AI-generated transcript of Regular School Committee Meeting - January 10, 2022

[Lungo-Koehn]: Are you sitting in a dark mirror?

[McLaughlin]: You look like you're in a horror movie. It is gonna be a ghost story. Okay, good. Let's start. It looks good. Who's behind you? You get Cody.

[Lungo-Koehn]: That was Cody. Oh, it did. Oh, no, it did. And I'm home. but it's supposed to go back on in a half hour. So we're gonna make this work.

[McLaughlin]: Okay. We just saw a floating head behind you, which made me, you know, it made the whole horror vibe work for you, so.

[Lungo-Koehn]: I'll shut my camera off, but okay. So it is 6.30. We have a Medford School Committee meeting, January 10th, 2021, regular meeting. It is by Zoom. You can call in by dialing 1-929-205-6099. Meeting ID when prompted is 958-3358-9191. If you may call, I can call the roll. Member Graham? Here. Member Kreatz? Here. Member McLaughlin? Here. Member Mustone?

[Hays]: Here.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Hays?

[Hays]: Here.

[Lungo-Koehn]: And myself, that's seven present, zero absent, if we may all rise.

[McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau.

[Lungo-Koehn]: I'm here. Oh, Member Ruseau, I'm so sorry. So if we all may rise to salute the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. First up, we have the organization of the school committee, election of school committee officers. Is there a motion, member Rousseau?

[Ruseau]: I'd like to motion to nominate Jenny Graham for vice chair.

[Lungo-Koehn]: There's a motion by member Rousseau for Ms. Jenny Graham for vice chair. Is there a second? Second. Motion by member Rousseau, seconded by member McLaughlin. If there's nobody else who would like to speak, I will call the roll. Member Hays? Yes. Would you just maybe state Jenny Graham? Sorry. Yes, Jenny Graham. Member Kreatz?

[Kreatz]: Yes, Jenny Graham.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Ruseau?

[Ruseau]: Yes, Jenny Graham. I don't know why I'm saying yes, Jenny Graham.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Member McLaughlin? Jenny Graham. Member Graham.

[Graham]: Jenny Graham.

[McLaughlin]: Member Mustone, Mayor.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Mustone. Jenny Graham. Thank you. And myself, Jenny Graham. That's seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative for member Jenny Graham to be elected as vice chair. Congratulations.

[Graham]: Thank you.

[Lungo-Koehn]: And next up we have, is there a nomination for secretary?

[Graham]: Mayor.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Graham.

[Graham]: I'd like to nominate Paul Rousseau for the role of secretary.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Paul Rousseau is nominated as secretary. Is there a second? Second. Second by Member Kreatz. If there's nobody else who would like to speak, I'm gonna call the roll for Member Ruseau as secretary. Member Hays. Yes, Paul Russo. Member Kreatz.

[Kreatz]: Yes, Paul Russo.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Member McLaughlin. Paul Russo. Member Graham. Paul Russo. Member Mustone. Paul Russo. And Member Ruseau.

[Ruseau]: Paul Russo.

[Lungo-Koehn]: And myself, Paul Russo. So that's seven in the affirmative. zero in the negative for Paul Rousseau to be our next 2022 secretary. And you can take over the roll call from now on.

[Scarpelli]: Thank you.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Number four, we have good of the order. Yes, member McLaughlin.

[McLaughlin]: Thank you. And as folks know, good of the order is a review of school committee, sort of best practices and sort of moving things forward and I'm wanted to mention sort of two colleagues and see where folks are at. seems to me that there's not much in the way of orientation for school committee members, and I'm thinking particularly of new school committee members, but also school committee members who are fairly new, refreshers, what have you, for an orientation. And so I'm wondering, I'd like to open that up to colleagues and see where folks are on that in terms of good of the order, because I think orientation specifically with regard to parliamentary procedure, where to go when, how to get information, policies, all those things. So I'd like to open that up as part of the order.

[Lungo-Koehn]: From the chair, I would just state, I think what we had two years ago was a great start. And I know Superintendent Edouard-Vincent is especially once the surge is over, is gonna try to get us all together to have a session where we can kind of collaborate and get to know each other some and ask questions. But would anybody else like to add to that? Member Ruseau.

[Ruseau]: Thank you. I think this particular go to the order is, relevant to something I'll be putting on the next agenda, which is a full set of rules that I spent three years writing. And in there is a set of parts related to orientation. And I will be sending that to the committee tonight so that we will have plenty of, individually have time to read the entire set of rules. And I hope that there can be a whole section built out on orientation and what it means what we mean by orientation, because I think that is definitely something that is, I've asked our new member, Hayes, when I sent her the rules tonight to bring a truly unique, we all were in her position at one point of not knowing how to be a school committee member at all. Um, so I've asked her to write as many notes as possible as she reads the rules, because I feel a little concerned that our rules that I'm going to send you all tonight, um, we are all sort of living it already. So, um, her perspective as somebody who does not have any rules and will surely have lots of questions is probably the most valuable one, but, um, around orientation, I could not agree more that we need to, we really need to build that out. What do we even mean? So thank you. Member McLaughlin.

[McLaughlin]: Mayor.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Member McLaughlin.

[McLaughlin]: Thank you. Yes. And to that point, I think it does need to be spelled out in terms of what orientation exactly means. And I did also appreciate the event that Dr. Edouard-Vincent had hosted with the MASC two years ago, but I think it was also several weeks into the term. You know, at that point, there was a lot of learning curve that had already happened and so in some ways I want. committee also to be thinking about, you know, new members are elected in November, you know, is there an opportunity for a new member orientation before members come on board so that they're not potentially feeling so lost and or, you know, very much like, you know, first year teachers, a mentor position in school committee so that, you know, perhaps as a mentor to new school committee members or something along those lines, but I do think that it's something that really needs to be considered for the good of the order. And I would also just follow up to member Ruseau's comment regarding the rules that he was gonna send to us tonight. Member Ruseau, are these from what's posted on the website that you're referring to in terms of the school committee MPS policies, or is this something different that you're referring to?

[Ruseau]: I won't, I'll let you. I'll leave it to suspense for tonight. There's 84 of them so far, and they're not really part. Some of them are part of our policies. Much of them are not. A lot of them are just past practice that I've observed in my four years. And then I trolled school committees all around the state for their rules. Interestingly, we're not the only school committee that has no written set of rules, which shocked me. But a bunch of them do have rules written down and they were really quite good documents to serve as the springboard. But I'll send that tonight. I didn't want to put it on the agenda tonight because it's, it's, it's not a small effort to read the full 18 pages. But I think it'll be worth it once we have something approved.

[Kreatz]: Mayor, I just wanted to say that for the good of the order. I thought that the orientation that the superintendent put on and I think it was Dorothy from the MSC she had come out. It was very informative and a refresher for all of us as we're, you know, getting back into a new term. you know, because sometimes we can, we know what we're doing, but sometimes we can forget and get away from what we should be doing. So I think it would be great and, you know, look forward to doing that.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Mayor. Member McLaughlin. Oh, it was me.

[Graham]: So I just wanted to, that's okay. I just wanted to say welcome to Sharon. Thank you for joining us. We're excited to have you. And you should not hesitate to reach out to any of us if you have questions between now and then.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Did we lose the mayor?

[Ruseau]: I was just looking for the mayor and... Jenny Graham, vice chair, might get to be the fastest vice chair actually running a meeting in history.

[Graham]: Mayor, did we lose you? I see her square, but I don't know if she's still here. Okay, well, I will do my best to take over while she deals with her technical difficulties. Are there any other comments under the good of the order?

