary priorities within the academics world.
[Lungo-Koehn]: That sounds great. Thank you.
[Galusi]: Thank you very much. Good evening, everyone. I'm not quite sure if you are going to display something on the screen or do you want me to just I was going to save the slides for the directors, if that's okay.
[Murphy]: But I can, I can not do that if you'd like. Just because they're department by department. So I thought if you guys just wanted to cover the high level themes and then we'll go to the directors.
[Lungo-Koehn]: share twice.
[Murphy]: share twice. Okay, great. I'll share twice. There we go. So starting with humanities.
[Galusi]: Thank you. Thank you. So I'll just discuss the high level priorities that are at the elementary level. In speaking with Dr. Chiesa, we've worked together collaboratively on all of this. One of the things that we've been speaking about is making sure that We know that we're, Dr. Keizer is gonna speak about this, but we wanna make sure that we have the remote platform for ThinkCentral. next year, because that is going to be the continuation of what the students are utilizing, as well as the early literacy screening tools, which she will be speaking about. As you are well aware, we've been piloting both the Lexia and the map growth. She'll discuss a little bit of that, but that needs to continue as well for next year. We've really worked a lot in terms of professional development in the uh, science of reading and in literacy, and we brought in and have partnered with Hill for literacy. We're continuing with that this year. Um, as a matter of fact, this week and next week, there's been some trainings that are happening at grade levels across the district, and Dr Keyes will speak more about that. But that is a need that will continue. Um, as well as the program resources that we've utilized this year. Many that were pre-COVID, but a lot that we brought in this year that we want to see continue. And you'll get a little bit more detail on that. Should we go to Dr. Chiesa for the speaking with humanities? Excuse me, Dr. Cushing?
[Murphy]: Well, I think, Dr. Cushing, which of the areas would you like to just touch upon from a high level to secondary level? I don't want to keep, I know people bought their tickets tonight for the directors, so. Right.
[Cushing]: So I'll just briefly hit all, all of them at once. I think the, at the middle school level, it's a really a focus on restoring what COVID took away in the math and reading interventionists. Those are two, those are actually four critical positions. One in each subject area at each school. that are really designed to be direct boots on the ground, helping students to improve their instructional outcomes. I also, you know, think that there's a critical need for us to make sure that we're following through with our math curriculum updates, which you'll hear about next week, and our literacy and ELA curriculum updates as those come about through the humanities department. Finally, we're moving forward in the science department with several initiatives and textbooks and things of that nature that Mr. Cieri will be able to really talk about. But it's really the opportunity to restore some of that personality that is direct to kids to provide the supports that are needed and to make sure that we're providing the best supervision and support for our teachers necessary to make sure that they're doing the best that they possibly can. We've got some amazing educators who've done really well this year, having not been able to replace the interventionists, and I think that's a critical piece for us to move forward with. I'll let the directors carry forward as they're the experts in the fields, and we'll provide you the most up-to-date information.
[Murphy]: Great. So I think we'll start with humanities. I know we're building some suspense toward world languages, fine arts and health, but I think that'll be okay. So Dr. Chiesa, if you'd like to take us through with a slightly higher level of specificity related to the investments and priorities as they relate to our ELA and social studies content areas, and then we'll move from there back into science and then continue on our journey through the academic departments.
[Chiesa]: Certainly. Good evening, everybody. I want to start by thanking you for all of your support throughout this entire year, both with the budget and beyond. It's obviously been a hectic year, but in the English and Social Studies Department, we've still been moving along quite nicely. Tonight, by looking at the different priorities, I just want you to keep in mind that All of the things that I note here are in an effort to be consistent and equitable K through 12. So I want to just keep that in mind that we're looking at it at that macro level. In the secondary ELA world, we've been really committed to improving our cultural proficiency and streamlining with our pacing guides. We did have the loss of the reading specialists and that is something that I am asking the committee to look at restoring because given the deficits and gaps and interruptions in learning, I really do feel that those middle school reading specialists will be very important for next year, just as the elementary continue to be quite important. At the elementary level in ELA, we have been really committed to evidence-based literacy practices We spent a lot of time in professional development, and that is something that I feel strongly needs to continue, looking at the science of reading and continuing with promoting our new program, which zones in on the foundational skills in reading. So that is something that we've been doing for the past year quite comprehensively, but we'll still need to continue to do more. As you know, we have, we will certainly, one of the pieces of that too, is we do have our reading program, which we will eventually, per another presentation, be looking at replacing. But for this year, we're looking at building capacity with the teachers and pulling in additional supports as we embrace the evidence-based literacy practices. And what comes with that, as you can see throughout the requests are assessing the students, both with the early literacy screener which we were able to pilot for the past two years. This January, my department absorbed some of the costs for the remainder of this year. But next year, we know we need to implement an early literacy screener, and there is a cost associated with that. And in addition, what I feel is very important, and what I feel Dr. Cushing and Ms. Galussi agree, and as well as Dr. Vinson, of course, is procuring an assessment tools for our students' grades three through 11, so that we can get a better understanding of where the gaps and deficits may be as it relates to literacy. If you look at social studies, we have done quite a bit, a reminder that we are fully on to the brand new frameworks for social studies. So we've spent the year adjusting, spending a lot of time on the civics commonwealth project, which is required both through DESE and by law at the eighth and high school level. So we've done quite a bit with that as well. really looking at streamlining the curriculum and figuring out how we're going to cover the gaps and put four years of social studies into freshman, sophomore and junior year of high school. Luckily, we've been able to pilot quite a few books this year. So we didn't have as extensive a cost and I do anticipate we'll be able to pilot some and have to make some purchasing decisions for others this year. And I don't think the Yeah, the whole screen is up. So yes, I'm happy to answer any questions. I wanted to keep that short and sweet. I did want to point out one thing, and that is that this year, through the CARES Act, literacy was very well supported. So the budgetary impact increase is quite high, as you can see from ELA. That's due to the fact that we did lose two middle school reading specialists last year. We did lose one high school social studies staff member. And luckily, Alexia Core 5, and Lexia Power Up were fulfilled through the CARES Act, not my budget, as well as part of Nuzella. So the reason that budgetary impact is quite extensive is because several of these items were procured through the CARES Act this year, and we found them to be very helpful and really essential for our students.
[Murphy]: And I think that's one of the common threads you'll see is that We were put in a position as a result of the external funding, as I said, to identify some best practices and some new innovative tactics or initiatives that we're able to employ. And it's, to some degree, it's fortuitous timing because, as we know, the whole point, the whole sort of backdrop of this budget is that FY22 is going to be a pivotal year with regard to repairing some of that damage done and getting us back to where we'd like to be and positioned for further progress and growth. So with that, Rocco, can you just take us through, I will just point out as Rocco gets ready to walk us through some of the high level science based budget priorities. The committee knows as we've reported that we are in a relatively good position with regard to our closing out FY22. And as a result of that, we've been able to identified funding within the science budget to take care of what would have been an FY22 priority amounting to about $47,000 in the procurement of biology textbooks. So that the elegant line through the word biology there is representative of that and some of the creative thinking that we've been able to employ to put us in a position to address FY22 priorities in science.
[SPEAKER_14]: So Rocco, can you just walk us through science before we move on to our other departments?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Before Rocco walks us through science, member Van der Kloot has a question. Sure.
[Van der Kloot]: Well, I'll ask for the preference. I had a question for Dr. Chiesa. Do you want to do the whole presentation first, Dave?
[Murphy]: I would probably recommend that. I think we've sort of timed it out to do two or three presentations. minutes per content area. Obviously, Dr. Gazer overseeing two departments, that's not to suggest that anyone went over. I think we can run through the next few in short order, and then we can get into all the questions. And I think that's worked fairly well the last two nights, but I would defer to the committee.
[Van der Kloot]: Okay, I'm okay to wait.
[Murphy]: Okay, thanks.
