[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. All right. Please be advised that on Wednesday, May 19th, 2021 at 7 p.m. there will be a committee of the whole meeting held through remote participation pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12th, 2020 order suspended certain provisions of the Open Meeting Law, Chapter 30A, Section 18, and the Governor's March 15th, 2020 order imposing strict limitations of the number of people that may gather in one place. This meeting of the Medford School Committee will be conducted through remote participation to the greatest extent possible. Specific information and the general guidelines for remote participation by members of the public and our 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 and Medford Community Media websites an audio or video recording, transcript, or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting. The meeting can be viewed through Medford Community Media on Comcast Channel 22 and Verizon Channel 43 at 7 p.m. You can call in by using 1-929-205-6099. Please enter meeting ID 913-5189-6187 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. as it pertains specifically to Central Office of the Medford Public Schools, including a variety of departments under the auspices of the Office of Superintendent and the Office of Finance and Operations. Summary of the Medford Public School budget presentations made throughout the course of all five Committee of the Whole budget meetings on May 3rd, May 6th, May 13th, May 18th, and May 19th. Signed, Dr. Marice Edouard-Vincent, Superintendent of Schools. I will turn it over to Dr. Edouard-Vincent and Mr. Murphy to get us started. After we call the roll. Sorry. After Member McLaughlin calls the roll. Sorry, Dr. Edward-Vinson.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Here. Member Kreatz? Here. Member McLaughlin here. Member Mustone?
[Van der Kloot]: Here.
[McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Here.
[McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot? Here. Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Present. Seven present, none absent. And now I will turn it over. Thanks.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Thank you. Good evening Mayor Lungo-Koehn and members of the school committee. Tonight is our fifth time gathering to discuss the budget. We're going to be focusing this evening on central office. Again, the office of the superintendent, operations, finance, safety, family engagement, human resources, and building and grounds. So without much further ado, I'm going to pass the baton on to Mr. Murphy. And I just want to thank him again and his team and Michelle Kingdon for all the work that they're doing during this budget process. Thank you, Mr. Murphy.
[Murphy]: Thank you, Superintendent, Mayor, members of the school committee. It's a pleasure to be with you again this evening. for our fifth committee of the whole meeting focused on the FY22 budget. As the superintendent mentioned, tonight we'll be focused on elements of the central office, specifically the offices that are under both the superintendent and my own supervision. As we go through the beginning of the program, as we have each time, we'll be looking at the org chart and talking specifically about the offices whose budgets are are here in light of the fact that these are the offices that myself and the superintendent work most closely with. While Dr. Kuching, Ms. Galussi, Ms. Bowen are here, with the exception of Director McLaughlin, we will be really the only presenters and speakers tonight. But certainly we'll be eager to answer any questions that you have, both with respect to the offices that we are focusing on tonight and anything else that we've covered over the course of the last several weeks. And as I mentioned in my message to the committee, both last night and a few minutes ago, we will be having a budget update on the school committee agenda this coming Monday, May 24th. And we'll certainly be picking up questions and comments at that point, incorporating and taking in your feedback. And that will go into the development of the recommendations that come before you. prior to your June 1st statutory hearing. So with that, I will start, as we always do, with the timeline for our budget process, beginning with the development of the district's strategic goals and priorities, leading to a series of, some administrators might say, seemingly endless administrative meetings internally, in which we vet various proposals and comments, questions, and suggestions principles and evening, but have not been following along for each of the various budget presentations, both at regular school committee meetings, budget subcommittee and the committee of the whole meetings. This is where we are right now leading up to that June 1st public hearing in which members of the community will be invited to speak either for or against, or a favorite for those who follow municipal presentations, those wishing to speak neither for nor against. the budget in part or in whole. And again, that will take place on June 1st, but there will be a budget update on Monday, an opportunity to comment and engage in further discussion. We've used the org chart in each of these presentations, just as by way of showing folks, perhaps outside of the Medford Public Schools community, which area of the organization we're focused on in this particular meeting. So this is the overall org chart showing all the various offices and departments reporting up to the superintendent. And then these are the areas that we'll be discussing tonight. So you can see it's primarily the areas in my own portfolio, as well as those reporting directly to the superintendent. And you see the curvy arrow there on the right of the screen. which is indicating a reorganization of sorts that we'll be proposing as part of the FY22 budget, and that's something I'll be going into greater detail about shortly. So as we've discussed in each of the budget presentations, the funding for the Metro Public Schools and the funding generally for school districts across Massachusetts comes from various sources. What we often refer to as the Chapter 70 allocation, which is the The state contribution under state law coming out of ed reform law of 1993 and the funding that each school community and district are entitled to. The local contribution, which is the revenue generated from at the local level that is air marked for the for the school department, which in Medford is a very sizable portion of that of the overall operating budget. And then the sort of extenuating circumstances under which we're currently operating mean we have a significant influx of federal funding coming in as a result of the COVID-related legislation that has come in. And that is coupled with the sort of standing external funds that come in on a year-in and year-out basis, particularly in the area of special education, which we discussed at length at the May 6th Committee of the Whole when we heard from the Office of Pupil Services. We've said that throughout the FY22 budget, we've asked those contributing to the development of this budget, meaning our department heads and our principals, to focus essentially on three primary buckets of areas in which we're asking them what are their budgetary priorities, what are their needs, what are their challenges. First is personnel and staffing. And the committee certainly said before that when we're talking about school budgets, we're almost always talking about people. We're an organization made up of people, educating people, hoping to make them better people and people who are positioned to do well in their post-secondary lives. But that is always going to be the largest chunk of our budget because, you know, as we say sometimes in school finance, we're not focused on widgets. We're focused on people in a community, and that's always going to be the largest chunk. Materials and infrastructure, particularly under the challenging conditions under which we're operating, are always going to represent another, albeit smaller, aspect of the budget. And training and professional development, which everything is, we are looking at everything through a post-COVID context, but for training and professional development, when we think about the ways in which some of the inequities, both within public education and society at large, have come into sharper relief as a result of the experience that we've all lived through, we are thinking very much in that context when we talk about what are our professional development and training priorities, and what is it that we're looking to invest in. And particularly when we're talking about the superintendent's priorities, while much of what we're planning will be supported by external funding, given that the budget development process is the opportunity to really look at the organization as a whole, see how we're structured, how we're organized, what it is that we're pursuing, what are our discrete challenges, what are our long-term overarching challenges, This really is an opportunity to sort of pull the veil back on all of the Medford Public Schools. And my hope would be that throughout these committee of the whole presentations, as we've heard from the various directors and school leaders, my hope would be that both for the school committee and the members of the community who are either watching this in real time or perhaps watching it subsequent to the presentations, you'll see the effort toward transparency that we have employed to try to demonstrate for the community exactly what it is that we're doing. And I hope also the rationale behind these priorities. And this slide talks a little bit about that rationale in that these are the questions that were posed that led to the development of these priorities and that we're thinking about what are the targeted and intensive interventions that we can invest in to help reduce or eliminate the learning or opportunity gaps that have either been caused by or exacerbated by the disruption to instruction that our students have faced as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. And so there will come a time when our budgetary priorities and our goals are not informed fully by this experience and the disruption that our students have lived through. At least I certainly hope that's the case. One of the sort of constant refrains that we go back to is we're looking to make investments that will ensure our students' academic careers are not defined by this experience. And hopefully if we make these investments and we execute on them wisely, that will be the case. But for right now, coming out of these, as cliche as it might sound, these unprecedented circumstances, we are looking to see how do we use the funding that's available to us from the local, state, and federal levels to try to put them in the best position possible despite the chaos that we've all lived through. So on April 26th, we presented to the school committee the projections that we were looking at based on the preliminary information that we had. uh, leading into these budget presentations. And we've estimated that, uh, the necessary increase in the budget would be somewhere between 3.4 and $5.8 million. Recognizing that there are a significant number of variables that are, uh, essentially not clear while variable one, there are restrictions on federal funding flowing in that are still not particularly clear. And I appreciate the mayor's comments to that effect. last night, but we're continuing to engage in a very constructive dialogue with our partners in the city government and reaching out to our partners at the state level and elsewhere to try to get clarity on that. I think at this point we feel comfortable that the priorities we've developed that we think of as having a strong nexus to the disruption caused by COVID will be essentially eligible expenses. It's a question of, from an administrative perspective, exactly how we'll go about processing those and exactly how realistic is it to do that. So I think we feel good about the priorities that we've identified as our COVID-related or potential ESSER-related priorities, but there's still a lot of clarity that needs to come into view in the coming weeks. In addition to that, we know we have fixed costs as every district does on a year-on-year basis. These are costs that are related to contractual obligations or other situations that have essentially predated the development of this budget, but we know that they're going to lead to an increase in costs. Other variables also include the fact that we have upwards of nine collective bargaining agreements that are expiring either at the conclusion of this school year or the conclusion of the summer. And so that's certainly a factor that we have to take into account as we work through the development of this budget. This is just information related to those external funding, the numbers the committee has seen several times before, so I won't belabor it, but we estimate about a $7.6 million ESSER budget over the next several years. And so I wouldn't say that we necessarily see that as needing to be expended in equal installments over the three or four year period that we have. But I would say that we want to be mindful of the fact that we're going to have additional data that will hopefully point us to more strategic uses of the funding as time goes on. So it may be the case that some of the more immediate expenses are in the