[Edouard-Vincent]: I will definitely be pursuing doing that retreat again for us, because I did enjoy that. And I am too going to wait just for the surge to pass. So hopefully by the end of February, maybe after break or something like that, we'll be able to participate in that retreat.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Great. I see we have the mayor back. Are you there? Yeah, I'm here. Thanks, I'm sorry. That's okay. If there's no other business under good of the order, we can move on to number five, which is the consent agenda, approval of bills, payrolls, and approval of the regular school committee meeting minutes from 12-20-2021. Motion to approve. Second. Motion to approve by member Laughlin, seconded by member Graham. Member Ruseau, if you'll call the roll.

[Ruseau]: I don't remember the proper order. Member Hays?

[lRR2dgf0NZM_SPEAKER_04]: Yes.

[Ruseau]: Member Graham?

[lRR2dgf0NZM_SPEAKER_04]: Yes.

[Ruseau]: Member Kreatz? Yes. I feel like I'm in third grade learning the alphabet or whatever that was. Member McLaughlin?

[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.

[Ruseau]: Member Mustone?

[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.

[Ruseau]: Remember, that's me remember so is yes, and Mayor logo car.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes 70 affirmative zero and the negative, the consent agenda has been approved. We have no reports of subcommittee, but we do have a number of reports of the superintendent. First up is superintendents updates and comments, Dr Marice Edouard-Vincent.

[Edouard-Vincent]: Thank you. I want to say good evening to everyone. Happy New Year. This is our first meeting of school year 2022 so that's pretty exciting and I'm looking forward to this new year. So without much further ado, today, our COVID-19 update will be presented after this report. It will be an official report presented by Assistant Superintendent David Murphy and our Director of Health Services, Mrs. Avery Hines. As I mentioned in my communication earlier today, the weather forecast for Medford Public Schools area tomorrow is calling for extremely cold temperatures. As a result, we have taken numerous steps within our schools to prepare for the wind chill temperatures that may hover around zero degrees. Please prepare your children by making sure they are properly dressed with warm and layered clothing. Our custodial staff is doing everything possible to make sure our heating systems are up to challenge. In addition, we are working with our bus vendors to make sure that their transportation equipment, meaning all buses, is operational despite the cold temperatures. While we are doing everything that we can operationally to prepare to have a successful day tomorrow, there is an ongoing risk of unexpected staff or bus driver absences tomorrow. So please be aware of that due to our COVID related personnel challenges. In light of this, I am asking all families to minimize to the greatest extent possible the time that your child is waiting at the bus stop in the morning. Students at the elementary schools will be allowed to enter their schools by 8.15 a.m. tomorrow morning and at our middle schools 7.30 a.m. and high school at 7.20 a.m. We want to make sure that all of our students are kept safe and ready to learn throughout the district. So as many of you are aware, unfortunately, again, due to COVID, the original inaugural plans had to change, but I was able to watch them on the computer. As the mayor said in her inaugural address, we are proud that the Medford public schools, due to our collaboration with Tufts University was able to bring our students back into school sooner than most surrounding districts, the teamwork of the city Tufts, and the schools working hand in hand to make in-person school a reality. And thanks to the collaboration with our full school committee, I wanna just say thank you and I wanna congratulate all of you and especially extend a warm welcome to Ms. Sharon Hayes, our newest member. So congratulations again to all of you on a new term and I'm looking forward to this new school year. I want the community to know that today the Medford Public Schools opened kindergarten registration for all students. If you have questions, please reach out to our Parent Information Center. We have a few upcoming events this Wednesday, January 12th. Very important notice, we have another vaccine clinic. Again, a vaccination clinic is this Wednesday January 12th from 3 to 6 p.m at Medford High School. This vaccination clinic is for students 5 to 11 and for staff and students 12 and up. So we will be giving boosters and first shots or second shots depending on where you are in your series. So please take advantage of that. I am really pleased to say that we had over 100 people participate in last Wednesday's clinic, and I hope that we continue to have more. I also want to extend a special thank you to the Medford Board of Health for their continued collaboration with the Medford Public Schools. I'd like to thank Nurse Director Avery Hines and all of our hardworking nurses in the Medford Public Schools for the incredible work that they are doing, leading us during this COVID time. I also would like to announce for the community that this Wednesday, January 12th, between six and eight o'clock, we are going to be having a CPAC meeting and the Zoom, the topic will be disability awareness curriculum. Again, this Wednesday, January 12th, from six to 8 p.m. All are invited to attend. On Thursday of this week, that's going to be our first Building Bridges to Kindergarten presentation. That presentation is taking place by Zoom. It's from 630 to 730 PM this Thursday, January 13th. I also want to share that on Monday, January 17. Next Monday, it is a holiday, it is no school, we will be celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his legacy. The West Medford Community Center. along with many of our students from CCSR. We will be hosting it at the high school. It will be remotely due to COVID. due to our COVID concerns. So it will be available on Zoom and we are working to see if we can collaborate with the TV studio to have that aired. So I will be sending additional communications regarding our Martin Luther King Jr. event on Monday, January 17th. I also wanna say that I'd like to warmly welcome to our community, the West Medford Community Center, has hired their new executive director in the person of Lisa Crossman. And so I would like to warmly welcome Lisa. Lisa comes to Medford with over 20 years of experience working with youth and community organizations. So we welcome her to our community as she will be interfacing with many, many of our students. I also would like to take this brief moment to just share with the committee that the Medford Public Schools will be working with the equity process. They will be conducting our preliminary equity audit in light of the pandemic and many of the concerns that we had. We are starting our equity audit in phases. So phase one, We will be working and looking at a lot of documentation. And so some of the things that will be taking place during phase one, which is this portion of the year between January and June of this school year, is the equity process. They will be examining many of our documents and relevant data. They will be looking at our policies and practices around school culture. They will be... providing feedback and guidance to our race equity task force. They will be offering our school committee members voluntary interviews, but they would like to have some one-on-one interviews with school committee members. They would also like to begin conversations with students and families in the forms of potential focus groups and or surveys. And so this first phase of the work that they're going to be doing is going to help us begin to think about the systems and structures that we have in place. The founder is Cindy Weeks Bradley and the co-founder is Elizabeth Redley. I would like to share a little bit of their, how could I say, what their mission statement and vision statement is for the work that they're going to be doing in Medford. So the equity process, their mission statement is through social and academic discourse, coaching, leadership, and the implementation of research and evidence-based practices. Our mission is to create a symbiotic relationship between equity, anti-bias, and culturally inclusive practices. They focus on incorporating systems and structures that allow school districts and other clients to foster positive relations and relationships with people of all races, cultures, ethnicities, ages, socioeconomic backgrounds, genders, and sexual orientations to create learning environments wherein all people feel valued and welcomed. So I am really excited about beginning this process with the equity process and I look forward to having them come and present more detailed information to the school committee so they will come at one of our upcoming meetings to just you know introduce themselves to you so you'll be able to have a greater understanding of the work that they're gonna do with us during this season. But I just wanted to officially present to you that we are working with the equity process and I look forward to getting them in front of you at either our next meeting or the meeting after that. So in closing, what I would like to say from my- Oh, sorry.

[McLaughlin]: Do you want me to wait to close? I just had a question, Mayor, on that specific.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Dr. Edwin Vincent, how would you like to, would you like to finish and then member McLaughlin can ask a question?