[Cieri]: Good evening, everybody. And thank you for all the support that we've gotten this year. It has been a challenging year across the board, but as Mr. Murphy has pointed out, we've made some decisions and have been able to leverage a lot of things to be able to move forward in science with digital resources. And we've preserved some of the hands-on materials due to the pandemic, so we can move forward a reduction of some sort because of what we have at this point. So while there aren't as many bullets to review in the science budget, you can see that some things are going to be prioritized. For example, the textbooks in anatomy and physiology and a couple of AP courses. The biology has been taken care of. The STEM scopes program does require an annual digital license and some consumable materials. Again, these are somewhat reduced given the pandemic has left us with sometimes using less than what we would have needed in a typical situation when remote instruction was more significant. And then we have some smaller items in the FOS kits that we need to replace, consumable materials primarily. However, as you can see in the long-term budgetary priorities, we will require some more investment to replenish the kits in future years, to replenish consumable supplies, wear and tear on some of the hands-on materials. So while we're moving forward and it seems like there aren't big ticket items at the moment, We do anticipate in future budgets that there will be some bigger ticket items. We also think that it would be very beneficial to support inclusivity and differentiation with NewZilla. NewZilla is something that teachers are using in other subject areas and also is being used by our science teachers and we want to really continue that use. Within the department, we found these articles very supportive of the types of nonfiction reading and also writing for students. And as we move forward and we think about what kinds of opportunities we want to provide for students, we will likely look at some extended school day programs for science. We're not quite sure what that will be at the moment, but certainly something to recapture some of the losses and hands on activities that we've been so strong at in K to eight instruction and even up in the ninth and 12th grade instructional areas, we don't want to. we want to really recapture some of that moving forward. So really, even though there are a small number of bullets and doesn't look like very high cost items, we really are in a position to strengthen science due to last year and the year before, the continuous investment, K to five and then K to eight, and now going into the ninth through 12th grade. So we'll take questions after. but this is what we have for you at the moment.
[Murphy]: Thanks, Rago. And I think just to sort of point out the sort of interconnectedness of this budget, the committee's heard us say on a number of occasions that as we look toward the 21-22 school year, we're looking to see what variables we can control as we work to rebuild our capacity and try to serve students while in the wake of the pandemic. And when we think about one of those variables being the length of the school day and start to think in terms of extended school days and potential afterschool programs, as a way of providing some of that support and instruction. Oftentimes, we're thinking in terms of, especially in the K-8 world, of additional math support and additional literacy support. And that's important, and there's a reason that those are foundational content areas. We also know that for some students, getting them to participate and enroll in an extended day program of some kind, science is going to be one of the major draws. And that's part of why we want to make sure that we are Providing as much content and exposure to science as possible. We also know that sometimes science is what's going to get students in the door to participate in a program like that. So that we can then make sure that they're also getting some of the remedial support and math and literacy that they might need. So thank you for that. And I'm going to ask Bernadette to start with world languages before transitioning into our finance discussion.
[Ricciardelli]: It's muted. Good evening. Good evening, everyone. So I am here tonight to go over the superintendent's draft priorities for world language. So as I brought up and presented at the curriculum subcommittee meeting, in world language, we are planning to introduce French in grade six. That will require the purchase of textbooks. We believe that at this point we can introduce French in grade six with current staffing levels. Also in the middle school level, there is a need for textbooks in all three languages. So that would be the French, Italian, and Spanish. It has been years, probably 18 years since textbooks were adopted for those those grades. Grades six, seven, and eight collectively are level one of the language, so it is really important to have that, to have the text, to have those materials, to really ground the students in their learning. Looking outside, looking beyond, one thing that we thought might be really helpful is, as you know, the World Language Department sponsors many trips to different places. Most recently, they had planned to go to France, that was last year, and that trip was canceled because of COVID. Because those trips are quite costly, we are thinking that in the future it would be nice to be able to offset those costs with some opportunity programs. In terms of getting our students up and running and recovering from the loss that occurred during COVID, I will say I think our teachers have done a phenomenal job, but still there are areas where there is going to have to be some bolstering. So trying to think outside the box, we are thinking that perhaps a peer tutoring program could be established. We have a newly formed World Language Honor Society, and we are thinking that we could use those upperclassmen to help in a peer tutoring program, similar to what the National Honor Society does for English, math, and other subjects. With regard to professional development, just within the past three weeks, the new frameworks for world language were approved by the Board of Education. And although they're not drastically different, there are some differences that need to be addressed, and we need to offer professional development to our staff. in that area. We also wanna offer professional development that is going to help teachers accelerate the instruction at an appropriate pace to try to recoup some of that learning loss that happened during COVID. There is the possibility that if we're able to offer a potential extended day program, world languages would be one of the options for students. So those are the highlights.
[Murphy]: I think we'll go right to fine arts now, if that works for you.
[Ricciardelli]: It does.
[Murphy]: Great.
[Ricciardelli]: Okay, so last June I was asked upon the retirement of the former director to step in and I am enjoying the experience working with the music and the art departments. When I came on, the concern with the teachers and of myself was how do we get our students ready for remote instruction, for hybrid instruction? So we got together as a team And we looked at programs. So we looked at Quaver, we looked at the Art of Education for Art, and we brought in those programs to help us, again, with the remote and the hybrid. What we have discovered is that there are many elements of those programs that extend beyond remote and hybrid that would be useful and really helpful for our students moving forward. Right now we have a high school teacher who does travel to the Curtis Tufts School. I would like to see an expansion of opportunities at the Curtis Tufts. I have spoken to the director over there. I think the students should have every opportunity available that other students have at the Curtis. With regard to long-term budgetary priorities, whether this is this year or moving forward, looking at a supervisor coordinator that has specific fine arts content experience. Some of you know that I was a social studies teacher. Although I have a lot of management experience, actually 14 years as an administrator, You know fine arts is not my content area. I've been able to use my management experience, my ability to work with the teams to refine curriculum, and to move forward with the program. One of the one of the target areas that we're identifying is the increasing the inventory of instruments that we have available to our students, specifically the ukuleles and guitars for middle school level this is going to allow each student to have an instrument in the classroom. That is really important because right now it's one, they're either sharing and right now during COVID, really can't share. So it's difficult when not everyone in the class has an instrument. So we really would like to bolster the supply of instruments. With regard to funding, what I'm looking for is what we had for the 1920 school year. Last year that budget was cut because a lot of the art supplies, the transportation lines weren't used. the budget was cut back. I am hoping that we are able to restore that to 19-20 levels. That includes the line for transportation. Our banned travels, this year they did not. We anticipate next year we'll be back on track and the travel will resume. Again, like world language, trying to think outside the box, we're looking at other opportunities for some online peer tutoring, and then, you know, perhaps having staff members serve in a mentoring role to support that type of a program. Those are the highlights of the Fine Arts program moving forward. And again, at the end of the program, I'd be happy to answer any questions.
[Murphy]: Thank you, Dr. Rizali. And then we'll go now to Ms. Perry, who will walk us through FY 22 budgetary priorities for the health and PE program.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Good evening, everybody. Right before Ms. Perry speaks, I just want to note that Member Kreatz is now present. Go ahead, Ms. Perry. Thank you. You're welcome.
[Perry]: Good evening, everybody. I want to take the time to thank you all for your help and support all year long through this crazy time. Remote instruction has been difficult, especially in phys ed and health education. But I also wanna thank my staff for their hard work and dedication to our students and keeping them active and healthy throughout this year. We have been committed to building a curriculum to health and physical education based on our national standards. And we're looking forward to unpacking the state standards and aligning them at when they come out, hopefully by the fall of next year. Our goal is to provide quality physical education and health education to all of our students. Looking at our budgetary priorities for next year, I have asked in the past for a couple of additional positions. And again, I will be asking for those this year. One being a certified adaptive physical education teacher. As a direct service, the adaptive phys ed teacher will be provided to students who have needs that cannot be adequately addressed in regular phys ed program. This teacher will assess recommended students and specifically design or modify physical education lessons to meet the needs of the student. And that would be across the district. We're looking also for a health teacher. This would be specifically in the middle school to relieve school Councilors of the classroom based duties. Right now we have a one middle school health teacher that goes from the Andrews over to the McGlynn. If we had an additional one, we would have one health teacher at each building. Another piece also would be to add staffing at the Curtis Tufts High School to make sure that we are equitable there as well. And we have licensed teachers teaching our students in that location. Looking at our long-term budgetary priorities, one of the things we were looking at is creating a yoga studio at the high school for our yoga classes for our students. This could also cross over to before or after school activities where we could offer classes at both of those times. We're also looking to replenish some of our equipment. We were remote this year for a great part of the year, as well as not using equipment till later in the year. So we were able to save some money this year and not have to purchase equipment. But going forward, we will have to start to replenish some of that equipment. And looking at our COVID mitigation priority, offering some opportunities for our kids before and after school to stay, to continue to be physically fit, maybe some kind of health activity, healthy cooking, things like that. Those would be great opportunities for our students to take part in. And that's it for health in physical education. I'll be glad to answer questions when we are able to.