short term, but the better use of the funding could be in year two or year three. And for that reason, we are looking to be, I'm not sure I would use the word conservative, but certainly cautious and cognizant of the implications of using that funding. And the fact is, as you've heard me say several times, these are one-time funds and the ESSER funding will not last forever. And so we have to be mindful of the uses being taking care to not create unnecessary structural deficits, and at the same time, making sure that we're being responsive to the urgent needs of students. And so where we strike that equilibrium is a big part of the conversations that we have been having and that we will be having. So I'm going to pause for one second before we move on to buildings and grounds and just talk a little bit about what you'll see over the next couple of slides in this, but I'm glad that I flashed to it quickly so that I can tell Mr. McLaughlin that he's on next as I continue to babble for another minute or so. But the departments that you're seeing starting with buildings, we're going to start with buildings and grounds and then move to the more umbrella offices of the superintendent's office and the office of finance and operations. And if you think back to the organizational chart that we saw at the beginning of the presentation, you can see that for both myself and Dr. Edouard-Vincent, there are a lot of priorities and funding and strategic investments and proposals that cut across the different departments and offices that you've already heard from. And that's a good thing because what we don't want to do is present a budget to you in the form of 25 siloed or overly departmentalized mini organizations. We want common themes and common strategic priorities that cut across. And so what you'll see in the bullets that we've identified are pieces that are either reflective of those priorities or operational pieces that are meant to put us in a position that we'll be able to actually pursue those priorities and do so successfully. Similar to the information technology budget proposals that we discussed in last night's committee of the whole, a large portion, arguably all, frankly, of the buildings and grounds priorities, the year maintenance issue, uh, that is essentially routine. I think routine was the word that we used in the technology presentation. That's something that we typically are going to incorporate one way or another into our operating budget. Um, something that is a one-time expense and I'm using the term one time in the context of municipal budgeting. And so one time could mean every 10 years, every 15 years, every 20 years, but certainly not on an annual basis. Um, that's every 20 years, but certainly not on an annual basis. That's something that we're going to look up to as a capital expense that we're going to try to keep off the operating budget for purposes of not creating some of those deficits that we've talked about. What we do when we have a large influx of federal funding, frankly, similar to how we handled the funding that came in during FY21, and to some extent in FY20 as well, is to try to address some of the most urgent priorities and needs that might in another context be considered a capital expense. but in light of the urgency, we're looking to just take what funding is available and make sure that that's addressed. That was certainly the case as is reflected in the buildings and grounds budget narrative that was provided to you today with regard to our HVAC repairs that we needed to expedite and accelerate at the beginning of this school year for purposes of getting students and staff back into the physical school buildings. And so I expressed my appreciation for Mr. McLaughlin and members of his team who partnered with the external experts that we brought in to make that a reality. The history as to how we got to the place where so much work was necessary, I think, has been addressed at length in previous meetings. But however we got here, we are in a much better position from an air quality perspective because that work was done throughout the course of this year. And now we're looking at some of the other heavy infrastructure pieces that may not land in the operating budget for FY22. but are critical priorities that need to be addressed in the near term. And I'm going to ask Mr. McLaughlin, if he could, to walk us through some of these. As we're talking about how these investments need to be made in the coming year or months. So John, do you want to take it from there and just start maybe with the generator and transformer electrical issues that we have been identified at the high school and at the Andrews and then we'll walk through some of the other pieces. From there we'll move on to finance operations in the superintendent's office and then we'll go to questions after that.
[Mr. McLaughlin]: Excellent. Good evening Mayor, Superintendent, members of the school committee and administrators. on tonight's meeting. So first issue, transformer amps break is electrical projects at Medford High School, Andrews Middle School. So I think that we're aware of the fact that the emergency generator One of the emergency generators at Medford High School needs to be replaced. We have discussed it. We're on the road to getting an RFP and pricing information to try to get that project- Did audio drop out for anybody else?
[McLaughlin]: No? You guys can still hear? Yes. Sorry.
[Kreatz]: I can hear, but when David was talking, it cut out for a little bit and then came back on.
[Murphy]: Just for a second it did, yes. You've probably heard from me enough in the last week or two, sorry. I think we're good, John.
[Mr. McLaughlin]: Okay, good. So the Andrews School, that issue has already been squared away out of my regular budget. We did electrical infrared scans of all the buildings, and there was an issue with a breaker at the Andrews that we have. repaired, so that's good. We also have a transformer.
[Kreatz]: I can't hear Mr. McLaughlin.
[Mr. McLaughlin]: Oh.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I don't know. I'm able to hear him okay. Me too. I can hear him fine. I wonder what's up.
[McLaughlin]: Now I can, but I'll say Mayor, excuse me, Mayor, he dropped off for me for a good minute.
[Mr. McLaughlin]: Oh boy. You want him to start over, Melanie? Would you like me to start?
[Kreatz]: Kathy, can you hear him now? Yeah, I lost, I couldn't hear you either, John.
[Mr. McLaughlin]: Okay. I don't know. I got the hotspot going. I, I, you know, I've been preparing for this for a while. So anyway, so, uh, yeah, so the, uh, the breaker or the amp, uh, trans, uh, the breaker was replaced at the Andrews middle school. So we're, uh, we're back where we need to be. Um, it was part of a, uh, we had had, um, insurance, uh, inspection, infrared scan of all the electrical systems. up at the high school, through law school, excuse me. And so we were able to take care of that off of my regular operations budget. So we do, we also, we know about the emergency generator, that's getting ready to go out for an RFP. Also the transformer, the transformer is an original equipment at Medford High School. So what happened was, is when, years ago would have PCBs in it. So we had to take out the PCBs and put another type of oil on it. And what ends up happening with that is the rubber seals tend to give way. So I'm in the process of obtaining a quote. I have it, I just got it today to overhaul the transformer. And make sure that make sure we can get that back to where we need to be. It's a little bit low on oil it's still running, but it's, it's certainly something that has to take priority because it also functions as one third of the power. at Medford High School. So we'll have the pricing information ready to go on that. And that would be a summer project, obviously, with the generator, if and when we're ready to take that project on. This year, we had some security enhancements. We had a new Raptor system. put in all of the monitors at this point in time, I've had training on the new Raptor system. If you don't know the Raptor system is where you come in, you give you a license, they scan it. If everything's okay, you get a tag, you're ready to go to the main office to conduct business that you need to conduct in any of our schools. So every three or four years, we like to get the parking lot done. Usually it's all of them, should I say, system-wide. Parking lots restriped, they're starting to get old. We did want to make some adjustments at Mefford High School, which we'll be meeting about as far as a handicap parking situation goes. I know we've had that conversation when we were talking about the front entrance. And I think what we want to do is move to handicap spots to the front loop of Mefford High School and to access the handicap ramp that's right there. So that would be, you know, we'll overhaul it. I did talk to Mayor Lungo-Koehn last week, so if I need any help, we do have the traffic department down at City Hall, they'll be more than happy to help us. We did meet with them a couple of years ago to try to make some improvements, but as we all know, this past year hasn't been the typical year that we normally deal with. The Curtis Tufts Boiler Project, so last winter, the boiler started to leak. These are all things that we'll probably be bringing up next week in the subcommittee meeting. So we ordered some pieces that have to be reinstalled, so sectionals. So we were able to obtain two sectionals that they're gonna replace, and that should stop the leaking, we hope. And that's gonna be, it's gonna be significant money that we have to spend on it. and HVAC enhancements. So we know that we've done a lot of that. At this point in time, we're getting air conditioning up and running. So there are associated problems with that, certain particular areas here and there that we need to bring in our contractor to fix them up. This is by law, we have to offer heat till May 15th. So this would be the week that we do the turnover. Unfortunately, it's been hot this week, which, you know, it's a crapshoot, but it has been hot this week. So some of the teachers in classrooms have been a little bit uncomfortable, but we're working on it. We know you're there. We're going to get out there and take care of whatever we need to do as soon as we can, as soon as possible. calling in the contractor. I'm just trying to get one list of, of, um, what we need to have done and which buildings that need to be done. Um, the restroom rehabilitation project. So with me and Dave, we have met with the architect. Um, I believe that we were waiting just to get the go ahead and to see and do RFPs for that project. It was, I know that this is a, um, project of Mefford High School that's going to be near and dear to a lot of people upgrading the restrooms. We do want to, I know that The mayor requested us to look into seeing how many that we can do. I believe that if we get a price on one, we'll know where we stand and then we can move forward as far as we can from there. The main entrance rehabilitation project, we're still kind of waiting. to see where we're going to go with that. One of our guys that works in the custodian department, he's a Mason, so he volunteered to go out and try to fix the wall, the granite wall up a little bit. So he's out there today working. I mean, hopefully he can make it look a little bit better, but it's still going to be What, what it is, and then you know we can certainly meet on the main entrance and I think we'll talk and discuss it next week and subcommittee of how we want to move forward with that. And so every year, I think in my budget, I always ask for a pickup truck with a plow. So that hasn't changed. It would, it would certainly, um, it would certainly help in the snow would certainly help with other, uh, various projects around the district. If at some point we get a, uh, a, um, a pickup truck with a plow. So that that way, you know, I can help the DPW a lot of times they're moving around very quickly. And, you know, there are sometimes the areas that need to be touched up that they can't get right back to because their main goal is the roads around town. So it would certainly help with the efficiency of having something like that. available to us, pick up truck. Now, the renovation of the current theater and if you see my, my pre budget report, I guess. If I had a project that I would like to see happen, it would be adding air conditioning, railings, upgrading the doors, doing some electrical work in the theater. So a few years ago, I got a price and the prices are different now of $100,000 to add an AC unit to the roof in the theater. I think it would be beneficial to the community as well. generating revenue as well for the school to maybe add that at some point, put that on our list of capital improvements. It's just, like I said, if I had my choice of the project that I would want to do with the high school, that would be one of my main projects, renovation projects. And then we're always working on HVAC enhancement projects at the high school. You know, at some point, you know, maybe we'll get some help from the MSBA, maybe be able to add, you know, air conditioning and to other parts of Mefford High School that don't have it right now, meaning the science lab is the only real part of the building that does have air conditioning, service, you know, except for window air conditioners that we have all around the place. So I can't see the bottom.