[Edouard-Vincent]: Yes, yes, I would just finish and then I will take your question. Thank you. As we begin 2022, I would like to share a few lines from our poet, Amanda Gorman's New Days lyric that she wrote to celebrate the new year and honor the hurt and humanity of last year. She says, this hope is our door, our portal. Even if we never get back to normal, someday we can venture beyond it to leave the known and take the first steps. So let us not return to what was normal, but reach toward what is next. Thank you.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Dr. Edward-Vincent. Member McLaughlin?

[McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you for those inspiring words, Dr. Edwin-Vincent. It's always good to hear. For the equity process, is that actually the name of the company? So if we want to Google it, it's equity process?

[Edouard-Vincent]: Yes, it is equity process.

[McLaughlin]: Okay, and so I'm from what I heard you say there's going to there's an equity audit that's taking place in this will be phase one of how many did you say how many phases.

[Edouard-Vincent]: Due to the pandemic, I really felt like there, there is a portion where they will go into schools and also do you know more in depth. review of what's happening in schools, but in light of the pandemic and in light of all of the testing, I asked to hold off on that portion of the equity audit until next school year. And so, this first preliminary phase will be them really looking at a lot of our documents, conducting interviews, working with central leadership and really limiting them going into every single building just in light of all that we're dealing with with the pandemic right now. And so that's how they've been working. And they just completed their process in Linfield. So that is something that I could possibly just share with you as well. So phase one of two, then since we'll delay, yeah. Depending on where we are with the pandemic, it could potentially be a three-year process for us to get all of the information and be able to start implementing changes. So as part of the document review, they will be spending time looking at documents, human resources, hiring. They'll be looking at a lot of other pieces that don't involve too much direct involvement with people in light of the pandemic and just trying to be extra safe right now.

[McLaughlin]: That's great news. I'm really excited to hear about that. Thank you. And I know, I'm sure it was just an oversight in terms of the reading of the statement, but I know that said you were saying equity in terms of culture, gender, you know, you were listing a number of different items and I just didn't hear ability, but I'm sure that's part of it, right?

[Edouard-Vincent]: It definitely is part of the work that they're doing. And when they present, you definitely can drill down and ask some targeted questions around that. But they're not looking at it as just one lane. They're looking at it as a much wider scope of work.

[McLaughlin]: OK, great. Thank you so much. Sounds great.

[Edouard-Vincent]: Thank you.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. There are no other questions. We're going to move on to number two, which is a COVID update, Assistant Superintendent of Finance and Operations, David Murphy, and Avery Hines, Director of Health Services, who will both report on operational updates and pending COVID shifts in the Medford Public Schools. The topics will include COVID protocols, COVID testing, vaccination clinics, quarantining, sports, transportation, and staffing attendance. I'm gonna turn it over to Mr. Murphy and Ms. Hines.

[Gordon]: Dr. Cushing, if you could just put that one slide up to help us frame the conversation. Tonight, Ms. Hines and I will be focusing on these three sort of primary pillars of our COVID-19 response and defense. And they break down basically along three buckets. And we can talk a little bit about athletics, transportation, and how those things intersect with these areas. But generally speaking, we should think of this conversation from a starting point, at least, along the lines of vaccines, testing, and the protocols that we have in place. With respect to the vaccines, as the superintendent mentioned in her comments, we are running a vaccine clinic at Medford High School that's staffed by our health services staff. So the school nurses that the superintendent correctly described as leading us through this difficult period and certainly being stretched beyond any reasonable expectation with regard to capacity are running these clinics from three to six every Wednesday for the foreseeable future under Ms. Hines' leadership. In addition to those clinics, and we mentioned this in a few of the communications that have gone out recently, our nurses are also phone banking and contacting families of students who are as yet unvaccinated and encouraging them to register to participate in the clinics. We've had a very successful start to these clinics. Ms. Hines can read through some of the numbers, but essentially we've either vaccinated or boosted hundreds of individuals already and have hundreds more signed up for Wednesday. Not surprisingly, we did have a number of students who were signed up to get vaccinated on January 5th unfortunately were unable to participate because they had been identified either as a close contact or had tested positive. That is something to be expected with regard to the surge. But even with that, with dozens of individuals being disqualified temporarily, we've still seen a very successful rollout. And it's our hope that that will continue over the course of the next several weeks. With regard to testing, testing has been a centerpiece of our COVID strategy for over a year now. As you know, we've had a partnership with Tufts University that has allowed us to put together one of the more robust surveillance testing programs in the state. One of the topics that we wanted to introduce tonight, and I expect that we will be communicating to the school committee additional information in the coming days and weeks, our surveillance testing program, while highly successful, both with regard to participation, and we think keeping COVID out of the schools, was not designed for the current COVID environment. It was not designed for a situation in which we have this level of positivity. Frankly, it was not designed for a post-vaccine period of the pandemic. And so we are, at the moment, facing significant sustainability issues with regard to the surveillance testing program. And while we will continue individual PCR testing, as we did last week, as opposed to full testing, and I'll get into that distinction in a moment, both this week and next week, there is a critical need for us to transition back to pooled testing before the end of the month. It is our hope that that transition will correspond with a reduction in positivity that is generally being forecasted, although obviously no one has a crystal ball of this and we all know how unpredictable the virus has been to date. But assuming that those numbers do begin to decline, it would make sense for us to transition into pool testing. But more to the point, the lab that we are partnering with has communicated to us quite clearly that pool testing will be all that's available toward the end of this month. And so we are preparing for that transition. We are going to institute some changes in practice with regards to the pool testing toward the end of the month. essentially will lessen the size of the pools, reduce the size of the pools, and that will, we think, allow us to maintain some degree of sustainability for the surveillance program through the end of January. At that point in February, and again, obviously, we'll be looking at the data all along and making decisions that are data-driven, there's a likelihood that we will need to begin to transition from the surveillance testing phase to the diagnostic testing phase. And we've been asked several questions in this forum and others about when Medford would eventually adopt the test and stay program. We've been very clear that we want our vaccination rates to be higher. Before we make that transition. That is a sort of a principal position that we adopted earlier this school year and we think it was the right decision at the time. but the level of positivity as a result of the surge does have an impact on the sustainability of that position as well. And so there should be an expectation that at some point in February, we will likely make that transition away from surveillance testing and toward a diagnostic testing phase. The third bucket is with regard to the protocols that are in place. We've had a lot of questions in recent weeks about whether the district will adopt the now CDC-endorsed five-day isolation period, which also Ms. Hines can speak to how that affects the quarantine period for those who are deemed close contacts. We are anticipating at this point making that transition effective next week. This is being done in coordination with the Board of Health and the city who have already endorsed the five-day provision. There are a variety of reasons as to why we think that's the right decision. We've tried to stick with the science and with the data throughout this period and deferring to the CDC and DPH has generally been a practice that has worked for us. In addition to wanting to follow the science, There are some questions around just our ability to communicate clearly. It's very difficult for families who are being told potentially by a family physician that the isolation period is five days, and then they're being told by their school nurse that it's 10 days. That's leading to some difficulty and some challenges. And so, again, the science can walk through the specifics of what are the other elements of those protocols around the five-day isolation period. But ultimately, we feel that that's a transition that we'll need to make next week. The DESE mandate with regard to face masks, we will have to make our own decision at a local level eventually with regard to masking, but at least through the end of February, that decision is essentially out of our hands as the commissioner has mandated a mask mandate for all employees and students in a school environment through the end of February. Our distancing guidelines remain the same and our contact tracing protocols, of which I know there are a lot of questions, will likely evolve consistent or there'll be a corresponding with our transition into the diagnostic testing. So that is both a sort of a lay of the land as to where we are right now with regard to our COVID protocols, testing and vaccines, and what members and community members should expect over the course of the next month. I'm going to ask Ms. Hines to talk a little bit about the data that we have collected over the course of the last week. I think as the committee knows, and anyone who's been following the news know, it has been a difficult week. It's been a week in which we have seen the effects of this COVID surge firsthand. It has posed, as it has over the course of the pandemic, a significant disruption to the continuity of learning that students need and that families in Medford expect. And it's something that we're doing our best to have as whole of an organization response to as possible. I know that there are some questions with regard to specifics around student absenteeism and staff absenteeism. I want to say at the outset that we've had, as you can expect, a higher than usual rate of absenteeism amongst both students and staff, concentrated mostly amongst students. Our staff absences have been challenging, but because we do have over a 90% vaccination rate amongst our staff, our staffing situation, while challenging, has not been debilitating. And I say that understanding that within individual school communities, those challenges are disproportionate. And I don't mean in any way to diminish them, but we're not at a place where we've been unable to function. And I think that's important for members of the community to know. Before the end of the week, we'll provide some more specifics related to student absenteeism. We don't have specific numbers right now because these numbers are complicated and they fluctuate day to day. there can be a classroom with a third of the students that are out one day, and then only half of those turn out to be COVID related, and the following day there's only one or two students absent. So we're looking at that closely and making sure that those are coded correctly within our student information platform. And we're gonna try to provide a summary for the committee before the end of the week. But the answer right now is exactly how bad is the absenteeism is. It's higher than normal, but it's not debilitating, and that's hopefully helpful in terms of tiding everyone over until we're able to really collect that data, scrub it, and make sure that we're reporting accurately. So on the data note, Dr. Cushnie, you can, I think, remove this slide and assign some data that's been collected over the course of the last week that we'd like to share with the committee.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_10]: Good evening. So the data that I will be speaking to is what we collected last week, our week back from break. I'm sure that these numbers. I know that these numbers are high. I think they're probably higher, but with the number of rapid tests and us relying on people to self-report symptoms and self-report at-home rapids, I don't know how accurate it is, but this is what people have given us, and this is what we have found from our health services department and our surveillance testing. Last week, we did 3,271 individual PCR tests. From that, we found 233 positive individuals. Outside of that, We had also had 126 positive individuals report to us their outside testing results. In our in-school surveillance testing, so the 233, that gave us a 7.1% positivity, which is the highest that we've been all year. Again, not surprising, because we see our surrounding communities and also what the nation is going through. It's still just shocking to see the numbers, even though we know that we should have expected this. Um, in terms of the vaccination clinic last week, we did 153 vaccinations. 35 of those were five to 11 year olds who got their first dose, which is really encouraging. Uh, seven of those were 12 to 18 year olds that got their first dose 45, 16 through 18 year olds got their booster dose and 35, 18 and over. individuals got their booster doses. We already have 218 appointments scheduled for this Wednesday, which again is very encouraging. My hope is last week we had 210 scheduled and we ended up vaccinating 153 because of the positive individuals in the contact tracing. I hope that we can stay as close to 218 for Wednesday as we are right now, but we'll see. In terms of visits to the nursing office, I think it's important to put into perspective just how much this is affecting us in health services. We had 111 students come to school with symptoms seeking a test last week, and we only had four days of school. And this is with constant messaging, asking them not to come to school when having symptoms. We can recognize that there are very few testing sites, and even though rapid tests are available, They're only available if they're on the shelves and not many places have them on the shelves, but it's really bogging down our nursing offices. And as much as we would love to provide a free testing site for everyone, individuals are coming into school with symptoms and exposing others for the sake of a free and fast test. We also had 326 people call or email our nursing offices reporting exposure, whether that be from outside of school or in the home. Our phones are ringing off the hook and it's very hard to keep up between testing and seeing students in the offices. In our four days throughout the district, we had 1,769 visits to the health offices. So that's even outside of COVID. Those are our daily visits for kids with medications, diabetes, seizure disorders. When we say that this is unsustainable, I mean, we all knew the surge was coming, but I think it's a little, it's skyrocketing the amount of work that these nurses are doing daily in their offices on top of continuing to agree to come to the, and do these vaccine clinics and, you know, stay late and contact trace or do it on the weekends. I think numbers are really important and they speak volumes when words might not be enough. So I just wanted to share those numbers with you.