[Murphy]: Thank you very much. Rachel. You're welcome. And so I'm going to pull this off just for the time being. So it's a little easier to see each other. But if there are specific references that anyone would like, it's only a couple of quick clicks away. So I'll be happy to go back to the slides. But just to sort of finish up with regard to the points that Ms. Perry was making, as we're developing this, I understand the need for a really flexible mindset and to some degree more patience than many of us are. well suited to exercise due to the uncertainties related to some of the external funding. We are attempting to push ourselves and to think as creatively as possible. So I know that in this, the committee has asked them on several occasions in the past with regard to how to prioritize and make reality adaptive PE in the district. And so you could see as Ms. Perry articulated, we're essentially taking a bit of a hybrid approach in that in the short term, we are looking to fund a position to bring on board an individual certified in adaptive PE. That is not a solution long term with regard to making sure that our PE classes are inclusive and are accessible in an equitable manner for all students. And so our long term priority And as you can see on the slide, it's not terribly long-term. This is something we're talking about for the 22-23 school year. It is our expectation that we will require an adaptive PE certification, at least one per building, to make sure that our classes are, as I said, being properly inclusive and making sure that those opportunities are available to all students. That alone might not solve that, resolve that challenge in its entirety. but it will certainly put us in a much better position. There are some obligations that the district will have to fulfill in order to make that a reality. And that's something that we have and we'll be communicating to our bargaining partners as appropriate in the coming weeks and months. So with that, we are more than happy to take your questions and hear your feedback as we have in the previous budget meetings. And I'll stop talking for that.
[Van der Kloot]: Yes, thank you. So I could, if I would suggest that we do questions subject by subject, so that all members can ask questions about a particular subject and then we move on. I'd like to start since Dr. Chiesa was first. English language arts. Nicole, you referenced that in the future we're going to be looking at our reading program journeys. As you know, it's been under fire from community members quite a bit. So could you just define when you say does in the future mean next year we're going to be looking at reading or could you just address that?
[Chiesa]: Absolutely. So I have talked about this a few times at committees of the whole and at a separate meeting with parents. So we do know that we are certainly planning to update our core reading program, no question there, and that's been made clear numerous times throughout the course of the past two years, really. The plan this year, and the only thing I will say that may disturb this plan in a good way, in a more expedited way, is that we did today submit a grant that might expedite the process. If we do not receive the grant, the plan is to form a reading committee this year. So it's out for this year to form a committee with teachers towards the end of this year and into the summer to begin looking at new core reading programs. We will continue next year to make sure that we're looking at solid programs that meet the needs of all students in Medford, and then we would begin the piloting process with a final selection once the pilot is done. The reason, as Member Van der Kloot, you may recall, is because math is also set to be updated. We have to think about the capacity of our teachers and their ability to pilot a new program. Now, with all that said, I will say that today with Ms. Glucy, Ms. Campbell, and Ms. Champoli, we also submitted Medford Applied, and of course with Dr. Vincent's endorsement, Medford Applied for the GLEAM grant. The GLEAM grant would expedite this process so that it would be done a year earlier, and the state would contribute half of the funding towards a new core reading program. It's a very competitive grant. We spent numerous hours working on that grant to make it, to make, you know, hopefully us as the selection. And should we do that, the plan that I just outlined for you would occur a year earlier. Regardless, right now we are looking at new core reading programs and we do anticipate piloting as soon as possible.
[Van der Kloot]: Okay, great. Thanks for that update. Just as part of that question, I just wanna know, the community member who spoke the other day at the school committee meeting also mentioned, and she's mentioned this before multiple times, the use of some teachers, and she didn't clarify whether this was an ongoing problem. I know she's suggested it in the past, but they were using picture clues. And you've mentioned in our professional development, development on science-based evidence for reading. So this little issue about teachers using picture clues, has that kind of now been discussed with the science-based evidence?
[Chiesa]: The evidence-based literacy and science of reading do not support picture cues per se. It would not be the main go-to. Just this past week, we had a We began a very small group PD where we have like kindergarten teachers working with Hill for Literacy on ECRI. ECRI is phonological awareness, the foundational skills. There were no picture cues for that phonics piece that are part of our new ECRI program, which is where I think the phonics would be coming from. I do not know the exact specifics of what was being referenced, but our science of reading and all the PD is not discussing picture cues.
[Van der Kloot]: And just one quick last one. When will we find out about the GLEAM grant? And by the way, thank you all for applying for it.
[Chiesa]: I actually don't know when. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. We submitted today. I do anticipate it's extremely competitive, but we really put a lot of energy into it, but I don't, I believe by the mid-summer, we would know.
[Van der Kloot]: That's my anticipation.
[Chiesa]: Yes, because then the work begins according to the timeline on the grant, the work begins in fall of this year.
[Van der Kloot]: All right, so we'll keep our,
[Chiesa]: Yeah, it would be wonderful. It would allow us, we have really worked hard to partner with some very reputable organizations like Hill for Literacy, Dr. Orkin, and Crafting Minds. And part of this grant, it's not just about funds, of course, that's wonderful, but the other piece is we would have the ability to work exclusively with a literacy consultant who subscribes to these practices. So we would have them with us as we go through the selection process. So I am very hopeful that we will get this grant.
[Van der Kloot]: Thank you.
[Chiesa]: Thank you.
[Graham]: Member Graham. Thank you. I thought at the beginning of your conversation about the grant, you said that the reason that we couldn't move faster in replacing the journey's curriculum is because the teachers can't absorb two new curricula at the same time. So effectively math and reading at the same time. But if we get this grant that magically that problem goes away?
[Chiesa]: No, of course not. I think what we would then have to do, and that would be a conversation of course, with Dr. Vincent and Ms. Galussi and Ms. Khan, would be we would have to make a decision on Right now, we have mathematics going first because there's a great need. We would probably have to make a flip, but I don't want to speak for our superintendent, but certainly the funds would have a twist to it. Dr. Vincent, does that sound accurate to you or am I misrepresenting?
[Edouard-Vincent]: And to member Graham's question, this grant was such a great opportunity that we really didn't want it to go by. What was stated in the subcommittee meeting about really trying to balance the capacity of the teachers. And I'm not saying it from the perspective of thinking that there's a limited intellectual capacity. I know that they have the capacity to learn more than one content area at a time. But to really be able to fully absorb curriculum the same way they had the opportunity to absorb and learn the FOSS science and continue with their other content area, by adding one layer, we wanted to give them that opportunity to go deeper with the next content area. This Gleam grant offered by the state was such a great opportunity that if in fact Medford is selected, we would have to kind of go back to the drawing board to figure it out. I personally am a proponent of doing something across the board doing it fairly and in an equitable fashion but it was such a great opportunity we did not want to let that opportunity pass by but we would have to if in fact we were to find out in the summer that we were awarded the grant then we would have to really strategize and just look at where we are at right now and what we could do to meet the needs of the state grant and the needs of the district. I hope that is helpful Member Graham.
[Graham]: Thank you. Yeah, and as somebody who spends most of my professional life educating adults, it's not about intellectual capacity, but you get out what you put in. So I'm completely in support of not drowning our teachers in new content. I think that's really unfair. It's not fair to students. It's definitely noteworthy in the middle of a pandemic recovery and a pretty considerable set of variety that we will see in the classroom come fall. I think differentiated learning is going to be harder than it's ever been before because I don't the pandemic has not impacted every student in the same way. So I think that all of those complexities, like I still remain concerned about that, but I also remain concerned about all of the kids that we are not serving with our ELA program. And I would ask that regardless of whether we get this grant, we do all the creative thinking you plan to do about how to juggle this, Anyway, and whatever support you need, let's talk about what that support is. We talked about two different ESSER grants. There's American Rescue Plan money coming to the city. The grant funding certainly is a very big deal and it would be welcome. if there is a way for us to be much more creative about how we accomplish these goals. Like, unfortunately, we have a lot of curriculum deficiencies, particularly at the elementary level, and those only built. So fixing those at the foundation will pay off in spades. So I would just ask that you all do that creative thinking regardless of whether this grant comes through and figure out how to move faster on behalf of the students.
[Edouard-Vincent]: And I just want to also just comment that it is true, we are aware that we've been using Journeys for quite some time, but I really have to say under the leadership of Dr. Chiesa and what she's doing with the humanities team, pursuing partnerships with Hill for Literacy, the work with Dr. Orkin, the ECRI training that they're receiving that although we're using an older program right now that isn't, you know, as current as we would want it to be, we are supplementing and finding ways to enhance what is available. So I don't want people to feel that, oh, you know, this is 10 years old. And it's outdated, I think the professional development, the training and really trying to be creative with making sure that we're adding appropriate professional development that that is supporting and supplementing what is happening in the So I don't want people to feel like, oh, you know, literacy is being completely neglected because we are, given the givens, we are being very creative. And I'm very appreciative of what Dr. Chiesa has been doing to supplement the programming that is in place.