[Murphy]: I think we're at the bottom. Okay. Yeah.
[Mr. McLaughlin]: So, um, I'd be happy to, uh, entertain any questions that you might have about what's going on. Uh, we will be entertaining most of them next week on the 26th. We'll be having a subcommittee meeting back here on, uh, on zoom. Uh, but I'd be more than, uh, Welcome to answer any questions, thank you.
[Murphy]: Thank you, John. Mayor, I would recommend that we would just stick with our process of getting through the presentation and then myself, John, Dr. Edwards, and others would be happy to answer questions in total if that works for you. That works for me. Okay, thank you. So as we move over to the rest of the central administration, the offices of the superintendent and my own office, We mentioned before that there are a number of departments that fit in within these large umbrellas. Buildings and grounds, certainly one of the largest and frankly, one of the most visible. And so we certainly, that's why we asked Mr. McLaughlin to be present tonight to talk about some of the specifics. And just really quickly on the last point with regard to this budget related to the HVAC enhancements at the high school. It's a good example, frankly, of that maintenance and capital distinction. When we upgraded some of the filters around the high school in order to enhance air quality, we incurred an additional fixed cost with regard to filter replacement. Part of using the higher grade filters is that we moved from a twice yearly to a quarterly replacement system. That's not a significant cost, frankly, for the district, but it's a maintenance cost. As opposed to a boiler, or a transformer generator, one of these pieces that we certainly, we have no expectation that we would be incurring costs on an annual basis. And that's something that we would incorporate into a capital budget and capital planning in the years ahead. So with regard to the superintendent's budget and the Office of Finance and Operations budget, there are pieces of this that, as I mentioned before, are interconnected with some of the other priorities and some of the other strategic investments that have been recommended to you. First, with regard to the superintendent's budget, you've heard our focus throughout the course of this year, excuse me, throughout the course of this budget development process on making sure that we're identifying professional development and training opportunities for staff that are consistent with the needs of the district during this post-COVID context. Well, the $75,000, which it actually might be a little bit lower than that, because it's going to be spread out over two or three fiscal years. So it'll be a little lower than that. We've identified professional development opportunities that will be intensive and will be responsive to the context in which the district will continue to function in the years ahead. And so we have some specific social and emotional professional development as well as implicit bias training that will actually begin at the tail end of fiscal year 21 and then carry over into the succeeding fiscal years open to staff generally at the beginning and administrators. It'll be a required program toward the end of the summer of 2021. So if either Dr. Edouard-Vincent or Dr. Cushing wanna talk a little bit about, a little more about the benefits and how we see this training as fitting in to the overall strategy that we've been advocating for throughout this process. And just one final point as a matter. I do anticipate that the majority of this funding of these expenses will be covered by some of the external funds that we referenced at the beginning of the presentation. So Title II in particular, as well as potentially some of the ESSER funding, but Title II specifically will be used both to cover the costs that will be incurred for the FY21 portion and then moving into FY 22 as well.
[Edouard-Vincent]: So I'm not sure if either Dr. I just wanted to stress the value and importance of quality professional development and truly in working in collaboration with Dr. Cushing as well. In order to address some of the significant shifts that we're going to be making next year, especially in the area of social emotional learning. One of the areas that was a charge by the school committee was in terms of how the district will be addressing suspension, which does fall under the umbrella of social emotional learning behaviors, etc. So that is definitely a large priority for us, and that is one of the targeted areas for professional development. In addition to that, we are going to be continuing our pursuit of understanding and greater professional development on implicit bias and the implications for our school communities. We also are going to be having additional professional development on best practices as instructional leaders and educators in regards to the educator evaluation system to increase accountability across all of our schools. So those are three large buckets. And when we're addressing implicit bias, that does also address cultural proficiency, anti-racist work, anti-hate, So all of those initiatives are very important as we are shifting as a district to meet the needs of all of our students and the greater community. We also will continue looking at disability awareness and finding ways, again, how that overlaps with biases that do exist out there. So I just wanted to stress that although you see our priority, district-wide priorities on professional development, in order to shift mindsets and really present new information, professional development is critically important. So I just wanted to stress that piece. Thank you.
[Murphy]: Thank you, Superintendent. Dr. Cushing, anything you wanted to add based on your involvement with these programs?
[Cushing]: Yes, just real quickly, the superintendent did a marvelous job explaining the positions that we're looking to move forward with. We also what we're doing is we are going to be the end of June offering a train the trainer program for the implicit bias and social emotional learning in the classroom and each of those courses will have 20 staff members across the district. uh, trained to be able to then deploy the district to deploy the professional development within the district. And what this model is going to allow us to do is it's going to allow us to be very cost effective, but then it's going to also allow us to deploy the professional development across the year in a way that best fits Medford's needs. Um, and we'll be able to better, um, engage our staff. with their peers and their school leaders, be them directors or principals or assistant principals, who are going to take these trainings and then will turn around and be able to deploy this world-class professional development for them. And I think it's a great opportunity for Medford to take the next step in providing the best professional development possible for our staff.
[Murphy]: Thank you, Dr. Cushing. And then turning to the finance and operations office. And as you can see, there's a few different bullets here. I'm gonna focus on three, including transportation that I believe has its own slide and it does, thanks. But so first, the first two, this was alluded to during last night's presentation. And I believe it came up in the context of the priority identified by the English learner department wanting to invest in an opportunity to build out our, essentially our family engagement and our community relations efforts. And I made the point at the time that part of why we haven't identified a specific investment in the EL department specifically for FY22 is because we have a district investment that we are hopeful will advance that cause and we'll be working closely with the EL department, health services department, special education, and elsewhere. I think that when we think about how we structure the organization and how we organize specific portfolios of work, as a general rule, the best practice is to identify the need, identify either the need that's being met or a need that develops as a result of other change variables, and then determine how best to develop roles and portfolios that fit together in an organizational structure that can advance those goals. There are times, however, when there are a confluence of events where we have individuals serving in leadership roles with available capacity and needs that are emerging and becoming more urgent. And the sort of confluence occurred throughout the course of the school year And I will be frank, one of the ways it came to our attention was when we needed to deploy our entire administrator unit into schools to serve as substitute teachers. And when it became clear how that was taxing and virtually impossible, and we tried to make different modifications, our director before and after school programming continued to volunteer to take that on and kept communicating to us as she had for some time that she felt as though there was room in her portfolio for additional responsibilities and the sort of confidences, the competence that we have in the individual as an administrator and as a leader. And the fact that how we've sort of gotten through this school year, but in being able to identify practices that we can improve and work that we can do better in the area of parent and family engagement, was by enlisting the assistance of Diane Caldwell, our former associate superintendent, who has very ably worked as the lead manager of the Parent Information Center. And I will say, as someone who was new to the district and inherited the Parent Information Center as part of my portfolio in my first week, without Ms. Caldwell, being available to provide that leadership and to provide that guidance and institutional knowledge, it would have been a much, much more challenging year, not just with regard to oversight of the PIC, but with regard to essentially all other elements of the work that myself and other senior administrators are responsible for. But we've known since the beginning that Ms. Caldwell as the administrator of the Parent Information Center was not a permanent solution, and trying to operate within our budgetary parameters, we weren't necessarily looking to fund a director of the Parent Information Center as just as a single position with no other responsibilities. And so Ms. Fidler carries willingness and eagerness to take on additional responsibility. And what we felt is a strong natural nexus between the Parent Information Center and the Poor and Absent School Program, as well as the additional uh, capacity that we needed to, um, needed in the, in the, in the realm of, of family relationships with regards to transportation. Um, we thought that this fit together as a legitimate, um, full administrative portfolio. And so as part of the FY 22 budget, uh, we are proposing to reorganize those offices into one umbrella, uh, uh, area of family engagement that will include oversight of the parent information center, uh, continued oversight of the before and after school program. and service as a transportation liaison. Now, all of these roles, frankly, one of the reasons they fit together is that it is different parts of the school year where they require a greater degree of attention and detail. And so it's sort of, that's why I say it's sort of a confluence in that it fit together nicely in terms of putting together a full 12 month position with someone who already has the institutional knowledge and has done strong work for the district in the past. And that's part of why being able to do so efficiently, but also with confidence as to how that would more effectively advance the district's goals with regard to both family and community partnerships is part of how that proposal has developed. So that's one piece. And then you see, as was also mentioned last night, we've established a grant coordinator position. That alone is a sort of a non-budgetary, doesn't necessarily have an effect on the operating budget and that the grants that the individual who has been serving as essentially an unofficial grant coordinator for some time, but technically in the role of an executive assistant, we've been able to move that person into the finance and operations office, working with Michelle Kingdon and her staff to ensure that we are meeting all of our obligations and executing from a compliance perspective as effectively as possible. That is different, and I want to point this out. It's certainly different than the grant writer role that we currently don't have, but we're exploring other ways in which we might be able to free up some capacity to give administrators the opportunity to be well positioned to cultivate external partnerships and and pursue grant opportunities that our grant coordinator would then be in a position to help coordinate and try to free up additional budgetary capacity in that way. Before I move on to transportation, I'll just say, and again, it's a bit of a continuation from our conversation last night. We have continued our partnership throughout this school year with the Management Solution and Mr. Paquette, who served as the interim a business administrator between Ms. Patterson and myself. And we have the report that was commissioned is ready to be provided to the school committee. I have asked for essentially an appendix to the report because when the report was done over the course of the school year and sort of bled into this budget development process. And