[Gordon]: Thank you, Avery. So we understand that This is obviously a lot of information and this surge and the implications of the surge are not going to be sort of wrapped up in a bow this evening, but we did want to communicate as clearly as possible to the school committee and to the community that some of the systems that we put in place additional maintenance activities, for instance, or upgraded filters are pieces that are going to outlast or outlive the pandemic in any phase of it. Other pieces were set up for a period of time that has now passed, and we have a responsibility to be nimble enough to respond to that. That doesn't mean we pull the rug out and start changing things right now, particularly at the height of a surge. That's not going to be the case. But it is important from a planning perspective and from the perspective of working with our partners at Tufts and Broad, and eventually with the CIC through the state's test and stay program, we have a responsibility to keep you as informed as possible as to the need to eventually make that transition. And that is part of what we wanted to communicate tonight.

[Lungo-Koehn]: So with that, we're happy to answer your questions as best as we are able to. Thank you, Mr. Murphy and Ms. Hines. If there's no question, Member McLaughlin.

[McLaughlin]: Yeah, that's me. Thank you. Thank you for this report. And Ms. Hines, thank you for all the hard work you guys are doing. And special thank you to the nurses. I just can't imagine all that you guys are going through. Those numbers are really revealing. So data definitely tells a story. Thank you for collecting that data. It's important to hear. I'm wondering about the at-home testing. So I've talked to a few community members who have had extended quarantining, having been exposed more than once and having to quarantine back-to-back which has led to a significant amount of time out of school. And in some of these particular cases for students with disabilities, learning disabilities, which exacerbates the learning issue even more, as you can imagine. And is it accurate that a negative at-home test does not qualify for return to school? It can only be a PCR test? Because what I'm hearing from families is PCR testing can be an additional week to obtain, you know, several hours outside in the below, you know, freezing temperatures, trying to wait in line to get a PCR test and what have you. So unless parents are able to get PCR tests for students, they're not able to return. But with at-home tests, I know several districts do use the at-home test for negative acceptability. And are we or are we not allowing that?

[SPEAKER_10]: So previously the DESI guidance and the DPH guidance has been that we would not accept rapid home tests. When we transition to the five-day quarantine for close contacts, we will then accept rapid tests. So that would be next week because it is a new DESI guidance that we have not yet adopted.

[McLaughlin]: Okay, so that's next week, so that's January 17th, Dave, is that what was on the slide?

[Gordon]: That's correct, yep, next week. And the reason for that, just for purposes of providing some context was, I mean, I think most people are familiar with this, the CDC's guidance sort of came out in a somewhat clunky fashion around shortening the 10-day to a five-day period. So wanting both to, for the CDC's sort of delayed rollout of their own guidance to have presumably been completed, and also knowing that given that we are at the height of a surge and wanting to examine the data as best we could at a local level, that is why we held off from immediately making the transition in the way that DESE, frankly, did to endorsing the CDC's guidance. But at this point, particularly with those additional safeguards and further articulation that CDC provided, and working in coordination with the Board of Health, we're comfortable making that transition next week.