[Graham]: Yeah, and I would just close by saying, I think all the ways that we're supplementing are an indicator that our program is deficient. So I don't care if it's 10 years old, if it's still good, but it's deficient. And that's sort of unequivocal at this point. So I think, to me, that's the big driver. The age doesn't bother me if we feel like it's supporting things. When we're bolting all kinds of things onto something, the foundational issue there is what we have isn't working, and we're working really hard to make it work. And I would just challenge that if we have to work that hard to like bolt lots of things to it, then it is the problem. And we need to sort of solve that root cause. Otherwise, we're going to spend a lot more energy trying to sort of make up the gap. So I just want to make sure that you all know that I am absolutely in support of whatever you need from this committee. I think it would be a more than appropriate use of funds in any of those categories to figure out how we do this more quickly.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Thank you, Member Graham. I just want to respond and say one of the pieces we are making a deep effort is to continue to get feedback from not only teachers and going through that inclusive process to bring everyone along, including family members. So I think that's also what's making our process of piloting curriculum taking a little longer because we are trying to have teachers involved, getting buy-in, getting the feedback from the experts. And so by doing that and providing opportunities for more people to weigh in, it prolongs, it lengthens the process. instead of saying we're making a decision and this is the final decision. So I just also want to say yes to what you said, but the reasoning behind the longer process is to be able to have more voices weigh in so that we can feel very confident that we've made an inclusive decision and many voices were heard. Thank you.
[Chiesa]: If I can just, may I just say one extra, one additional thing? Yes. I want to thank you first, I want to thank you for your support member Graham because I certainly will need it as we continue on looking at core programs. One of the biggest deficits that we noticed with journeys was the foundational skills, and so I feel very fortunate that we've been able to find a strong phonics program to support. our students. So that was one of the big deficits and the phonics is moving along nicely, which is good. The assessment tool that's listed on the budget as well is something where we're looking at, you know, moving towards an assessment tool that will give us better indicators of where we need support. And the great thing about Lexia Core 5 is it does have those tier two interventions built in like letters. like Power Up, like Core 5, that will really be beneficial as we begin to personalize the reading needs, especially given the interruptions. But thank you so much for your support.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for the presentation. And I'm happy to see even though we've been in a pandemic, but there has been progress. Not that I didn't expect that you would continue working during the pandemic, but I just, I don't see any reading specialists for the high school. And, you know, I know that the superintendent's goals from her first, after her first year, math was pretty much, was the number one goal. I know you all can walk and chew gum at the same time, So it's not like I think it's all math and nothing else happens. I don't think that for a second. But when I look at reading, I keep going back to the only two studies I can find on reading. And the two studies show that about half the prisoners in our entire prison system are dyslexic and two thirds of them have terrible reading comprehension. both of those things seem like rather critical inputs to literally every other academic area. If you're dyslexic and have terrible reading comprehension and haven't had the services to overcome your dyslexia or compensate, I don't think any of us believe looking at what we see on MCAS questions or SAT questions, that there's a chance for these kids. There isn't, let's just be clear and honest. You know, if you get out of our high school and your reading comprehension is not good, you know, we're not sending you off into the world with the skills you need and that's on us. So I just, you know, if we have to choose between math and reading, regardless of the, sorry, I'm a little tired today, of the grant, I mean, I will, as I have said multiple times at each budget, reading should be ahead of math. It should be ahead of world languages. It should be ahead of even music, which I tend to struggle to put anything ahead of fine arts. But if our kids are not, all of our kids are not reading and having exceptional, you know, meeting standards, according to the state for reading comprehension, You know, I find it, I feel like we will then, you know, when that is evident, we turn to look at our AP and honors students and be very proud of that. And we should be. But I just feel like that focusing on the bright spots and not focusing where there isn't much light is a real problem. It's not a Medford only problem, of course, but I just, you know, the schedule that I heard sounded like one or two years, maybe we'll have all the staff up and running and then we'll be not putting out students that are not getting what they need to be able to read properly. And, but then again, this budget does not include any high school reading specialists. And so, you know, the last 10 years of students, we're just gonna not, worry about them? I don't know. It just feels a bit like that.
[Murphy]: I'm certainly not going to not worry about them, Mr. Tsai. I think that if Dr. Gazer would like to respond to the substantive point with regard to the importance of that level, but before that, I would just say that while you're correct that, I mean, the elementary reading specialists that have been prioritized and are one of the chief priorities of the overall budget process are also not listed. That's a departmental, that's a manifestation of the way in which we're structured, that as you know, those were presented on May 3rd of the school budget and that wouldn't necessarily land on the humanities budget here. I think there are three variables that we always have to keep in mind in the development of all budgetary priorities. One is the limitation on funding, which here, that is not what's driving this process. As you know, we're assessing the authentic needs of the district to build that. And at the same time, we have to be mindful of the that there are always parameters in which we're operating. The second piece is that there's a limitation on people and that we are in this process through ESSER funding and through operating funding, going to be adding to our headcount in all likelihood. And in doing so, we have to be mindful that if we had, and generally speaking, they're not necessarily the same pool of people, but if we have, we have to, to some degree, prioritize as to where we think those those human resources can be concentrated, which leads to the third variable, which is what can be the most impactful. And so when we look at this, these budgetary priorities in the context of coming out of years of disruption, it is true that we are in some respects focusing on the K-8 levels as to where we think the investments can be most consequential. And that third one is not to in any way say that we just, we ignore, we neglect, and certainly that we don't care, about what's happening at the high school level. But there is a responsibility to be thoughtful about where the resources can be maximized to have the biggest impact. And I think those three variables go into identifying the four elementary reading intervention specialists that you've heard about, the restoration of the literacy intervention specialists at the middle school level. And it's our hope that there will be other ways in which we can invest and prioritize in a way that will assist the older students as well. But, you know, I think there is a reality, I think, to the level of the sort of consequential nature of the dollars. So, Nicole, did you want to add anything to that?
[Chiesa]: Yeah, I just want to quickly add, I do value your point, Mr. Russo, and I don't know, it seems like eons ago, but when we had our wish list, you know, over a year ago, we did talk about pulling in a high school reading specialist. I don't think anybody on this committee was pleased at all when the middle school reading specialists were not able to be part of last year's budget. I know I certainly wasn't. So my priority is making sure that they are back in as we deal with those interruptions in learning and the deficit. So that's number one. One thing we have done at the high school over the past couple, two years is to look at the schedule and start creating something we call literacy challenge classes. Those are not for our tier three students, but those are for our tier two students who do show deficits or gaps in reading, writing, comprehension. And so we do have those electives where students will work in literacy challenges instead of maybe going to another mini. It's not taught by a reading specialist. I want to be very transparent with that, but it is supported by our humanities teachers. So getting the middle school reading specialist back is a huge priority. We need to get them back. We need to get those gaps in. And continuing to support the literacy challenge courses, looking at perhaps bringing some specialists into the high school would be something certainly I would be in favor of. When we talk about our dyslexic students, I know Ms. Bowen's on the call, so obviously that would be where the reading, writing, and support classes come in at the high school. But I do, for our tier two learners, I do certainly share the same concerns, and it's a very important priority of mine to make sure we're supporting them as best as we can, given the different schedules.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. Mayor, if I could just quickly respond.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. I think you did mention the literacy class or whatever it was called. I apologize for forgetting it that quickly, but at the high school and that's exciting. And certainly if we could figure out how to get reading specialists to either be assisting or doing the teaching in that, that would be wonderful. But as for dyslexia and special ed and being on IEP, I mean, the estimates I keep seeing are 15% of the population, 15 to 20% of the population is dyslexic. I'm quite sure that 15 to 20% of our students are not diagnosed with dyslexia. So, for all the students that are reading good enough that they've never get an IEP or they don't have parents who feel empowered enough to force it down our throats to get an IEP, which isn't, I'm not saying we don't do that on our own, but we all know that certain, parents of certain characteristics get IEPs more than other parents of other characteristics. That's just a fact. And so for all those kids that don't have, you know, masters and PhD level parents who are going to make sure their kids get what they need no matter what, they're the ones that are going out into the world having never been identified with dyslexia and never having learned how to read and do proper, read sufficiently or to have the reading comprehension that the world demands. I'm not talking about the demands of going into a PhD program. We're talking about the demands for just office work or many other kinds of jobs that we want our students to be able to have success in. So I do appreciate that.