I've asked Mr. Parkett if based on the retainer fee that we still have, he can complete just essentially a short supplement to that, that would take into account some of the changes that we put into, Ms. Kimu and myself have put into effect over the course of the last several months. And so I anticipate providing that to the committee prior to the end of this fiscal year. And then Mr. Parkett, our partnership with Tufts University that began as a partnership in the testing realm and has progressed to conversations within a technology infrastructure realm and something that I'm hopeful we'll be able to benefit from with great efficiency over the course of the summer. But then also we'll be looking to explore what other external expertise we should be retaining or potentially consulting with as we look toward FY22. So that's a high level overview. I'm gonna finish up with transportation and then I will move on to your questions. If you remember when we talked about the projections for FY22, we had, we were looking at about 51,000 increased costs. These are, I should just say quickly because it was touched upon on May 6th. These are unrelated to our fixed costs in transportation related to our special education. These are our main vendor, Eastern Bus. The school committee entered into a three year, a new three year contract in the spring of 2020. So we're completing the first of those of the three-year contract. As is always the case with contracts, there is an increase in the cost on a year-to-year basis. So we're looking at approximately $51,000 increase in that contract as part of our estimated $2.1 million increase in fixed costs. You've seen the next two numbers previously on April 26 when there was a request made about the MBTA passes. That is essentially an option that we're making sure that the committee is aware of. And then there were questions related to the, what would essentially be the cost for additional yellow buses and potentially providing additional Eastern bus capacity at the high school. It is, we estimate somewhere about $75,000. The reason why I say that's zero to $75,000, that in our conversations with the vendor, they have, I think, and I appreciate this, I don't know that every vendor would, but they have suggested that based on the radius that this district adopted prior to this school year, it may be that with regard to elementary and middle school transportation, it may be possible to repurpose some of our existing capacity to provide at least one additional bus to the high school. We have meetings next week with the bus vendor as well as the Medford Police Department, where we'll be looking at a number of issues, both related to safety and planning out some of the development of routes and stops for the next school year over the course of the summer. And so I frankly don't have a recommendation to the committee at this time related to whether we should add a second bus. I think it's clear that it's possible that we would be able to. And then I think it's a question of looking at the data as to where the high school students are and whether there is a demand for that. I will say that in my brief conversations with the high school administration, it's not entirely clear that we know that there is a clear demand for this, which is something I think we do want to take into account. But at the same time, if the cost is somewhere between zero and $75,000 to provide something that could be much more convenient for students, that's obviously something we would want to consider. I think from a strategic perspective, we have to take into account that the MBTA passes obviously provide potentially more access. And, you know, you get into thinking about student jobs, the opportunity to go into the city. There are other sort of like city as a classroom experiences and experiential learning experiences that the MBTA passes could yield for students. We're looking at all of those options. And again, a common thread that's cut across all of the presentations is our determination to establish effective extended school day and after school programming for our students in the 21-22 school year through use of the ESSER funds to ensure that we're providing as much remedial support as possible coming out of the significant disruptions that students have faced. So I thank you for your time and your indulgence with regard to that. If you enjoyed the presentations when there were more testimonials and witnesses for me to turn over the presentation to, I promise you I enjoyed that more as well. But those are the presentations for buildings and grounds, the office of finance and operations, as well as the superintendent's office. And at this time, I would be more than happy to take your questions.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Mr. Murphy. We have member Van der Kloot, then member Rousseau.
[Van der Kloot]: Thank you. I'm going to pick up right at the end about the busing for the high school. Dave, you've presented us with some interesting options, but with quite big differences in pricing. At this point, as you're building this budget, What are you, are you making a recommendation to us? Are we gonna, I mean, how are you going to factor in the cost into the budget?
[Murphy]: Well, I think the first, yeah, the first determination is if the committee is comfortable with the radius that was established last year with regard to the one mile radius for all grades with the exception of kindergarten. So if that's something that the committee wants to stand by, then the vendor has essentially said that one of the elementary schools is going to have excess capacity. And so the existing contract that would be the $1.4 million or something in that range for Eastern Bus is gonna provide us with an additional school bus that I think we should probably consider use at the high school to expand that capacity. My only hesitation is that if we didn't, it's possible that we could be repurposing that for after school and extended school day programming without that additional potential $100,000 cost. Or at least it would defray that. So I think the first determination is, is the committee comfortable with the one mile radius, which according to the vendor will not have a dramatic impact on ridership. And it's essentially that's where we are now. And if that's the case, then I think the next step is to look at the data related to where high school students are residing and whether or not there's a route that makes sense where students are. And again, the only downside I would see in that plan is that the MBTA passes, they don't just take you to school. And I think particularly for our high school students, there's a tremendous amount of experiential learning opportunities that having MBTA passes could open them up for. And the only last thing I would say to that is that the MBTA pass has become a much better investment if we are tying programmatic opportunities to their procurement. And I think that it may just take some time, perhaps the summer is a sufficient amount of time, to give our instructional leaders the time to develop those types of opportunities that then maximize that potential investment.
[Van der Kloot]: So Dave, let's go back to one of the things you said about the mile radius. And I have to tell you, I really don't recall taking any vote on that.
[Murphy]: So- So this was preceded in my time, but my understanding is that when that reopening plan was presented to the school committee in mass as a large sort of multifaceted plan, the radius was a piece of that. And so the routes, the stops were adjusted. I also think, and I know this only anecdotally, that because ridership was so diminished this year, that if you're, typically you eliminate bus stops and you hear a sort of wave of commentary, that didn't materialize this year. And it may be because ridership was so diminished due to the pandemic. If that doesn't carry over to next year, that's something that you probably want to consider.
[Van der Kloot]: Yeah, I would be, I think it was perfectly understandable that our ridership diminished a great deal. I know in Medford, there's been a history of some students receiving bus service because of concerns about the roads where they live, the safety of it. So to just say automatically it's a mile, well, it's never been just automatically a mile.
[Murphy]: An important point, and I apologize for that, if I assume that that would go without saying, the radius has nothing to do with safety exemptions. And so your bus stop, that is part of the conversation that we're having next week. And it's why it's not just the district and the vendor, it's why the Metro Police Department will be represented as well. Because as we go through and looking at routes and stops, we want to ensure that any stops that have been any concerns about related to safety are being looked at closely by public safety experts and that is certainly, you know, the safety exemptions override any other policies with regard to radius.
[Van der Kloot]: Yeah, well, part of it is, you know, perceived safety or it's been in place for such a long time, any move to take away will certainly cause an uproar. So it seems like, I hear you on the optimistic level, we're gonna have some space and so we can utilize an existing bus That does sound very optimistic to me, Dave, and I am optimistic in general, but- I'm not so ready to balance each other out there. Yeah, and at the high end, it's 350, which is a huge chunk of change. And there are some, I'm just trying to say as we, with such a big number, it's hard to understand exactly where you're gonna come down to in terms of what we're putting into the budget.
[Murphy]: Yeah, that's all a fair point. This data is in response to inquiries by the committee, just to be clear. I don't, I don't, I certainly don't have a recommendation as to where the 350,000 would come from. So just to be candid about that. Okay.
[Van der Kloot]: Yeah. And the same time, and I appreciate the, uh, my colleagues having raised this issue because it is an issue and it is a, uh, a fairness issue. So, um, I think clearly we're going to have to have more conversations on it. Okay. I yield to someone else.
[Lungo-Koehn]: We have member Rousseau, the member Kreatz, Graham, and McLaughlin.
[Ruseau]: Thank you, mayor. Thank you for the presentation. I do appreciate it. I am wondering where, and forgive me if we've already covered it, but I don't think we have transportation for sports and band. And is that coming up?
[Murphy]: The question is, is that included in this data before you tonight?
[Ruseau]: Yes.
[Murphy]: No, but only because it lives in the athletic or fine arts budgets. And so those lines will be restored to their FY. One of them was never reduced, but they'll either be maintained or restored to their FY 20 numbers. So to ensure that we have sufficient transportation to all events and athletic events and things of that nature. And that was by request by those department heads. So there was no, to the best of my knowledge, there was no request to exceed the pre-FY21 levels.
[Ruseau]: Okay, thank you. I just, you know, it feels like remembering pre-pandemic sometimes is actually a challenge, but, you know, my memory is that, you know, We did not have an equitable distribution of transportation funding for different kinds of groups that I'll just say it. We were more than generous with the sports related transportation funding and the band folks had to sell whatever they had to sell to get enough money for busing. And this is my fourth budget. And for four years now, I've not been alone in saying we need a breakdown of what we're spending on extracurriculars per student. Because just trusting my gut, I don't have kids to participate in sports. I do have kids that participate in band. I'm not interested in making grand statements or suggesting policy changes without any data. But my sense, looking at the stipends for sports, coaches in our contract versus the people that are running the band and other stipends, there's clearly some kind of discrepancy that maybe is appropriate based on the number of hours put into it, but I have no way to know. And so I really want to know that we are not favoring kids who decide to participate in a sport and lessening the burden on their families to fundraise for transportation. compared to kids that are in band or, and I'm just using those two examples. I'm sure there are others. So, restoration obviously is better than not restoration, but I just don't have any way to know that this is in fact fair. And that's really, it's a big issue for me. And this is the fourth budget where this has been a topic the fourth year where I've wanted, and I realize you were not in the last three budgets. So, but you know, a breakdown of per student, what are we spending? And I mean, that includes the stipends that are in the teacher's contracts. And that, I mean, all the money that we spend on not the K to eight education, what are we spending? Where's it going? And is it actually fair? I mean, cause I mean, I know that sports are matter a lot to a lot of people, ban matters an awful lot to a lot of people. And I just really think we have to get to the bottom of that. I don't think this is something we can solve tonight. And I was just surprised to not really get a sense so far as to whether or not that's being addressed. But I realized, of course, that you weren't there for the last three budgets, so. Yeah.