[McLaughlin]: Thank you. And just a follow up question. So if students are out, for example, getting, you know, exposure, because there's so much out there right now, I understand that we're all getting exposed, I think, and having to experience this, but for, you know, young ones who are being exposed multiple times and missing significant amount of school, in some cases, weeks, is there any opportunity for remediation or, you know, or something like that?

[Gordon]: Thank you. It's a really important question, and it was actually raised by an administrator earlier this evening. And I think the last time we reported on this, if I'm remembering correctly, was on December 7th. And on that meeting, we referred back to some guidance that the administration put out in late October, early November, which was guidance that we developed in consultation with our largest bargaining partner, the Teachers Union. What we said at the time was that the type of additional support has to be individualized to the situation. So sometimes that will mean additional after-school hours, which a number of schools have provided, and teachers have been very cooperative in supporting us in. Other times it's been with concurrent instruction in a virtual environment. And the sort of three prongs that we said that each situation should be reviewed under is what is the grade level, what is the content area, what is the particular lesson. And We continue to encourage administrators to work with teachers and to make sure that each of their classrooms in their school and each of the programs in their school are being looked at on a case-by-case basis to see how we can best provide that additional support. I think in addition to that, we're going to need to roll out a variety of acceleration and remedial support measures in the spring using the ESSER funding. And in doing that, my hope is that we're able to bridge those gaps even further. All that being said, this is a huge disruption to students education and the continuity of instruction and that disruption has a disproportionate impact on some of our more vulnerable learners. We know that and that's something that it is going to be incumbent upon us to be highly vigilant, both this school year during the summer and beyond to make sure that these students educational careers are not defined entirely by this disruption. So I say that only to say, like, we're providing a lot of support and I think we're being very innovative and we're being very vigilant about the work that needs to be done. we should not in any way underestimate the scale of the challenge that is before us. And it gets worse each time we have to send students out, which again, the way to avoid that in many cases is to get vaccinated. And which is why, well, I understand that this is a message that is received differently in different corners. It is the position of the district that the best way to bring this chapter in our history to a close is for everyone to get vaccinated.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Mayor.

[Ruseau]: Thank you. First of all, thank you, Mayor Hines and all of your staff and actually all the staff of MPS. It's hard to fathom that after the exhaustion that was already upon everybody, that somehow that could look like a good day after this last couple of weeks. I have a couple of sort of detailed questions about test and stay. Other districts that have done test and stay, what I've heard from school committee members and other districts is that because of an inability to have 10,000 tests available per week or more, the nursing staff has had to ration it and decide which symptoms are bad enough to suggest that the students should actually get a rapid test. And that just seems to me to be reckless and playing with fire. In my mind, If we do test and stay, if a kid comes in and goes sniffles once, we use a test. Are there hopes that we're going to be able to have enough tests to implement test and stay? I mean, I don't know if the supply chain is different for schools than it is for literally the rest of us, but as somebody wrote a funny little thing about trying to get a test on walmart.com, and I almost cried, I laughed so hard. because I mean, I don't know about you all, but I've been to walmart.com probably a thousand times and gotten tests once. So I just want us to not dangle test and stay if we're not gonna have thousands of tests a week coming in. I also wanna remind everybody who's on the call, not us, not on the members, but that test and stay has nothing to do with your unvaccinated child. It's a friendly reminder that And I did have one question other than the volume of inventory. Is the isolation timeframe the same for unvaccinated students as it is for vaccinated?

[SPEAKER_10]: Yes. So the isolation timeline would be the same whether you are vaccinated and positive or unvaccinated and positive. What really determines it is your symptomology. So whether you have symptoms or not when you test positive. That would determine it's a base of five days, meaning a full five day isolation earliest you could return is day six, because you always want to end do that full five days. And then, if you continue to have symptoms or your symptoms aren't improving they're getting worse or you continue with fever. we would not want you coming in on that sixth day. You would continue to isolate because if you're still having symptoms, you're still shedding the virus and you're still infectious. To touch on the rapid test production and test and stay and having to ration, the test that would be provided for test and stay would be through the state program with CIC who would be doing the test and stay in our offices. We also have our own ration of rapid tests that our nurses would be administering with symptomatic individuals. If they, you know, after a full nursing assessment, where we're looking at every symptom or even doing some motivational interviewing to see if they have symptoms they might not recognize as symptoms, we would then have our own ration of tests that we could use for those students in our offices. Whereas test and stay students upon arrival to school, whether they have symptoms or not, are being tested. If they have symptoms and they are close contact, they would be dismissed until they could get a PCR. Just because they had that exposure and now they're having symptoms, most likely if they're having symptoms, they would test positive on that rapid test during their test and stay procedure. But again, test and stay is only for unvaccinated close contacts in the school setting. And it just means they can go to school during that five day timeline where they're being tested daily before school, they would still be required to quarantine outside of school. So it's not a get out of jail free card, it's a be able to go to school and learn safely, but still go home and, you know, try and reduce the amount of people you're seeing between now and when your quarantine period ends to try and, you know, reduce the risk of infecting others. Point of information.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Hays is next, but point of information, Member McLaughlin?

[McLaughlin]: No, I'll wait for Member Hays. I just wanted to follow up on something Ms. Hines said to articulate. I had a question on something she said, so I'll wait for after Member Hays. Thank you. Thanks.

[Hays]: Member Hays? Hi. Thank you. I want to reiterate what everyone else has said, and thank you all for the work you're doing. This is a really tough time. And I've seen Avery Hines on updating the tracker late at night when I've been checking the tracker. So I know the hours you're putting in, and they're incredible. And the school nurses have been wonderful. My question is about communication. I know the last meeting there was discussion again of written communication going home rather than just the website and the email. You know, I think we're at a point given the incredible surge we're in and that we're changing a lot of our procedures that putting some written communication home in backpacks, in folders, I think now is a time to do that. I know we've been holding off on that with the belief that we could be over over inundating people with information and they might overlook it or ignore it or just feel overwhelmed. But at this point, I think as much communication as we can get to people as possible, even this, I know it would have to be updated because it's already out of date, but the written for tonight that you put together Ms. Hines, something like that with the updated procedures and especially because we really do want to get people vaccinated. As Mr. Murphy said, that's the key now. So making sure people know about the vaccination clinics, know how to register, I think every way possible that we can get the communication out as necessary.

[Gordon]: Thank you, Ms. Hayes. I think that's a point well taken. And I think with regard to the vaccine clinics, we're trying to, as I'm sure members of the community, I hope have noticed, communicate in every way we possibly can to try to get as much information out there as possible. And I would agree that utilizing the tried and true method of the backpack delivery with regard to the vaccination clinics is a good idea and something that we can work toward in the next week. With regard to some of the other elements, I think you're right that we should broaden the platforms by which we're communicating this information. I would just ask that we hold off until we're actually implementing some of these changes. So tonight is sort of a forecast of changes that will go into effect in the coming weeks. And I think as we get closer to that period, keeping an eye on the data in the interim period, so that we can confirm that we actually do make some of these shifts, which we think are inevitable, and we'll also Again, we're hoping that it corresponds with some of the projections around the data of the surge. But I think assuming that the next week, the 10 days plays out as we hope it will, that will be the time that we will likely put some information out there. And I think that proceeding that could very well be the vaccination clinics wanting to make sure that it's out there in as many different languages and as many different methods as we possibly can. So thank you for that suggestion, and we'll put that into practice in the coming days.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Member McLaughlin.

[McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. I want to reiterate member Hays to the chair as well for that need for communication and friendly suggestion for a visual flow chart communication for these things. I think visuals help a lot of families and a lot of people do the TLDR sort of method, too long, didn't read. And so, you know, a simple visual where, you know, if you're this, yes, if you're not, no, and sort of, you know, what the next thing is with the vaccination clinics at the bottom, one page could be really helpful. and even a ticker on Medford Community Meter on the vaccination methods. I think there's a lot of ways to sort of reach folks. But the follow-up question that I had was, I'm not sure that I understood you correctly. Did you say that it's the unvaccinated that will get the test for the test and stay or the unvaccinated will get the test for the test and stay?

[SPEAKER_10]: Vaccinated individuals are not required to quarantine or test after exposure. So it would be those that are unvaccinated in our schools that have in-school exposure that are able to participate in test and stay. If they have an outside of school exposure, they are not able to participate in test and stay for that exposure. It is only for in-school exposure for unvaccinated individuals.

[McLaughlin]: Okay, and then if they have an out-of-school, that's good to know. That's a really big differentiation. It is. And so, yeah, that has to be really driven home. And so for out-of-school exposure, it will likely change, though, from what we're hearing. We don't know, Dave, but it seems like as of January 17th, it will change from requiring a PCR test to an at-home test.

[Gordon]: Yeah, in conjunction with the reduction of the isolation period.

[McLaughlin]: Reduction to five days, you mean? Correct.

[Gordon]: Yeah. From 10 to five.

[McLaughlin]: Yeah, in conjunction with, so if they have a positive five days, if they have a negative, obviously they can come back to school, right? If they don't have a fever.

[Gordon]: As Avery pointed out, and I think symptomology was the word that was used, I'm going out on a limb using myself, but it's really contingent upon the levels, the symptoms that the person is experiencing.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, thank you. Thank you both. Oh, member Graham? Member Graham?

[Graham]: Sorry, I was on mute. Has there been any talk amongst the CDC or the DPH about changes to the protocol for vaccinated students, meaning vaccinated students are not required to quarantine today if they are a close contact, correct? They're only required to quarantine if they test positive. Has there been any discussion of a change to that with the sort of significant spread happening with Omicron, or has that not been in the medical realm?

[Gordon]: Not that it's been shared with us, and we can, I think we can only draw inferences as to why that would be the case. Ms. Hines, as the medical professional, can speak to any of that. I think the inferences, it's about the severity of the illness, but it's an inference, no explicit guidance or anything along those lines.

[Graham]: So we're not foreseeing a change that would require vaccinated students to do something different than they are doing today.

[Gordon]: No, and I think the CDC's endorsement of the test and stay for unvaccinated students would be an indication that, I think that makes it less likely that we're going to see guidance that moves further in the direction of pulling students out of the school environment. And that is the inference I would draw from their endorsement of the test and stay with respect to unvaccinated individuals. That if unvaccinated individuals are being allowed to stay, provided that they're taking a daily test, then the likelihood that a vaccinated individual will be told that they have to quarantine seems remote to me.

[Graham]: And are we seeing or is there data available at the state level yet? I know there's a lot of talk about breakthrough infections and I know plenty of folks who are fully vaccinated adults who have experienced breakthrough infections. Is there data about breakthrough infections amongst our school age population yet that is worth discussing just in terms of like the data points that it might provide?

[SPEAKER_10]: So I'm sure I mean we track all of the positives again that we know about that data could be pulled, it would take some time, especially with the current search just now. happening just from being back from break and being so busy, but it is available. It would be a manner of pulling it together and making it make sense. But again, I don't know how accurate it would be. It's only as accurate as people are truthful with us. It'll include all of our surveillance testing data, but it doesn't necessarily include the district as a whole community because we're relying on a lot of people reporting those rapid at-home tests.

[Gordon]: Yeah, where we probably have a slightly more reliable data set because there's a few other variables and incentives at stake amongst our employees. And I think we can say certainly anecdotally that our staff that is vaccinated and boosted, we're seeing a lower positivity rate. We're not seeing a sky-high positivity rate amongst staff. I'm not going to say this. And I don't think it's a stretch to say that that is attributable in whole or in part. to the very high level of vaccination amongst our staff. We're not at 100%, which is why we've asked nurses to take on the role of telethon workers in addition to vaccinators and testers, because we want to push that number up as high as we can possibly go. And that's a conversation that we continue to have with each of our bargaining partners, and we've made our position very clear. and may well be making requests to the committee in the near future regarding the possibility of setting out definitive rules and policy with respect to vaccination amongst staff. So there is, again, it's anecdotal, but we can definitely say that being vaccinated and boosted, it seems to be putting you in a different category around positivity rates.

[Graham]: And last week, leading up to the vaccine clinics, I heard and saw a number of people commenting about how the system was full and it wasn't at various points in time, but I think the question I have is like, is there a lit, like if a thousand people showed up on Wednesday, do you have a thousand doses to dish out or is there an upper limit? Like, I just want as many people to go to those clinics as possible because the way for your child to go to school every day is for them to get fully vaccinated, which does take time. the sooner you start, the sooner you can sort of be in that clear space.

[Gordon]: That's a really good question. It's really a question for the Board of Health because that's our supplier. What I can say, and Ms. Hines obviously correct me if I misspeak, but we've got 218 people signed up right now. We've definitely got 218, a supply that will cover that. We have a supply that will cover more than that. And While we did accept walk-ins at the last clinic, and we are likely to be able to accept walk-ins at this clinic, part of our marketing strategy, if you will, is to implement a registration system, which one, there are organizational logistical reasons that we need to do that, but the registration is also a way of sort of creating a supply-demand equation that we hope incentivizes people to come out. But if you find yourself in a situation in which you didn't register, it would be a good idea to come to the clinic anyway. It's likely you'll get vaccinated. And if we're fortunate enough to have the types of numbers that Ms. Graham is suggesting, at a minimum, you'll leave with a free of charge registration for the next clinic, which is always a good thing as well.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. We're going to move on to our member credits member credits.

[Kreatz]: Hi. Hi. Yes, thank you. Miss Hines Mr. Murphy and everybody for the report, and, you know, all the nurses for everything you're doing. So I just wanted to know if. Currently on our website, we do have the Medford School COVID exposure guidance. So will that be updated for next week? Because it still has some of the information, you know, tested positive for COVID-19, must isolate for 10 days. I think that will have to be updated, you know, if we could, you know, in preparation for next week,

[Gordon]: Yeah, I agree. This presentation is actually the first time that we're publicly committing to a, I think anyway, publicly committing to making that transition. So we've got people, frankly, that are on a 10-day quarantine or isolation period right now, and we're trying to be as clear as we possibly can. But all that information will eventually be updated upon implementation of this or shortly before that. If we weren't confident we're gonna make this transition, we wouldn't be obviously speaking about it publicly tonight. At the same time, we are looking at the data on a day-to-day basis and we want the data to drive these decisions. So that's why we're just being somewhat careful and moving at a somewhat methodical pace to make some of these changes.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you.

[McLaughlin]: Mayor, can I also ask where's the, I'm on the website trying to find the vaccination clinic information and maybe I'm just overlooking it, but is it on the main page or is there a link to the clinic?

[Lungo-Koehn]: MedfordMA.org.

[Gordon]: It's in a couple of different places, but we can take a look at it and make sure that it's more front and center if we need to.

[McLaughlin]: Yeah, it's not on the main page for the school site. So medfordma.org for folks that want to register just to put that out there now, but on the school page, maybe we could have it in a prominent place for folks too. That'd be great. Thank you.