[Chiesa]: Yeah, I know. I really appreciate your point. And one of the exciting things that is on the budget that I didn't, you know, have a lot of time to talk about in my intro was that assessment tool that you may have seen grades three through 11 that we're working on to bring for next year is going to be huge because we need to use an assessment tool like that to identify all students who might be having those gaps in reading comp. They might not be eligible for special education, but they're still struggling. They might have low growth or low output. Those types of tools, you know, I feel very strongly, and I know the assistant superintendents and the superintendent does as well, that those tools are things we need so that we don't miss those students that may not have a disability but certainly have some skills to catch up on. So the goal would be to get those assessments in, which is costly, but I still think very important, vital really, and then get that data and do something with that data. Put those students in the literacy challenge classes if they're not eligible for IEPs. Give them to the middle school reading specialist so we can really have experts working on where are the gaps and how can we remediate. so that we can leave successfully. So that is something on the budget, and I totally agree with you. I think it will help to catch students that maybe don't have the advocacy, as you referred to. We're certainly advocating for them, but it will be another voice in there. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. If I could ask a quick question. Ms. Casey, you had mentioned there'll be assessment tools for grades three through 11 Is that in addition to obviously the K-2? Is that why you didn't mention the K-2?
[Chiesa]: So this is extra due to COVID? Yeah, extra, but of course we don't want to be assessing the students all year. So we would look at what are we getting rid of? And now we're pulling in a really strong assessment three through 11. K-2 would be, you're correct, Mayor, the early literacy screener. That's why I didn't include that in there, because they'll be zoned in on that early literacy screener.
[Lungo-Koehn]: And will all the students be screened at the end of the year to see where they're at and to potentially this summer help that we might be providing?
[Chiesa]: I think that this was a purchase for next year. It's a costly purchase. The early literacy screener, yes, that's going on right now. We do look at that data. It happens three times a year. We will be using that data as we look at the summer reading or the summer intervention that was listed on the budget. So we can use that K through two early literacy screener data now. The three through 11 is something that all of us are hoping can be part of next year's budget. So we can begin assessing the students early in the fall and placing them in those literacy challenge classes or math challenge. It has a math, science and ELA component. Does that answer your question?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Okay. So K through two is getting assessed through the end of the year. Now we'll add three to 11 with this program to place in the fall.
[Chiesa]: Yes. And that would three through 11 would be for all three subject areas. We haven't quite figured out, you know, when we would test in science. I'll, I'll leave that to Mr. Ceri. I don't want his department, but for English, it would be every year, multiple times throughout the year to show growth.
[Murphy]: Yeah. I think this is an example, frankly, of the, how the operating and COVID related priorities are so intertwined with one another. It is because of the absence of the assessments that all districts have relied on, and frankly, the absence of reliable data, even if the assessments are administered, that we have to be thinking creatively. And so this would qualify essentially as a critical priority that we're going to have to invest in one way or another. As Dr. Piazza said, it is not going to be necessarily the least expensive, of the priorities that have been discussed tonight, but one way or another, this is an investment the district will need to make in order to make sure that we have an accurate sense as to what progress students are making. And so while we would love for the operating budget to absorb it frankly, because it's not necessarily direct support to students, which is what we really, that's sort of our chief priority is how do we put the people and the services and the programming in place that are helping students to learn rather than measuring what they're learning. At the same time, we know that this is imperative and we can't frankly function at the level that we need to if we don't have this tool in place. And so one way or another, this will be an investment that the district will make.
[Unidentified]: Thank you.
[Murphy]: So we still, I might be mindful of time, but we do have a number of content areas still to go. As Mr. Sears mentioned, our science priorities, because of the strength of our science program are relatively simple. And so we should be able to Well, I know Siri would like to and could regale us with the tales of the Medford Public School Science Department for the remainder of the evening. And that would be very enjoyable. We can provide time for that later. I would say that we want to make sure that we get to each of those areas within the time that we have.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, I was going to move on to questions on science, and then I'll move on to questions on health and phys ed. So on science, member van der Kloop?
[Van der Kloot]: Just a quick one. Mr. Seary, you mentioned Mozilla and Mozilla especially for science, but it sounded like we weren't moving with that yet. And I was unclear why, whether it's just another budget item, expense, how expensive is it? If it seems like it's been so successful in other subject areas, why aren't we putting it forth right now?
[Cieri]: Thanks for the question, Ms. Van der Kloot. I believe it's already, we are moving forward with it this year. It's not that it's not included.
[Van der Kloot]: Oh, okay. I didn't understand that from your presentation.
[Murphy]: It was funded in part through the CARES funding, and so it's frankly a matter of which budget, whose budget is this going to land on, but it'll be an investment that the district will make, and it's a relatively modest one.
[Chiesa]: Okay, so- We do use it in ELA and social studies.
[Van der Kloot]: Right. So it will be included for science as well. Is that correct, Dave?
[Murphy]: They're using it and using it well. So it's just a matter of whether or not ROC is going to pick up some of the tap at this point.
[Van der Kloot]: OK. Great. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Anybody else with questions in science? Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: Thank you, Mayor. Um, my, I just have a quick, uh, uh, sort of a point last question. Um, so when we went with the new FOSS program, um, you know, we obviously talked a lot about it. Um, and I just hope that, um, you know, Maybe next year, the fact that we're going to have renewables every year, like we just bake it in. It doesn't really, to me, it feels like, why do we keep talking about it? When we agreed to it, we knew they were gonna be renewables every year. And we don't talk about the cost of water or electricity. And I fully, and I understand that it's here, cause this is new still, but I hope at some point soon we can just stop bringing it up the fact that we have to pay for this. Cause we knew that when we agreed to buy the program and the program doesn't even function if we don't do it. That's just sort of a point to make maybe these move along. Thank you.
[Murphy]: It's a good one. And just to tie our previous conversation together, ultimately, to Mr. Rousseau's point, this would be considered a fixed cost increase, a relatively modest one. And I think you're right. Ultimately, some of it, frankly, may already be incorporated, to be totally candid, particularly with the investment in textbooks that we're able to move on to the FY21. We may be able to absorb it in a total science budget. But it's still a key priority that we want to point out. But I think in the future, you're right. For as long as the district's committed to it, we should consider a fixed cost increase.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. We have health and physical education. Any questions?
[Ruseau]: Mayor, I just have one question.
[Lungo-Koehn]: It's member Ruseau and then member Kreatz.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. So, wait, am I in the wrong? I apologize, I'm in the wrong slide on my computer. So the health, I was, the 160,000 was sort of for everything. But the description is of a certified PE teacher at each building. And that's that conversation, Mr. Murphy, you talked about where with the negotiations about we're not gonna add another PE teacher at every building, but we're gonna end up hopefully with a PE teacher who is certified. And then one perhaps who is literally like we hire a specialist.
[Murphy]: So that's for school year 21, 22, we are recommending that we add a position to make sure with certainty that we have an adaptive PE teacher on staff. Part of that is for that person both to provide adaptive PE services to students, but potentially to also serve as the point person in building out our capacity in what would essentially be a train the trainer model to make sure that eventually we have at least one adaptive PE certified teacher at each building. And so we sort of see this as a bridge year to make sure that this priority is being addressed as we build out our institutional capacity to make sure that this is a service that's being offered. There is a bargaining implication to that. It is an impact bargaining implication and one that we're prepared to pursue in the coming months with, you know, again, we're going into the conversation saying it's our expectation that while timeline is always one of the things that we need to discuss with our partners, our expectation at this point is there's enough of a runway, particularly if we add this position for next year and have someone on staff prepared to assist with that. We believe that 22-23 school year is a reasonable timeline to ensure that we have one person at each building, at least one person at each building.
[Ruseau]: Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I have another question I'll ask after Member Kreatz. Thank you. Member Kreatz and then back to Member Ruseau.
[Kreatz]: Yes, thank you. And I just had a question for Ms. Perry. Thank you for the presentation. And before COVID, I did get to tour the site that was going to be the yoga studio and the spin studio. And I can see in the narrative that that work was put on hold. And I know it's to be determined, but I'd be really excited to see if maybe we would be able to get that going. I have been receiving messages from parents who, you know, because of COVID, their students have not had, you know, enough, you know, exercise in their routine. It would be nice to have, you know, another available space with different types of exercise. Everybody adapts to different exercise, like some people like running, some people like yoga, and it would be really nice. So, you know, I hope that it is something that we could do, hopefully in the longterm.
[Perry]: Yes, so we were working with the vocational students really in that area. So that's something that is definitely on our radar to continue to pursue. I think Mr. Murphy, we had talked about this as well. And I know it's something that central is backing and supporting as well.