[Murphy]: No, it's a great question. And I think you're right. I mean, sometimes there's different level of expenses. I think more often than not, this discrepancy is created at districts because of the peace system that's in place around the athletics. And I think that is how you often end up seeing that discrepancy, but they play a very parallel role in terms of being the element of our educational program that engages students and keeps them frankly coming here and certainly enjoying themselves and making the most of their education. So I'm happy to dig into that deeper and to see if there are if there are gaps that potentially we need to help bridge.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. And so I guess I'll just ask my other question around, I see there's the projects around bathrooms. Again, this is my fourth year and this is the fourth year that students are doing the hard work of figuring out how to get menstrual products to our students. It's embarrassing. I know that not everybody on this meeting necessarily agrees, but it is embarrassing. Four years in a row, there are CCSR projects to make sure that the students that are menstruating don't have a problem getting access to these products. It's just kind of mind-foggling. And I just wanna be clear that I won't vote for any bathroom renovations if they do not include free menstrual product dispensers in every renovated bathroom.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Dr. Edouard-Vincent? I just want to comment, Member Ruseau, that when you make The statements, people will be led to believe that when female students are using the restrooms that they don't have access to feminine products at the high school, we have an entire medical suite. Feminine products are placed in the restrooms, but unfortunately, sometimes the feminine products are not used for their proper purpose. They are used, they're decorated on the bathroom stalls, they end up on the ceilings. That has happened multiple times as well. And that's with people supervising and monitoring the restrooms. So we do put them there, CCSR students, do take that on as a project, but I do want people to know that feminine products are available in the medical suite and students are not denied access. We have ample products in the medical suite and I'm not opposed to getting machines that students can have access to, but I just want to state that when we've provided them, they were not used for the proper purpose. which was part of the reason why they ended up being removed in the past. So I just wanna say that we're not trying to target students or say to them that, you know, it's not available. I want everyone to know it is available and there are ample supplies in the medical suite at the high school in particular, and at the middle schools as well. It's available in all the nursing offices.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. If I could just quickly respond, Mayor.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, and then member Kreatz.
[Ruseau]: Yeah, I understand that. And I would never for a second suggest anybody is trying to deny these things. I would just suggest that we get a map of the high school and imagine a student who is at the furthest point from the medical suite. And I mean, of the school committee members, I'm the only one here hasn't had these experiences. I'm just making assumptions about you all, but, you know, even I can't even imagine being as far away from the medical suite as you can be in this building that is just vast and being told, you know where it is. I walked that building to get to whatever. And I'm like, first of all, it is not a two minute walk. We're talking, I mean, I don't even know what the timing is, but I just think that the, the bar for what we think of as access seems just to be really, really low and, or high, whatever the right analogy is. And I just, you know, there are other districts have done this and I don't, they don't make the front page of the globe as becoming a huge problem. And I understand that, you know, what I've read about, you know, the healthy, it's not the Healthy Youth Act, I forget which act it was that would actually require these in schools last year, But there is an initial like, when you first install these and make them available for free, they're gonna be stuck to the ceiling and they're gonna be kids that need them might take home baskets full of them. But like a lot of things, they're gonna get bored of it. And then when students need them, they'll be there. So I don't pretend it's a super like no effort kind of project. I just firmly believe that, The CCSR, I believe it was a CCSR project, and it came across my inbox on Facebook, I think a week ago, about students that are doing this. They're not doing this because they got nothing else to do. So I just think we're not listening to the students. I'm looking at the CCSR page from 2016, and that's one of their projects from that year. And I just don't know when we're gonna get to it, but thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, member crest and member Graham member McLaughlin.
[Kreatz]: Yes, I just wanted to thank. First off, I just have a question for the transportation but first off I just wanted to let everybody know that the presentations were excellent and Mr. McLaughlin you did a great job and will those agenda items are. going to be on the agenda for next week so we can have a discussion next week in the subcommittee meeting. So the question I have is also about transportation. A couple things on that because I pulled up the bulletin because I don't remember it being one mile radius. I so I pulled up the bulletin on transportation during Kobe 2021, and it says here that every public schools will not transport students on a yellow school, whoever this physical address within two miles of the school they attend. We understand that this change is a significant burdens in, and have always provided transportation that exceeds the regulation. So I'm not sure I have even the right information. Mr. Murphy, what he mentioned, I don't have that information either. I don't recall having a meeting about that. So I just wanted to mention that. I know Ms. Van der Kloot talked about that.
[Murphy]: Mr. I just attempt to clarify. And I say this with the sort of disclaimer that this was before I was here, but I've been involved in it since. And if any, if any of my colleagues want to share their recollections, please don't please do. But as it was explained to me, was that when the when the committee was presented with the 2.0 mile radius, I, my understanding was that was for the secondary grades. There was an existing restriction as again, as I was, I believe I was told of a one mile at the elementary level that had essentially not been enforced. And that, uh, in order to bring down the total number of people riding the bus, there would be a need to inform the vendor to enforce that radius at one mile at the elementary level and two miles at the secondary level. Um, the. number of people riding the bus has diminished so significantly that it's not clear, frankly, that the vendor needed to enforce the one mile radius. And so this also, by the way, I should say, does not apply to kindergarten. So the exceptions are kindergarten safety exemptions and students with disabilities, as with transportation as part of the IEP, are, of course, not related to this conversation either. But the one and two mile radiuses, one was based on the COVID restriction and the other was just essentially an unenforced restriction that is not uncommon in districts, frankly, to have, particularly when there's room on the bus. And that's sort of what we would go into this summer in terms of planning routes and stops with the vendor at that radius. And the vendor has advised that if we were to do that, we likely would have within the 18 buses that are contemplated by the contract that was approved last year, the likelihood is that we would only need a 17 bus fleet, and that would free up the 18th for potentially a second bus at the high school. So I think Dr. Cushing, I saw you raise your hand. If I misspoke at all, please don't hesitate to correct me.
[Cushing]: You did not misspeak. You spoke very accurately. I guess if you could say one of the positives coming out of the pandemic was it really built up the relationship for the school principals, And I apologize for the person at the city level and the parent blanking on her name, but to really work on safe routes to school as a way to also reduce our fossil fuels footprint with the amount of buses stopping and starting and by creating walking school buses, safe ways for students to walk to and from school. and to look at other ways to make sure that we were providing safe opportunities for kids to get to school while also realizing that while this was a pandemic driven issue, there were other issues related to fossil fuels and traffic and congestion and things along those lines that were playing into the considerations as well when we were having these conversations last year, which I would say, all of our school principals at the elementary and the middle school levels met with people to map out routes to their schools. We got GIS mapping data with where all our students were. We did quite a comprehensive analysis to really look into all of this as we came into the pandemic and then looked at the opportunities that might exist coming out of the pandemic to shift the habits and mindsets.
[Kreatz]: Thank you. Thank you. I just have one more question and it might just be some health information for the upcoming school year. And Mr. Murphy I'm not sure if you were on yet but it's Patterson was aware of it that. Because we, we go back to school before Labor Day, and with the MBTA, the days before Labor Day, the MBTA doesn't operate for the high school students, so there's always been concern For the first couple of days before Labor Day when the kids are back to school. I, you know, we used to get messages that you know students were waiting at the bus stop the bus wasn't there. They ended up walking were late for school. So, in preparation for the upcoming school year. there's been an added yellow school bus that kind of travels some of the most commonly frequent stops to kind of pick up the high school students for those first couple of days. So I can't quite remember all the details, but I just wanted to give you the heads up about that, that that has been an ongoing issue. each year because we start before Labor Day. And then right after Labor Day, the MBT buses will run on a regular school schedule.
[Murphy]: Ms. Kreatz, I really appreciate that. It's not something I'm familiar with. I will educate myself as quickly as possible. My first question is what happens to that bus after Labor Day? Because if it's available that week, I'd be a little curious how or why it would be available. I would say in response to that,
[Edouard-Vincent]: It is a past practice in Medford, and the Eastern Bus Company is aware because we start school before a lot of surrounding districts, so they do, they're able to kind of shuffle their buses to get us through the initial three days before other districts end up starting. So they have been able to do it, and it's something they are aware of, and we will definitely continue that practice, Member Kreatz.
[Murphy]: Thank you. Yeah, I think we will certainly continue to practice, but I'm also, in our meetings with Eastern Bus, I think we'll also push on the issue as to what the capacity is, because the sentiment that I heard from the committee when we discussed this in April 26 was that if there was, if there's a cost-effective way to provide additional yellow bus transportation for the high school, then that's something we should look at. So, but this is, again, we're gonna have many conversations, and they've been a very good partner. very responsive over the course of the past year. So my hope is that we'll be able to continue that dialogue with them.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you.