[Graham]: And Mayor, I just had one more request. When we communicate about this change that's upcoming to the guidance, I think we need to be really abundantly clear about what an in school exposure is and what it is not. So I'm, I'm assuming that if your child is exposed through youth sports in Medford that that does not qualify as an in school exposure. I don't know what that means for like school sponsored athletics, but I just want us to be really like upfront and clear about which exposures count because my. My commentary from folks in other districts are that there's like really very few people getting COVID from school, which means there's very few people doing test and stay, but it doesn't mean that kids are not exposed elsewhere, but they will not qualify. They will still have to quarantine if they are exposed elsewhere. So I just want to make sure that all of those like car bots are really clear to people so that, you know, if and when their child is exposed that it's clear what that means based on like where that exposure came from.

[Gordon]: Yes, we can definitely do our best to get that information out there. And I think the sort of add on to that is we wanna provide as much information families and community members as possible as to what the steps are that they should take when there's exposure anywhere. We think that's a valuable service to provide to families. At the same time, part of the challenge that we're dealing with now is, at least this is my view anyway, and again, I think it might be there's some opinion embedded in this, but we've become a very good resource for all things COVID in the community. We have a very good testing program. We have a tremendous amount of vaccine accessibility that we've been able to build up through the schools. We have a responsibility to make sure that our desire to be a resource for the community does not diminish our capacity to execute our core mission of educating children. And I think that we have a pronounced responsibility to do that as the nature of the, role the virus plays in society changes. So as we, we're not transitioning tonight to endemic phase, right? We all recognize that. But as we sort of grapple with the reality that COVID is going to be present in our lives indefinitely, there's a need for us to change the way in which we as a school system focused on education operationalize our response. And I think what we owe to the community is to be as clear as possible. And when we make those transitions, provide as much context as we can and provide as much accurate information to the community as we can.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you very much. I know member McLaughlin just put the link in the chat so you can go on that school link or you can go to medfordma.org to register. Next, we have number three.

[Gordon]: There, I think there's one more hand, sorry.

[Hays]: Thank you. One last question, just can you give an update on the possibility of, it was discussed last time, the in-school, school day vaccinations for those who might not be able to access the high school, afterschool?

[Gordon]: Honestly, Ms. Hayes, thank you for that question. As I said the last time, we definitely want to do that. We think that's really important, particularly for our 11, excuse me, our five to 11 year old population, we don't have a specific date yet. And I don't, it is something we are, we're gonna have to work closely with the board of health because it's gonna change a little bit the registration process, but it's something that we're gonna work on. And my hope would be that we'd be able to do that within the coming weeks.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Thank you. We have report number three, which is an assessment update. Assistant Superintendent of Secondary Education, Dr. Peter Cushing, will present on the status of upcoming assessments at the secondary level, grades six through 12. Dr. Cushing.

[Cushing]: Thank you, Madam Mayor and members of the school committee. It's great to speak on something that is part of our core academic function. assessment, um, and making sure that we're, uh, really understanding where our students are and how, uh, we can best move forward. Uh, last week we received a verbal update from the state that was confirmed in the commissioner's written update today. Uh, and Mr. Teixeira will talk more about this in his update, but, um, the window for access testing has been extended to March 4th. It's original end was, uh, February 10th. So that will then give us a little bit of an opportunity to shift around what was our planned NWA math growth test. So we're going to be, we are talking about shifting our assessments. We don't want to line these assessments up so that students are over-assessed. It's definitely something that we want to be wary of. And following this second assessment at the secondary level, we will be issuing reports to parents that will show growth from the first assessment that was done in the fall as compared to the second assessment, and then there'll be a third assessment at the end of the year. We anticipate the reports will be given to parents and caregivers in early February, and we're currently targeting the first week of February in light of the potential to move up the assessment window. The secondary team will also be providing a, an information session with other opportunities for parents to learn about their student scores, what they mean. There's gonna be some new language that'll be new to parents. So we wanna provide multiple opportunities, one main opportunity, but then multiple other opportunities for parents to be able to understand the data and to understand these reports that will be part of their child's academic portfolio moving forward in our district. I also wanted to provide an update on PSAT for grades 10 and 11. So earlier this year in October, we provided free to all students, which is a really great thing because it's about equity and access. And while college is not the only answer for students looking at their post-secondary life, many students do go that route. So 550 10th and 11th graders out of a population of 627, so that's approximately 88% in that grade span took the assessment. Some students opted out, that was their choice, it wasn't a requirement. Data was returned to the district last week and we have just begun our analysis. As I mentioned previously, one of the great things about the PSAT being delivered in grades 10 and 11, is it allows us access to a tool called AP Potential. And what AP Potential does is it allows us to identify students who are likely to score a three or higher on an AP exam. Why is that important? Well, because if those students score three or higher on an AP exam, they may have their cost of college or the number of courses required reduced, which for, Many students will then offer them an opportunity to say, add a master's degree within four years, or may offer the opportunity just to reduce the overall burden of the exorbitant cost at colleges, right? So this gives us a real recruitment tool to go and find students. This is not a tool to discourage anyone. So if you don't hit on AP potential, but you wanna take on the mantle, you wanna take on the challenge, It also helps us to identify non-traditional students, students that would not necessarily be recognized or be seen. And I've seen it work great to really actively recruit students. And finally, last week during the commissioner's call, the MCAS is still currently slated to take place. We don't have any updates. There was no updates on it. The question was asked about the MCAS DESE was participating in a call with the United States Department of Education last Thursday, and we expect any updates on the accountability and assessment measures that were going to be discussed on Thursday, that they will be forthcoming to us as soon as DESE has them. I'm happy to take any questions at this time. I apologize.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Does anybody have any questions? hearing and seeing none, I will. I know member Graham has her hand up.

[Graham]: So thank you. I think the mayor may be having some technical challenges. I think my question is really around those parents who are actively inquiring about the results of the first assessment being told that they can't see them until the second assessment is completed. And at the middle school level, I think that is a huge struggle. There are no parent teacher conferences built into the academic curriculum for middle school families. And right now, there's lots of families who are disproportionately involved in their child's education with kids being out on quarantine and everything else. And I'm just struggling with the wisdom of telling parents that they have to wait until February to understand sort of where their kids are at baseline, if the school knows this information.

[Cushing]: In working with our partner, where we didn't have conferences, we didn't have an opportunity to to get that information across the way that we would want to like the elementary schools can with conferences and. With the early literacy screener that's done for K through two, we just didn't have that opportunity, as you mentioned, with conferences to really sit down and talk one-on-one with parents. And NWEMAP, when we were discussing this, thought it was best that we would wait. We thought it would be good to wait as well so that parents would have the understanding of like, okay, here's where they were and here's where they grow to, not an immediate panic of, oh my God, this is where they are. And, you know, where it's a new assessment, some students may have struggled simply with taking the assessment and those types of problems that come with a new assessment. So, you know, I can understand people's frustration, but that frustration will be coming to an end very soon. And the reports will be distributed so that they can have that information.

[Graham]: I think the other question I had, we had on the list of approved reports that the school committee passed a year ago or so, we had routine aggregated reports for the screener tools being used at the early literacy level, and I haven't seen them yet, but I wanna make sure that this committee is getting results each and every time these tests are administered so that we can understand at baseline where folks are, what the growth opportunities are, et cetera. I know map is a new tool, but I've been on the committee for two years now and I've never seen an aggregated report that's been produced out of a screener. So I think that was approved by this committee in the last year and a half or so. And I would like to see those reports be presented to us in a more systemic fashion going forward so that we can have some understanding of you know, the, where our students are at, because we actually are responsible for academic success and we have zero tools really to know that right now.