[Murphy]: I think the only sort of caveat I would put on that is that, A lot of, we're using this opportunity to present the totality of the priorities and strategies. So some ultimately might land on a capital budget and some, you know, there could be external funding opportunities. I think the construction of the yoga studio would probably constitute a capital priority and one that we will pursue in due time. But I would be surprised if it landed on the operating budget in any fiscal year, frankly, but I do think it's something that we can pursue. It's something that, as to Ms. Kreatz's point, would have tremendous value for students. I just probably would be a capital priority ultimately.
[Kreatz]: Thank you. And I just was happy to see that the athletic teacher, the adaptive PE teacher is in the critical budget. I know for two years, Ms. Perry, you've been trying to get that and I'm just really happy to see it and I hope it stays there.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Thank you.
[Ruseau]: Member Ruzzo. Thank you. I just wanted to sort of double check. Will we say a health teacher for the Michigan model? This is the sort of the health teacher we've talked about numerous times. This is that person, correct? Who will fill in and be able to... Thank you.
[Murphy]: That is correct. I will say, as we prioritize that, and this is true for a lot of our priorities, we are trying to maintain flexibility around things like certifications and licensure. We want to make sure that these priorities are incorporated into our schedules or our schedules are adjusted in a way that puts students first, in a way that provides the maximum amount of flexibility. So I think it's inclusion in this presentation speaks to the administration's prioritizing from a funding perspective, what that ultimately looks like, and it's a middle school priority, what that ultimately looks like, how it's incorporated, what building the position would be assigned to, Those are things that would have to be ironed out in the coming months. But yes, it is. The short answer to the question is yes. It's the position that's been discussed at length in the past.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. I just hope we do not get too liberal around certifications, teaching. Well, frankly, the sex ed parts are not for the faint of heart. as I understand it. And, you know, if we struggle to find the right person that rather we struggle to keep finding rather than put somebody in who doesn't really do it justice or does worse, you know, cause this stuff taught the wrong way or taught in a way that it can be taught in a harmful way. And I think that's what I'm afraid of. So thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Van der Kloot.
[Van der Kloot]: I wanted to move on, if we could, to music and oral language. And I had several questions first. I think I'm going to take the music part up first, the fine arts. Okay. So my concern is, and we touched upon this in our subcommittee meeting on curriculum, but we've had a whole group of students miss their fourth grade string program and a whole group of students miss their fifth grade string program. And as we all know, This becomes the feeder programs for the upper level high school band and orchestra, which I think are such vital opportunities for our kids. So I'm curious about, and I realize this strays slightly from the budget, but there may be budget implications. How are we going to, so let's take for the group of next year's fifth graders who missed fourth grade strings. Will the violin become a possible alternative for them in the lineup of beginning instruments? And will we need more instruments for that reason? And so I'm trying to figure out how we're going to address that. And then that goes into, then we've also missed a whole group of students who missed their first year of instruments. And it's crucial for them to have that start if they're going to be in middle school music opportunities. So could you address that?
[Ricciardelli]: Sure. I can. As you probably know, the Department of Ed had put out some pretty serious guidance, some strict guidance, I should say, on the use of instruments and other materials that are shared. And there were three different iterations of that coming out in July, October, and March. So the reason why we did not offer those subjects, just to be clear to the public, was because we were following the public guidance. So we have had numerous discussions within the department about this. A big thank you to Haley Rella, who I think is on this call, Sophia Chang. Both of them have been very, are being very aggressive. We've sent out an email, actually just went out this morning, and I actually have been following it as this meeting has been going on. in which we are reaching out to parents, and we will continue to reach out to parents, not only by the Google survey to find out who is interested, but we will be following up that with classroom presentations and even other communication to try to reach out to parents, to let them know these programs exist, and to encourage them to get their children involved in in band and in an orchestra. So not just for the middle schools, we've started with the middle school with that form. It is going, we are going to be reaching out to our incoming fourth grade parents as well as the fifth grade. So we do, we are gonna be in direct communication with parents to try to bolster this program. So I had, I had mentioned adding instruments. Specifically, we mentioned the ukulele and the guitar, but there are other instruments too that we may need. So we are cognizant of that. I think a lot of this is the outreach that has already started that will need to continue.
[Van der Kloot]: Bernadette, you've really not answered my question, though. If you would, will fifth graders have the opportunity to play violin next year?
[Ricciardelli]: They will. I mean, depending on what the demand is. So one of the things, so with our staff, we have some flexibility in our staff. All of our music staff is K-12. So in the past, what has been done is we have strategically placed those staff where the need is. So I think it first needs to, it needs to start with, where is the, where's the need, where's the demand, we're going to try to bolster it, then we need to position our staff, so that they are there to teach the students and then to get them involved in, in the various instrument lessons.
[Van der Kloot]: So I'm just wondering if we might need more violins next year, even if the school district is renting them because all of a sudden we have the kids who are moving from third to fourth. Now I'm working on the assumption that next year we are going to at least be able to offer violin because it's not a woodwind, it's not a blowing instrument. So that's why I'm starting there. I'm saying, you know, there may be fifth graders who didn't get the opportunity in fourth grade. Do we have, we've traditionally provided those instruments for the students for a nominal, I think $25 a year fee. Yes. Some of which is waived. do we have the capacity in terms of number of instruments or do we need to think about what are we going to do in order to expand? Because the goal has to be that in the long run that we're offering kids the opportunity so that we can get over this hump so that we continue our wonderful thriving orchestra which has boasted more than 100 members strong for years.
[Ricciardelli]: Yeah, and it's a very serious concern that we have. So, I mean, I know Sophia Chang has been working on that, the violin supply. She was just in there, actually, I think she was in there today, again, doing the inventory. So we've been going through the inventory. We know what we have. Depending on what the demand is, we may need to bolster that.
[Murphy]: Okay. I think we have to explore efforts to cultivate demand as well, because to Ms. Van der Kloot's point, I mean, this is a very concrete example of when we talk about how we don't want students' academic careers to be defined by the 1920 and 2021 school years, right? That you miss that year, or it could be the year that is lighting the flame around music education, and then all of a sudden you're not participating in the extracurricular activity that you would have in high school that kept you engaged, that put you in a position to pursue post-secondary opportunities. So these are real, concrete risks that we have to look at every single initiative and every single budgetary priority through the lens of how do we ensure that this global pandemic does not define Medford public school students for their educational career. And so we will work on cultivating that interest and we will work on procuring the instruments or whatever other infrastructure we need to make sure that we can put students back on the path that they that they deserve to be on. But I think it's a great question because I think it's such a concrete example of how a student's path can be altered as a result of a disruption totally beyond their control.
[Van der Kloot]: Yes. So if I can follow up on that. So obviously that's a big concern of mine. And also how we look at the fifth grade band instrument program as well. I still don't know what we don't necessarily know whether we'll be able to be offering all those instruments as far as I know. This is one area where I'm wondering whether a summer program makes any sense at all. Um, you know, just to bolster if depending on what the, what the requirements are. Um, and, um, I guess it also opens up a bigger question. Now, Bernadette, I'd wanna be clear that this is with no reflection on the job you've been doing, but you will know that from all my years on the committee, I've been a proponent of the fine arts. And while I'm very mindful and understand that perhaps we're looking at how departmentalized we are, I am concerned that in the fine arts, it's really important for us to have the specialty of musicians and artists overseeing the department and the work. And so while Bernadette has stepped in and done the hard work this year, I've always said, hey, I don't want fine arts to become a second fiddle to all the other departments. There was a joke in there, but you know, to all the other departments over time, we need to make sure that our fine arts department is as important as all the other departments. And so I worry about that and I want to know, you know, going forth right now, you're not suggesting a separate director, but the question will be, what will the plan be?
[Ricciardelli]: Um, yeah, I mean I what I can say is that there have been several, actually all the teachers have stepped, stepped up, I have to mention lead teacher Haley Rallo has, has, has helped me immensely. Sophia Chang has stepped up all of them I really shouldn't, you know, aside from a lead teacher. They all have stepped up, they've offered their help. They have expressed a concern for the continuation of the program. So it's part of every discussion that we have in our department meetings. So we are being very aggressive with it. Um, you know, not knowing what the fall is going to bring in terms of restriction, my mindset has been, let's go, let's go full in, and if we need to retreat we will retreat. I think it's easier to do that to plan, and then, you know, if we need to cut it we will. I don't anticipate that, though, all the signs when we look at what's going on in a global manner, things are coming back. So in no way are we planning to retreat. We're planning to move forward in a full way.
[Van der Kloot]: I just want to make sure that we budgetarily have plans as well and to make sure that we have enough resources to cover the needs whether it be an instrument or additional teaching staff or whatever to make up for this year.