[Graham]: Member Graham. Thank you. I really appreciated the attention to professional development that was laid out in the superintendent's recommendations and certainly train the trainer models can be really effective as long as there is a sustainability plan that comes with the train the trainer and it's not a an initial startup thing that sort of fizzles out because starting over in a train the trainer plan is very expensive, so I just want to make sure that we have sustainability plans in place to really maximize that investment. On the topic of transportation, I would like to make a motion that the budget include or assumes that there will be no cost to transportation for our students effective at the beginning of the 21-22 school year. And that the administration will bring to us a comprehensive plan that sort of lays out a recommendation around transportation for the district between now and August 1st. And the reason that I added that at the end is because I have heard overwhelmingly from people that kids taking the MBTA bus means that they're often late, and that it's not reliable, and parents are making other arrangements to get their kids to school because they don't feel they can trust the MBTA buses. The notion that there are yet other students who really rely on those MBTA bus passes so that they can work and can travel on the bus in a different way is not something that I've personally heard, but I don't want to discount the fact that there are community members out there who are in that position. So I would like for us to revisit transportation and for you all to work with Eastern Bus and the police department and whomever and hopefully the community to figure out like what is the best path forward. I will also say Dr. Cushing that I do remember the conversation about the one versus two mile radius and the like non-enforcement of the radius at the elementary school level. When Mr. Murphy was talking about kindergarten being an exception, I guess I started to think like if you enforce like that, one mile versus two miles or whatever it is. And yet you still have to pick up kindergartners in a place where you wouldn't before. Like how do you practically or tactically only pick up kindergartners in that like closer radius? So I feel like there's like a lot of conversation around transportation to get it right. But I want unequivocally the budget to reflect that it will not cost students to get themselves to school next year, period. Would you like to call the roll or should I ask my other questions?
[Lungo-Koehn]: I just wanna, you want that to, I just don't know what the admin will put in the budget if they don't need to give us that plan until August 1st. So I just wanna make sure it's clear to the administration and the finance team.
[Graham]: I'm gonna assume that the finance team can figure that out between now and the time the final budget is presented to us.
[Murphy]: Well, I think the only thing I would say, Merrick, is that I take the motion to mean that we don't want any students to be dependent upon a MBTA pass that they have to purchase with their own money to get to school. Now, I think that there are different ways that we can explore that. I think the most cost effective way is going to be with an additional, at least one additional yellow bus. And as I said, that could come at no cost. That could be budget neutral theoretically. I think that beyond that, one, it could be more than one yellow bus, and then there could be anything beyond one bus is certainly gonna have a budget impact of some kind. And then I think the other issue that we have to deal with is that there are going to be students who want the discounted MBTA pass. I don't take the motion to suggest that we should discontinue our partnership with MBTA and no longer offer the MBTA passes because if there's students who want to buy the pass for whatever reason, We certainly want our students to be able to get a discounted pass the way students in other school districts can. So I think we would continue the program, but I think we will just need to scrutinize essentially what the usage of the pass is amongst students. And then if they are dependent upon that, we need to either cover the cost of the MBTA pass or create an alternative option for students to get to school. Now, I think what that comes down to is how many of the passes are we selling and how many of the students that are buying the passes are dependent upon them. And then where would the routing be of a yellow bus? So there are certainly layers for that, but it's certainly clear direction from the committee. If we run into a problem in terms of executing either from a budgetary perspective or a logistical perspective, we'll come back. It is conceivable to me that there could be a constituency of students when we say like, well, you're buying this pass because you need it to get to school, because you need to get to work, because you just want a discounted MBTA pass. And they're going to say like, listen, buddy, I just want the pass. Here's my 30 bucks. I'll worry about getting to school. At that point, I don't think we're violating the policy. I think we're running into a student who's decided that he or she wants to take the MBTA to school, whether they're on time or not. Again, I think that the intent is very, very clear. And I think we will do everything we can to execute on that. We'll just have to keep an open dialogue with the committee if we're running into a situation in which it's proving either from a budgetary perspective or just on the execution level, it's just not possible. But I certainly understand the intent. And like I said, we'll do our best to act in a manner consistent with it.
[Lungo-Koehn]: So how do you want the resolution to be worded? Member Graham and Mr. Murphy, so we can have an idea of what we're looking at by June 1st rather than August 1st. I thought it was clear. Well, you mentioned the August 1st date, which I just wanna be able to know what I'm supporting and what will be provided when.
[Graham]: So the budget will include an assumption that it does not cost money to get to school. And the revised transportation plan and strategy is not something that can reasonably be done before that happens. So that is what would take until August 1st. Like the details of, is it that the MBTA passes are just free for everybody or is it the strategy that there is a yellow bus and is the strategy that we're changing radius from one mile to two miles, all of that obviously has budget implications as does literally everything that happens in the district after we pass the budget. But the budget needs to reflect a cost capacity that allows us to not require students to pay to come to school. Is that clear, Mr. Murphy?
[Murphy]: Yeah, I mean, I guess the only caveat, I'm really not trying to be nitpicky about this, is that I don't think at the moment we require anyone to pay money to come to school. In reality, some students are taking the MBTA bus, and theoretically our lack of yellow bus capacity at the high school is necessitating that based on where they live or based on the family situation or whatever. And so in practice where they are paying to get to school, but it's not like it's the district policy that says like, we don't let you in unless you show up on an MBTA bus that you pay for. So we can, I think one, I think we would wanna collect data from the current population of students, hopefully look back over a period of years as well, see how many MBTA passes we're selling, assume that that's a ceiling in terms of what we would have to provide And then I think we look at to see if, do we, do we reduce that from a cost perspective by adding yellow bus capacity? And then I think as we sell the MBTA passes, because as we discussed earlier, we don't want to actually preclude our students from getting the discounted passes. Then I think we have to collect the data as to what the passes are. Are the passes being used based on a preference or being purchased rather based on the preference or based on a lack of other ways to get to school. So I think the intent is very clear. Like I said, we'll execute in line with it and we'll just have to come back if we're running into a logistical hurdle or if it becomes something seems impossible about it.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member McLaughlin, on this motion.
[McLaughlin]: On this motion, thank you. I just, for clarification, perspective, I would like to just, I guess, sort of point of clarification if there's such a thing but the issue has the long standing issue has been that we are having students who are paying to support to school, many of whom are economically disadvantaged, and who are potentially over a two mile radius, or at least at a two mile radius. And if you think about even the cusp of the two mile radius, which would be, say, for example, students in the, you know, McGlynn vicinity, McGlynn Middle School vicinity, walking to the high school or to have it because they couldn't afford or having to choose to, you know, pay $30 a month for the reduced pass that could very much impact their families. I think it's just, an ethics value it's a statement it's a it's a our budget does reflect what our values are and I think I have been stunned that that has been the case in the history even sitting in school committee on the other side of the podium that that students were having to pay. to transport themselves to school and especially having been a student myself who would not have been able to do that and so then you think about what the absentee rates are what the hunger rates are what you know just so many there's so many impacts so to that motion I would you know I would prefer that it's the MBTA passes but I would defer to the finance committee to do it to provide us a cost benefit analysis that we can look at a little bit more even, you know, in the next session or in the final session as we're evaluating this. But I would like to move the question and I second member Graham's motion.
[Lungo-Koehn]: To review on June 1st. Yep. No child needs to pay for their own busing. If you could call the roll, member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Yes. Member Graham?
[Graham]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz?
[Van der Kloot]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone?
[Van der Kloot]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau?
[Van der Kloot]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Motion passes.
[Murphy]: I apologize, and I couldn't get this. I should have gotten this question out before the question was moved, but I just want to ask one more clarifying question. If there's the motion contemplate the two mile radius at the secondary level, because the, in, in the, under the existing policy, the, those students wouldn't be provided a yellow bus, even if we had unloaded yellow buses. But I, I don't, I don't know what an MBTA pass would do, but if a student lives a quarter mile from the school is the expectation that we would still ensure that there's free transportation for that student, even though sort of under the policy contemplates them walking to school?
[Graham]: No, I mean, if the law contemplates students walking to school, I'm fine with that continuing to be the practice. I'm not asking for us to bite off that piece of the apple personally, right now. I am concerned about the people who are in excess of two miles from the school, who have to pay to get to school.
[Murphy]: If you're, if you're beyond two miles from school and on either sides of the, you know, outside of the radius of the high school, and one is beginning a free yellow bus, and one is being told, you've got to pay $30 a month for an MBTA pass. That's outrageous.
[Graham]: Yes.
[Murphy]: And so if that's what we're looking to address, I think that that is sensible. It's something that we can look at. The law, just to be clear, is no one over sixth grade is entitled to transportation. And so the law is in effect to put up the existing policy with a two mile radius, which is almost uniform across the Commonwealth. That makes sense and that we can do. But as long as we're, your response tells me that we all agree what the inequity is, that's what we're looking to address. and we'll come up with a plan consistent with the vote to do that.
[McLaughlin]: Can I make a point about information, because I'm not sure that we're clear on what, at least on what I felt like was being discussed as well, and I want clarity. Mayor, may I do that?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Clear information, Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you. I think that my issue specifically was around economically disadvantaged students having to pay transportation to school. And so, whether that is within the two mile radius or, or, you know, I guess the two mile radius is, you know, or one mile radius or what have you that we're offering. I know in the past teachers have been paying for students to have access to MBTA. transportation passes. And so to your point Mr. Murphy and this is something that can be for further consideration not necessarily for this particular motion or addition you know the motions have been passed but to your point that this allows MBTA passes allow for accessibility in the city, they can allow for the classroom in the city, they can allow for job opportunities, they can allow for transportation to school. And my biggest subset that I'm concerned with- Are you going to ask a question? Yeah. Are we focused on the economically disadvantaged in this consideration?