[Murphy]: Yeah miss just from a budget perspective I'll just say that the fine arts department music and art they should be spending no more time than any other department being concerned with regards to their existence because It is central to our values as an organization, and from an instructional perspective, it is integral to making sure that students are having the well-rounded experience that they need, and to the point that Ms. Brandenclute raises, even more so coming out of this period of disruption. With regard to the administrator position, I would just say that the priorities are built on, we are trying to concentrate as many resources on direct support And I think that's probably why you might not see it at the top tier. It's something that has to be addressed in the long-term in some way, shape, or form. And that's why it's identified in the long-term priorities. But we frame the budgetary priorities around making sure that we're concentrating as many resources as possible on personnel and programs that touch students directly. But it's certainly not something that we've lost sight of.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. We have Dr. Edouard-Vincent and then member Rousseau. Oh, just unmute yourself, please.
[Edouard-Vincent]: sorry, Member Ruseau's hand had gone up before me, so you don't mind. I just was gonna say then, in response to Member van der Kloet's questions, Mr. Murphy ended up kind of addressing the district position, but we definitely prioritize the arts and at this point in time, the work that Dr. Riccadeli has been doing to really make sure that even our fine arts programming is coherent and aligned K through 12, the supplemental curriculum that we use this year during the pandemic year. I just wanted to acknowledge and thank her for her leadership and the great work that is happening in the fine arts department in all categories. So I just wanted to say, although we know that we're operating a little differently right now, that a lot of positive work is definitely happening in the area of fine arts. And member van de Kloet, to your question about if additional instruments were to be needed for the fifth grade, we definitely would be able to address that based on the interest of the students and or their families for continued fine arts programming. So I just wanted to assure you of that. Thank you.
[Ruseau]: Member Ruseau. Thank you, Mayor. So I have some concerns about the fine arts department and not the staff, obviously. I noticed that the fine arts department, as far as I can see, is the only one we have not indicated that it might be appropriate to have extended school day. We did talk about how the sciences will pull kids into extended school day. I'm pretty sure music does the same thing. So I'll just ask my couple of questions and then let them get answered. So I'm wondering why the discrepancy there. And then, I guess there were three quick questions here.
[Murphy]: I think that's an oversight. I think to your point that it should be included for exactly the reason that you're stating that even if we're gonna build an extended school day program on the basis of literacy and math support, very often fine arts and performing arts are gonna be what is what's pulling, what are pulling students in. So I think that similar to science, you can expect to see that being prioritized in the COVID mitigation budget. And I apologize for it not being spelled out explicitly because it certainly should be.
[Ricciardelli]: Thank you. We did have a discussion about that this morning. Yes.
[Ruseau]: Great, thank you. And so I also noticed, thinking about, I believe there are some funds left in ESSER I, I don't know anything about what's left in ESSER II, but don't share your instruments, even though the science around contact transmission of COVID, I think is practically settled at this point. But I mean, is there not a case to be made for get all the instruments that we think we could possibly need. It looks like a COVID expense on paper based on the guidance that has come out in the past. I mean, if we already are gonna spend all that money on something else, then of course you have to prioritize. But at the end of the day, if we have a nickel left of that money and we didn't buy extra instruments when we could have, that will seem like a sad day, because someday we're in the future, we're gonna have a budget where we're gonna need to decide whether we're gonna have enough violins or we're going to have health education somewhere. I mean, you know, we're going to have awful choices in a future budget, just like we do in every budget, frankly. So I just wonder why we are, have we considered, you know, maxing out our spending of our ESSER funds to make sure that we, I mean, the thing about buying extra, you know, violins, if you buy too many, you stick them in the storeroom. And when they start to, the ones we're using start to get destroyed by the kids, you take them out and there they are. It's not like, they don't go bad by sitting in a storeroom, unlike many other things. So, textbooks age, a violin in a box can sit there for probably a century.
[Murphy]: So, I don't know, have we talked?
[Ruseau]: Let's do that.
[Murphy]: We've made such a heavy investment in technology, but we know that technology will ultimately become obsolete the longer it waits. But I think that these types of concrete consumables, I think in the past, we've always aligned to interest. But again, back to Ms. Vander Kloof's point that if interest wanes as a result of this disruption, then we have to really be doing two things. One, cultivating the interest, but also building up a reserve for exactly the reasons they're pointing out. So whether it's SR1 or SR2, I think is probably gonna come down to timing, frankly. uh and and to some degree possibly supply and when we might be able to do that but I think it's a worthwhile investment um and one that I I think I don't want to say that to the girls without saying because I think it's extremely important that we have this conversation and that it's reflective of our values as an organization we point this out but I definitely think that that's something that you'll see as one of one of the investments in the ESSER budget.
[Ruseau]: Thank you I mean I'm not advocating for us just having a a stock of a million dollars worth of violins that we have hidden away somewhere in the vast high school. But I do, you know, like if we can buy these instruments, we can stop making kids find the money to rent them. And that gets very much to my other issues around expecting families to pony up money to go to public school. So thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Member Graham.
[Graham]: The only other question I had about the fine arts budget, and maybe it's, I think it's sort of related to the phys ed budget in in some regards, but I would ask that we think about how we determine replacement costs of equipment in the same fashion for fine arts as we do in athletics. And I would say the same of transportation. So I believe that on the athletic side we do as a district subsidize transport for some amount of athletic Travel and if we are subsidizing for athletics, we should be subsidizing for the fine arts travel as well. So whatever that like whatever that that decision making is, I would ask that we apply it consistently across those departments, because I think they speak to like what brings joy in learning to students. And that may not be to all students, but there are students who uniquely find their home in either of those places, whether it be athletics or fine arts. So I would just wanna make sure that we are looking across departments and making sure that we are making concrete and similar choices for both of those. Subject areas. And I would say, you know, last in last year's budget, we had a conversation around supply like office supplies for schools. And there was just like this flat amount of money being issued to each school. And I would say that that doesn't feel super defensible. Like when I think about how supplies are consumed, it seems to me that a building with a hundred more students in it needs more supplies than the building with a hundred less students. But yet we've sort of always applied the same number and said, All elementary schools are created equal, so there are some places and opportunities like that in the budget where understanding the basis for evaluation of like what constitutes a rational budget. makes a lot of sense, this is one of those places for me that you know sort of jumps out at me when we when we when I think about athletics and. and fine arts, but there are other places in the budget where I think there's similar opportunity for us to say, like, what is the basis? And then it becomes not a discussion about, is this enough? And does one school have more than the other? Because we have something defensible to fall back on. Thank you. Member van der Kloot?
[Van der Kloot]: Yes, I had a question now, if we're ready to move on to world language? Yes, please. So my question is, Bernadette, you mentioned that there's a $49,000 line item for the introduction of French in grade six, but it didn't look like, was that inclusive of also money for needed textbooks in French, Italian, and Spanish?
[Ricciardelli]: So that 49,000 is all three languages in all three grades in middle school. Okay, and at the high school level we're okay. So right right now we are we're okay so the upper level in world language they use a lot of small readers, it's less textbook base. With regard to a level one of a language. it is more important to have a textbook. So level one is in our grade eight. We have a few classes, level one in grade nine, which we could use the same textbooks, but when you get into those upper levels, it's just, it's not as important. Not that it's unimportant, but we do have textbooks that are not as, they're not as old, they're usable. So if we're gonna put money, it's the middle school textbooks.
[Van der Kloot]: Okay and the second question is really has to do with something you didn't mention but that is we've now no longer have an Italian program at the elementary level. We really haven't talked too much about what's going to happen there but I'm going to direct the question of saying you know the one thing about the Italian program is it brought in kids horizons in understanding that there are countries that speak a totally different language and use different money and you know, all of the different things that go along with learning about a different language. And I'm just wondering how we are going to incorporate that type of learning into our curriculum. You know, again, because we're doing without it, what are we losing and how are we going to, make sure that our students have that, you know, without waiting until sixth grade. You know, I've mentioned before, I have a grandson who goes to school in another state, and he's in an intensive French program from kindergarten. He speaks French. He's in first grade now, and he speaks French. It's amazing, and we're not doing that, but his also understanding of things like Time zones. He's in first grade of time zones and of, you know, money and games and all the other things that learn that take place about learning about another country. So I'm kind of curious, and I realized that maybe it hasn't been thought about too much at this point. Because it's been a tough year, but I'm wondering about that type of learning and how are we going to incorporate it into our the lives of our elementary kids.