[Murphy]: Well, I think the motion has- I think it's everybody. Yeah, I think it's everybody. Yes, it's broader than economically disadvantaged, but it is not inclusive of students within the two mile radius. So that gives us a data point to start from and similar to what Dr. Grisham was saying earlier about using the GPS to identify sort of from a data plots perspective, data plotting, you know, we can say, okay, this is our population of students that we've got to make sure that we get to school for free. And it might be the case that similar to apparently what we do before Labor Day, if we just put a bus in the room, we're able to accommodate a large portion of those students. And so if we're able to do that, then I think this could prove to be a fairly simple directive to fulfill. If we look at it and say, well, that one bus that we used before Labor Day only takes care of 15% of the students. And in order to address the various areas of the community, we need six new buses. Then we might have to come back and say, we're going to have to piece this together in some other way because we don't have a sustainable way of doing it right now. And then at that point, we may have to pare down who we are focusing on to economically disadvantages for the reason that Ms. McLaughlin was saying. So again, I don't exactly know how this is gonna turn out, but I think we have clear direction and we're happy to move forward with it.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Member Graham, and then it's member McLaughlin. Then member Ruseau, then member Kreatz.
[Graham]: Thank you. I was a little surprised not to see changes or position recommendations in the finance office because it's my sense that there's always been too much work to do in that office for the number of staff that are there. What's that?
[Murphy]: I said, that's my impression as well, but that's not here.
[Graham]: And so, but there's no ask here to address that. Why is that?
[Murphy]: Because in the committee will remember that what was advocated for going into FY21 was essentially a two position capacity. What we looked at to do that in order to fulfill that was, one, with the Chapter 70 allocation, we added the position of comptroller. That's Ms. Kingdon, who has been instrumental in me looking less foolish than I would on a normal basis week in and week out. Also brings accounting capacity and expertise that they didn't cover in law school, which I'm grateful for. In addition to that, we repurposed an executive assistant position that had evolved into a grant coordinator role and repositioned that into the finance office as a grant coordinator. And so we've expanded our capacity to that extent. You'll see that it's a, well, on your salary tables, the executive assistant, the backfilling of the executive assistant position, and just, I'm sorry, just to finish that, All of that was done in the course of FY21. Budget neutral on the grant coordinator in this came in again through the chapter 70 allocation that was made in August. So that expanded our capacity and has positioned us better to be able to serve the district. The one priority that's remaining in the finance and operations budget narrative lives in the salary tables that are district wide, which I should speak to before we, just to be clear as to what the district wide salary table is, that executive assistant position that currently supports two of the assistant superintendents when it's backfilled will support all three of the assistant superintendents and therefore be adding capacity to the finance office in that respect as well. So in effect, we will have, Again, we're not looking to balloon the finance office. You heard me say last night that the budget priorities that have developed as part of the applied 22 budget are driven by what is going to have the most direct support for students. And I can certainly understand how those working in school communities would suggest that the finance and operations office is not necessarily the one that's the closest to kids. But in order for us to serve the district well and to benefit kids, we need to have adequate staffing by adding the grant coordinator position, the comptroller position, and a portion of the executive assistant position, we feel that we'll be better positioned to do that.
[Graham]: Thank you for that. And then my final comment is just to say that I am not in favor of spending capital funds on restroom rehab projects or the Karen Theater or the entrance until there is an actual master plan that addresses the long-term needs of the high school. It's a lot of money. It's like a quarter of a million dollars all in, and it's just, it's not inconsequential when we are talking, like 10 power professionals, many, many teachers, staff that we can't fit into the budget. There's a lot of other priorities than to spend without having a clear plan for the building. have said this before, but the priority of having a clear plan for that building is critically important. And until that happens, I can't support spending the community's dollars in a way that's going to pigeonhole us or tie our hands when it comes to the greater needs of that building, which are as yet unassessed. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Just to that point, if I could point out the 800 plus thousand and the 100,000 from the boiler and the science labs has to go to capital projects. So I just think that- I think there are plenty. And the high school needs a lot of attention and a vision committee and work that we would do through that will be years away. So, I mean, I just respectfully disagree. I wanted to point that out. Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you. I have a few questions. I guess I'll start with that one since that was the last topic of the conversation. I guess I'd like on the next agenda for the MHS vision committee to be included so we can understand what the status of that is as we're considering spending money. I just don't want to throw, you know, good money after bad. There's been so much discussion about the high school and we haven't convened the vision committee. So I'd like that if we can have that included on the next agenda, please. And then going back to the transportation, did the chair, I was gonna ask Mr. Murphy, what you meant by tying programmatic opportunities to their procurement?
[Murphy]: Is that in the, that's in one of the documents. The procurement of what is just a little more context.
[McLaughlin]: I don't know, I didn't understand what you were talking about. You were talking about transportation and I'm sorry, but I quoted what you were saying.
[Murphy]: I'm sorry, I think we were talking about the MBTA passes.
[McLaughlin]: Yeah.
[Murphy]: And what I was saying, and I think you made a similar comment, Ms. McLaughlin, that the MBTA passes are a good investment to get students to school. They're a great investment if there's a nexus between the procurement of the MBTA passes programmatic and instructional opportunities that put students out in the community and give them experiential learning opportunities. And because I don't know that, and certainly there are plenty of teachers and CCR, CCSR is a great example of it, but there's plenty of instructional opportunities at the high school that do infiltrate the community and the sort of educational world at large beyond just the walls of the classroom. But if we're going to increase our investment and invest in MBTA passes, then it would seem to me that we could maximize that investment if we're doing it and thinking through an instructional lens as well, and trying to expand our experiential learning opportunities, which is, I think in my view, at least is a good unto itself, but it's magnified when we're also providing that type of resource to make it more accessible for students.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you. I thought that's what you meant, and I wanted some clarification because I'm imagining, for example, vocational students transporting to their site, CCSR volunteers, sort of all of those things. So it would be interesting to know what the programmatic opportunities are as we're considering this cost analysis for these different options. And then I know that it's not just Eastern bus that we have is our transportation vendors. We have multiple transportation vendors and there's been multiple issues across the transportation vendors. We've personally been experiencing some issues with transportation vendors and I know that it's difficult to maintain or retain staff. especially under the current circumstances. But I'm wondering about a centralized opportunity or almost like a C-click fix, you know, sort of, or option or, you know, complaint line or something where we can collect data on what is actually happening in the community for our transportation, because we are paying a lot of money to our vendors, and I feel like there's no accountability to the vendors. There's no sort of consistency around what the vendors are providing, and even in some of the contracts I've seen Letters come home to parents saying that if you miss the bus in the morning, you're not going to get picked up in the afternoon, which is a complete violation, right? You can't do that. But this is for special education transportation, for example. But that was a letter that we specifically saw. So this is what I'm saying. There has to be some consistency around the contracts, around the budgets, but also around the sort of complaint process. Because if one administrator's hearing complaints on one section of it and another's hearing another, like who's centralizing these complaints for us to understand as a school committee what the bids are on these vendors and whether they're reasonable.
[Murphy]: No, I appreciate you raising that, Ms. McLaughlin, and I, as I said at the beginning of the presentation, this is one of the key reasons that we've wanted to reorganize around having a family-engaged point person. And that's not to say that once we have a director of family engagement, you know, there'll never be any complaints or there'll never be any complaints that don't have the immediate and substantive response that we would prefer because the nature of a large organization is sometimes there's going to be something's going to happen and we don't actually hear about it until sometime later. And sometimes we're going to hear about it, but there's going to be a conflicting you know, story as to what actually occurred. So I don't want to suggest that through that reorganizing of those offices, somehow there will never be any additional problems, because, you know, that's reality. At the same time, though, we envision the Family Engagement Office serving in many ways as the central facilitator amongst the offices that have the most direct contact and most frequent contact with families, and that's some of the before and after school care programs, the registration process when you're first coming into the school community, health services, where oftentimes the communication with families is literally life-dependent, and special education certainly, and transportation is a big part of that, because as much as we interact with families and parents in the instructional realm, some of those basic operational logistical issues are the ones that families are most dependent on the district for, and having those offices sort of being the spokes of a wheel, if you will, I think will help from a communication perspective and making sure that the administrators who need to be informed about some of these issues are informed rapidly. So the only point at which I would differ with regard to your comments, Member McLaughlin, is that the suggestion that there would be no accountability for any vendors. And accountability can manifest itself in a variety of ways and sometimes on a variety of timelines. But I will say that whenever the administration and certainly Ms. Bowen's office in particular hears of these issues, we take them very seriously and we are responsive to it. And if there are any instances in which parents or caregivers are aware of, in which a vendor has not fulfilled their responsibilities to students in the district or the families in the district, it's something we wanna know about that right away. And we certainly have our commitment that there will be a robust response at all times because certainly the situation that you described, you know, evacuate is completely unacceptable and it's not something we would tolerate. by our own staff or any vendors that we partner with.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you. And just if I may, Mayor, to be clear, the Director of Pupil Services has always been incredibly responsive, but I have also always been a squeaky wheel. And I think about the folks who aren't and how they're being responded to and how they're able to sort of demonstrate that the transportation is working. And I think it's around data collection, frankly. and children coming to school late and sort of what that looks like. But again, looking at our vendors I think is important. And then lastly, I just wanted to again also laud the superintendent's direction towards more professional development and targeted professional development, both around implicit bias and social emotional learning. And I have heard from staff and community members two points on the professional development that I wanted to sort of raise. And one is that Some of the specialized staff I think is not necessarily feeling as though that there is targeted professional development for, you know, very specific licensing or needs and so I wanted to sort of present that and then also you know just concern about ensuring paraprofessional participation and professional development and or that is that is related to paraprofessional and certainly it sounds like the social emotional learning piece will be part of that but I want to ensure that and I know in the past I think that they a lot of times the paraprofessionals have gone where the teachers go. they're they're partner teachers, which I understand, you know the reasoning around that, too. But I think it would be also nice just to be able to let people have some flexibility and choice for the professional development. So those are not things that I expect any answer to tonight, but I just sort of wanted to bring that up so that you guys are aware. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Thank you, members. So member Kreatz and then member Van der Kloot.