[Ricciardelli]: So I think there are two questions here. One is what are we doing with that fifth prep? And I know that Suzanne Glusi has been, she has been working very hard on creating that fifth prep. She has determined that there is a need elsewhere for that fifth prep. Your question, how did the students get that, the knowledge of, globalism, culture, you know, part of that comes in with the elementary social studies curriculum. And perhaps it's not gonna be as great as it was with the Italian program. But when they do get to middle school, remember they have that global scholars program, which I think does, it's a wonderful program that very directly deals with the time zone issue because they're communicating with students across the world. That does happen in middle school. I think with this, yeah, we are losing something by losing the Italian. but we are going to gain another program with what Ms. Galussi has put in, which is going to be more of a, well, actually I will let her speak to what that is going to be. So yeah, I mean, we can't completely, you know, bring in that cultural piece. So we are losing something by losing the Italian. Yes.
[Van der Kloot]: Thank you.
[Ricciardelli]: You're welcome.
[Galusi]: I was just gonna say, is it okay if I jump in. Um, I just wanted to say, of course, there'll be a somewhat of a void in losing the Italian program but I do want to be mindful that What we're putting in place moving forward for the additional specialist program for students is based on the current need right now coming out of a global pandemic. And what students need right now is a little bit more concentrated and extended focus on social emotional skills, as well as developing some of those executive functioning skills that were lost in these past 14 to 15 months. And I do wanna say that And I'm not minimizing at all the Italian program, but it also did not service every student in the building. And this fifth additional special will service every student in the building, especially at this moment in time. And I also wanted to mention in reference to your question, member Van der Kloot, that a lot of what you're talking about in that void, that is woven into all of the ELA curriculum, the social studies curriculum. It's embedded in part of the responsive classroom and the content that the teachers focus on in morning meeting. and as well as the addition of all of the cultural proficiency work that we're doing with staff and bringing into the classrooms every day. So that kind of global piece, though it may not be answered by what the Italian program did, but it actually, in all of the other areas of the day, it's more of a broader scope.
[Van der Kloot]: Susan, who's going to be teaching the period you just spoke about?
[Galusi]: We're going to have to hire some new staff for that position.
[Van der Kloot]: And what are we going to call that? Do we?
[Murphy]: We're going to have to mail that next week. So we don't want to make sure that we keep our viewership up for budget meeting number four next week. This is just a bit of a teaser and everyone can look forward to unveiling that. And, and again, this is of course something we discussed at the May 3rd presentation where we discussed our elementary school priorities. And we talked about both from a logistical perspective and making sure that We are reaching a deeper level of learning and also broadening the exposure our students have in the post-pandemic context. And so that's why we've identified this as an important strategic investment going into the FY22. But there are a few of the details and content pieces that are still being ironed out by not just Miss Galussi, but by the entire team at the elementary level. And the hope is that this is a multidisciplinary approach to this special, and we'll get into really the sort of branding of it and making sure that people are clearly communicating exactly what's going to take place when we convene next week.
[Van der Kloot]: Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Great. If there's no further questions.
[Ricciardelli]: Mayor?
[Graham]: No. Yes, Member Graham. I just wanted to make a motion to accept the recommendations outlined tonight in the superintendent's draft recommendations across all the categories to be included in the budget for May 19th.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Second. For a final review, if we could just have that language for a final review. Seconded by member Van der Kloot. Member Van der Kloot, do you mind taking the role?
[SPEAKER_14]: No.
[Van der Kloot]: So member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin is absent. Member Mustone is absent. Member Ruseau?
[SPEAKER_14]: Yes.
[Van der Kloot]: Member Van der Kloot, yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Five in the affirmative, two absent. The motion passes as amended. Is there a motion to adjourn?
[Murphy]: Mayor, just a couple of quick housekeeping.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Dave, you have about 30 seconds because it's 8.59 and this meeting ends at nine.
[Murphy]: Actually, we were over by six minutes last time too, so we're actually supposed to go further into depth. You used your six seconds. May 18th and May 19th, we have our remaining academic programs in some of our operational areas. We have in the agenda posted for May 19th listed that as both a wrap up of the remaining departments as well as a budget hearing. That is completely up to the school committee as to whether you'd like to hold a hearing that night and hear from the public speaking rather for or against. Again, what you're driving toward here is the vote on the request. There will be an additional set of meetings, or at least one, and I imagine a set of meetings in June once the appropriation is made and we're presenting the budget as it's outlined going into the start of fiscal year. Statutorily, the wording is the proposed budget, and so that's why we listed it, just in case you wanted to hold a hearing that evening. But certainly, you're not obligated to hold only one, and you could hold one in June when the appropriation is made as well. We just wanted to post that correctly, so I defer to you as to how you would like that structured on May 19th.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Ruseau?
[Ruseau]: Thank you, Mayor. I thank you, Mr. Murphy for that question slash point. I personally feel like they should not be together. I think that when we finish the part like we're doing right now, I know I'm gonna wanna be able to sit down and do some math and add some things together and talk to people I know that are paying attention who may be on this meeting now, or simply at whom I'm gonna be like, care about this, this is what's actually in that, in the budget, so that they can think about and prepare themselves to come and speak as members of the public. And I think that there's, that happening together doesn't give enough time. That's my opinion. I see everybody else's hands are up too, so.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Kreatz, then Member Graham.
[Kreatz]: Yes, I have the same thoughts as Mr. Russo. I think that that would be too much in one meeting and a lot to absorb in one meeting for everybody and then to have the public join in. So I do recommend that we make a separate date to have the public hearing so that the community can participate.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Member Graham?
[Graham]: My question was about, I thought that last year there was some issue about posting requirements in that the budget hearing has to go in the newspaper some amount of time ahead. Is that true?
[Murphy]: So similar to the, if you remember when we talked about our process, I referenced that the vast majority of school committees don't take the second vote to adopt the budget. The language in the statute related to the newspaper is similar to that. from an enforceability perspective, we will certainly call the newspaper and tell them that this budget is posted there. We don't have any authority to tell the newspaper what to publish. And in many communities, the reason this is becoming even more of an issue is there aren't as many newspapers to publish this. And so school committees are running into this all over the Commonwealth. But whether you, I mean, I think I hear the sentiments of the committee. So it sounds like we're not gonna have to worry about this for May 19th. We'll post the agenda appropriately, and we will find newspaper and ask them to run the fact that we're having a hearing when the time comes.
[Graham]: And I would. I would agree that having that budget hearing and ultimately the vote of what we will send to the mayor's office as our request should not be on the same night as we're like sort of wrapping everything else up. But I actually also wanna say that I don't want that to languish. Like I think that is an important thing for us to get done in the month of May. I don't want to delay because I think in all fairness to the rest of the community that, The mayor's going to need that for her consideration, the council is going to want to know what we had to say. And as you mentioned like all of that has to like fall into place in order for us to then come back. deal with whatever appropriation is allotted to Medford Public Schools and make those final decisions. So I would still wanna see that budget hearing happen in the month of May. So I would like to get that on the calendar as quickly as possible.
[Murphy]: I think the will of the committee seems pretty clear. We'll send some proposed dates around to you tomorrow and we will put that on our calendars.
[Graham]: Okay, thank you.
[Ruseau]: Mayor. Thank you, I just have a quick question for Mr. Murphy about the, you know, since we've always done the one vote, does the statute say that we must post for the first vote or the second vote?
[Murphy]: Post with regard to the hearing, you mean?
[Ruseau]: For the hearing, yes.
[Murphy]: Yeah, the wording is proposed, and I haven't read the legislative history in some time, but I believe when I last did, the language of using the term proposed budget is predates some of the changes in the law. It also, and my guess is this is why they haven't bothered to change it, in other forms of government, the proposed budget would have a different set of implications because it would be the budget that would go directly to the town meeting for adoption there. So it doesn't specify, I think it's, frankly, I think it's fine either way. From a practical perspective, stepping away from the statutory lane, you know, I think we've had, we will have had five public discussions of this in which the administration, the school committee have engaged. And I think what has been a constructive discourse so far related to what the budgetary priorities are, what some of the pressure points are. I certainly think it makes sense to open that up to the community and hold a hearing, but that's not to suggest, as I said before, you can only have one. So I think you'll have time to sort of entertain that as over the course of the next month. It isn't specified whether it's the vote to request or the vote to adopt. And I think you're not restricted to one or the other anyway.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. Motion to adjourn.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Seconded by Kreatz and Graham. Roll call, please.
[Van der Kloot]: Jenny Graham? Yes. Kathy Kreatz?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Van der Kloot]: Melanie is absent. Mia Mustone is absent. Paul Rousseau?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
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