[Ruseau]: Thank you, Mayor. I know that we've already passed the resolution on the transportation plan. I had to walk 1.1 miles to the bus stop every day growing up. And if I missed the bus, it was a four hour and 29 minute walk to get to school. Obviously that's a little bigger than Medford. So it was 13 miles. But my point is my experience of making it to the bus or not going to school, Um, was that if you looked at my absences, um, you know, Massachusetts, I'd probably have DCF at my house, frankly. Um, so I, I just hope that when we do the plan, um, and we are talking about two miles versus one mile, um, I, I think, uh, this ties in a bit to Mr. Murphy's staffing levels. Um, I want to know our kids that are within the two mile radius. tardy or absent more than kids that are outside of the two mile radius. And I don't actually think you have the capacity to go through a year's worth of parties and a year's worth of absences and figure out distance from the school and whether they use the busing or like that seems that's a heavy lift. But that's a policy decision we are making with no idea of the impact on the educational outcomes because, you know, if we always go back to that, if you're not in school, you certainly aren't learning. So I just, you know, my own experience of you make it to the bus stop or you don't go to school, that surely happens in Medford too. So when we talk about one mile versus two mile, I think we have to also recognize there isn't just a financial impact. There's an impact on all the scores the superintendent really likes her MCAS score, you know, they're metrics, whether she likes MCAS or not, they're metrics and that's important. But this is a specific policy that will have impact on metrics. And I'm not, I mean, I don't, I'm not asking for a report, but I know from my own experience that it's absolutely a fact. If you miss the bus, you don't go to school. And granted, I couldn't walk to school if I missed the bus and didn't have transportation otherwise, but I'm sure there are plenty of kids who, if they missed the bus, screw it. But for all the kids under that two mile radius, there is no bus. So when it's bitter, nasty, cold rain, which we used to get before global warming made everything 70 degrees, those days, if you're getting to the bus, different than if you're not getting to the bus and you're expected to walk at least 40 minutes to get to school. So I don't have a question.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I'm just kind of... Thank you, members. Thank you. Member Kreatz and then member Van der Kloot. Member Kreatz, if you could just unmute yourself, please.
[Kreatz]: Oh, okay, there we go. Yes, so in regards to the motion that we made this evening, will that be for, Mr. Murphy's going to get us a report that will outline what the various costs would be, like whether or not we're gonna go with yellow buses for all the students in the district, or we're gonna consider purchasing MBTA bus passes for all the students? Is that the way, is this going to be a proposal that's gonna be ready for us to review at the time of the budget and we can see how it fits into the budget?
[Murphy]: I think we're gonna try to build a plan that does not include students being dependent upon, students who are outside of two mile radius from the high school being dependent upon MBTA passes that they have to purchase. How we're going to accomplish that, I think we're gonna need a little bit of time to figure out, but I just say, I shouldn't really speculate about this, but I'll just tell you what my gut tells me is that it's gonna have to be a multi-faceted plan in which we are adding yellow bus capacity. We are having X number of MBTA passes for whom the district is absorbing the cost and potentially exploring other partnerships to help defray that cost overall, and also being mindful of what data we can collect to determine the basis for the MBTA procurement on the part of students. So my guess is in order to do this, we'll have to look at sort of each of those levers. And I think my understanding, I think if we know by August 1st that this is not something that we can do from either financial perspective or logistical perspective, we'll report back to the committee. And I would, what I would envision is reporting back to the committee, not just sort of throwing up our hands and saying, sorry, we can't do it. I think what we would say is, you know, before we had X number of MBTA passes that were being purchased for purposes of getting to school under this plan, we've been able to reduce the number of passes that we anticipate procuring for school by this amount. here are the obstacles toward eliminating the full boat of students buying the passes. And then at that point, to Ms. McLaughlin's point, we could then look at how potentially we target students from economically disadvantaged circumstances. So I think it's multifaceted, but like I said, the direction is clear and we'll just have to move in that direction and we'll do our best to make it a reality.
[Kreatz]: Thank you. Thank you. Member Van der Kloot.
[Van der Kloot]: Thank you. I just want to go back and address the subject that was raised by Member Graham, followed up with the mayor's comments and Melanie McLaughlin's on the high school. Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-Karen Hollweg, OSBT-K Initially, right after the election and the concerns around the makeup of the committee, then the pandemic stepped in. It is vital that we determine where we're going to go with this. Are we going to pick a whole new committee? There were people who had expressed interest. At this point, we need to establish a committee because I understand Jenny's concerns. And I also want to make sure that the building is livable for the kids who are there. So I think there is a I think there is some place in the middle of between absolutely not and doing some of the necessary upgrades to keep the building in a satisfactory. shape while students are currently using it. But key to that more than anything is we have to determine what the vision committee is going to be, what we're asking them of, and what the timeline we envision is. Maybe it's not the time to start it at the end of June. I understand that. But we need to be ready to be focused at the beginning of September and not wait for another school year to go by.
[Lungo-Koehn]: assume the same thing, start it right up in the fall, where we have a number of other things, budget, Columbus School, getting the kids back.
[Van der Kloot]: Yeah, but I think we need to determine, Mayor, we don't need, we can't wait till September to have the discussion about what we're gonna do. No, no, June, right.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I think Member McLaughlin mentioned the next meeting, or I'm assuming one of the June meetings. Member, anything else, Member Van der Kloot?
[Van der Kloot]: No, thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Graham, and then we'll,
[Van der Kloot]: I saw the superintendent's hand waving.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Madam superintendent, the member Graham.
[Edouard-Vincent]: I just wanted to say that I want to just remind the committee that I believe it was December of 2019 when I did go before the council when the 800,000 was awarded for the bathrooms. And I do want to just say that I am in strong support of renovating some of the bathrooms at the high school complex because they're in desperate need of just being upgraded and refreshed. And I agree that we do need to work on a more comprehensive plan, but the most modern bathrooms in the entire complex are in the science wing. And that's for the entire complex that has really modern bathrooms. And so not all students are located in that section of the building. So I am hoping that some of that money that was earmarked back in 2019 and because of the pandemic and everything that we really do need to go forward with at least renovating and upgrading some of the some of those bathroom facilities. I think that that's critically important. And, you know, I'm just thinking about the needs of the students and saying that I want them to be able to have, you know, updated functioning bathrooms. So I just wanted to remind the committee of that commitment that was made when the money was released to us.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Dr. Edouard-Vincent. Member Graham and then member Kreatz.
[Graham]: I just wanted to say that I agree with member Van der Kloot. It's not about being opposed to any of those projects, in fact, and perhaps they all make sense, but the absence of information right now is putting us in a position where we could be making decisions to spend substantial amounts of the city's money in a frivolous way or in a way that makes it more complicated to do what needs to be done when we actually talk to experts about what the needs are of the building. So everyone you talk to has an opinion about what should happen to Medford High School, and I appreciate everybody's input, but there there will be a time and a place for us to consult with experts and outline what the experts think needs to happen to the building and that hasn't been done to date. So for me I am not opposed to any of these expenditures per se but I am opposed to us deciding that these expenditures are prudent or a good use of taxpayer dollars without experts to tell us that that's in fact the case. So I do agree that we need to like move along and I think we need to do so with an open mind. I remember very distinctly when we walked around the building with the vision committee or the school committee right before the pandemic and I heard from people who had been seated on the committee as they talked and shattered in the hallway about what we could or could not possibly consider for the high school because of the science wing or because of the this and because of the that. And I would encourage us all to put our opinions aside and really come up with a plan that allows us to understand what the building's needs are so that we can move quickly to start to achieve some of those objectives. And the final thing I'll say is while we had a conversation about the capital plan, we did not build a capital plan. So that $800,000, it's not my impression there's any shortage of projects, including multiple end of life roofs. like coming up here very quickly that the comprehensive capital plan didn't account for. So I think we have a lot of work to do on our capital plan so that we can be good partners to the rest of city government and help ensure that the needs of our district are met and that we don't run into a situation where we stop maintaining things and find ourselves in another like pandemic situation where there's like oodles of work to do to bring buildings back to standard. So I'm a complete proponent of us prioritizing that capital plan in a meaningful way. I'm not a structural engineer. I don't believe anybody on this committee is. So I would like us to prioritize that kind of expertise as we talk about plans to spend significant taxpayer dollars, but also, I don't believe we have to wait years and years and years for that information. I do think the students that go there right now are very important and in fairness to them, and really, frankly, every student that's currently in Medford public schools, the time is now for us to move on this priority. my kids likely would not graduate from a high school that looks any different than it does today. So if we're lucky, the first graders and the kindergartners might have a shot at something different, but only if we act. So it's incumbent on us to do that. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Member Kreatz.
[Kreatz]: Yes, so I just wanted to comment on everybody's views on the capital fund spending and next week I do have the building and ground subcommittee meeting and several of the capital items that are in the pre-budget this evening are on my agenda for discussion next week. And I have communicated with Mr. McLaughlin a few times about getting estimates and sharing this information with the committee next week. So, you know, I'm just letting everybody know if you're interested, the subcommittee meeting will be May 26 from five to seven. There are several different topics that are on the pre-budget agenda this evening that we'll be talking about. Just wanted to share that information.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Member Kreatz. And then I know on June 1st, which is a Tuesday. We will have our budget hearings at the same time, 7 p.m., June 1st. If there's no other questions, is there a motion to adjourn?
[McLaughlin]: Motion to adjourn.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Second. Seconded by member Kreatz, roll call.
[McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin. Yes. Member Mustone.
[Van der Kloot]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
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