[Cushing]: And I appreciate that. And I don't want to speak for Suzanne Galussi, who's also on the call but we will definitely provide you that information. And we'll definitely provide those reports to you so that you can understand. How, like, what I really appreciate about NWA MAP and the frequency of the assessment is that it will really give us an opportunity to litmus test and to measure our curriculum enhancements, the work that we're doing, supporting faculty and staff to help them to grow, and also the investments that we're making across the board in a variety of tools to support our students that go beyond say FOSS science or whatever the curriculum package might be. So that's where I really appreciate this.

[Graham]: Yeah, and I I've heard very good things about the quality of the data that can be provided to us, which is exciting. I think my final question is this withholding of information from parents happening this year because it's the first outing will not happen next year during the first test. Is that true?

[Cushing]: This will not happen again. This is simply just as we launched. This was a conscientious decision to make sure that we were not giving data that was going to cause. potential parent problems and concerns when it was the first assessment and really wanted to make sure that we were providing parents with detailed information that shows growth over a period of time.

[Graham]: Okay, thank you.

[Lungo-Koehn]: I'm not able to see who, and if there's hands up, would anybody else like to ask a question before I move on?

[Edouard-Vincent]: I just wanted to say, Mayor, that I'm so excited that as a district, we finally have a tool that can actually present, give us data. And I know that this is year one, so we're kind of like at ground zero, but moving forward, we will now have that data available that was never available before. So I'm looking forward to being able to really dig deeply into this internal data, K-12 as a district to be able to watch and monitor our progress, especially now more than ever, since our MCAS cycle, which we used to use in the past as a result of the pandemic has been interrupted. So we will have a different source that isn't gonna be interrupted. So I just wanted to add that piece of information for context. Thank you.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Dr. Wood, and thank you for the presentation, Dr. Cushing. We have report number four, which is English Learners EL Updates. Director of English Learners, Paul Texera, will report on 2021 WIDA access scores and English Learners Department updates. Mr. Texera.

[Teixeira]: Good evening, everyone. Happy New Year. Welcome to Member Hays. Every January, we administer the ACCESS test, which is a single test comprised of four domains, listening, reading, writing, and speaking. So it's actually four different tests that measure students' English language development. And we do compare from year to year, and students get a report, and families get a report from year to year. The test is taken online in grades 1 through 12, with the exception of grades 1 through 3, the writing portion of the test is paper-based. And for kindergarten students, the entire test is paper-based. It's given one to one. one-to-one. As Dr. Cushing just mentioned, they extended the date out to March 4th. Typically, we have a six-week window because, and especially at the elementary schools, because the tests are given to students based on their language proficiency and their grade level. So it's a big puzzle to put together when you're administering the tests for the students. So we staggered the tests throughout the district. Because we used Chromebooks last year, 100% of the online assessments were done on the Chromebooks. We had no issues. The technology department is working diligently right now to ensure that everything's up to date so the students can take their tests. And then we get the score reports. They didn't announce with the change in dates. Typically, we get the score reports at the end of June. But now, I mean, at the end of May, beginning of June, but now with the delay, I don't know if they're going to give them to us in August again, which is what they did this year for the 2021 access test. So I put together last year's 2021 data. So if you look at page two of your packet that has figure 1.1, this will give you the, basic rundown of last year's access test for the overall test score for our students. So this information compares Medford to the state access results and surrounding districts. You know, with the surrounding districts, the districts I chose are the districts that we have our English learner students transferring between. So these are the, you know, and coming into us from. Students can be exited from the EL program if they achieve an overall score of 4.2 so that's why you won't see a lot of students in level five and six because they exit typically before they hit that level. At the end of every school year, again, depending upon when we get the results, we have what we call language acquisition team meetings where I meet with all of the teachers and we use this data and other data to determine students' placements and if we reclassify them as a former English learner, if they can exit newcomers, how many periods of EL they need a day. Access is a big part of it, but it's not the only part of it. Going back to the data if you look Medford had the highest participation rate of our neighboring districts we had a 95% participation rate on the test. There was no remote option for access. So it was all done in person. Medford had the highest percentage of students making progress on the access test, which is 44%, and 44% doesn't sound like a huge number, but compared to other districts during this, the pandemic, Medford definitely stood out. So this data supports, you know, Medford Public Schools pledge to equity because central office, the school committee ensured that our English learner students were back in school for in-person learning safely on September 28th, 2020. And if we compare the other districts that did not do that, the results stand out that that was the right decision to support student learning. And this data supports the hard work that the teachers did last year. Again, it was a very trying year this year too. And then it's also, these results are a reflection of the amazing work that the EL teachers in the district did because they were among the first in the building to bring in-person learning back to our students. So I've said this before in previous meetings that yes, we can compare ourselves to the state because essentially Medford is a microcosm of ELs across the state. And then we can compare ourselves to other districts, but I always like to compare ourselves to ourselves year from year. And so looking at the previous year's data, so we administered the 2020 access test in January, February of 2020, and that was before the shutdown. So that data is an accurate reflection of a typical school year for us. We administered the 2021 access test in April of 2021, because they did extend the window. And so the shutdown in March of 2020 and the hybrid learning for most of the 2021 school year and then increased student absences, this all accounted for an immeasurable loss of instruction. And when I say immeasurable, I'm not saying a huge loss of instruction. I'm saying it literally can't be measured. And so when we look at our percentages, the percentage of students that were not making progress compared to the previous year increased by 9%. And so that obviously is not an increase we wanna see, but given the year that we had in the previous year, a 9% increase, it isn't huge. It's not bad data. for what our students actually, you know, did on the assessments. And then when I drilled down further, I looked at, you know, the highest increase of students not making progress that was in grade six through eight, which was 22%. And what that tells me is our co-teaching model and grade six to eight is critically important for our EL students because we did not have the same co-teaching model during the 2021 school year. And on your paper, if you go back to the previous page, I gave you a quick graph of students in grade six through eight making progress. So in 2019 46% of our middle school students made progress on the access test. We did have co-teaching in math that year only. In 2020, we had co-teaching in math and science. And so our progress jumped up to 54%. Last year, because of COVID and we couldn't cross teams and we couldn't integrate into other classrooms, our progress at the middle school level was 32%. So if this data tells me anything, it's that we need to continue with our co-teaching model and that the co-teaching model is a successful measure for our ELL students. So then if we go to the numbers and percentages page, I like to give you the updates on our enrollment for EL students and using data from going back as far as 15, 16, and it tells the number of EL students and what percentage of our population that is. And so if we just compare us to last year, 2021, our numbers were down. We knew they were down, the borders were closed, people weren't permitted into the country. So we ended the school year with 410 students. At this moment in time, we are currently up to 511 students. So we've experienced, and this is our biggest increase. We've had over 500 EL students in the district at any given moment in the past, because we have a very fluid population of students coming in, registering, being settled for a small period of time, finding permanent housing somewhere else. But right now, these are our current numbers in real time. And so that's 12.2% of the student population are current English learner students. So our numbers are, you know, as we've shown historically over the years, are growing and continue to grow. And then down below the student registration data, This I always give you around this time in January when I present to you, to give you the number of students tested and the number of EL students that actually qualified for services. So for 2021, the data wasn't available because of COVID-19. Our typical format for identifying EL students was not the same. The state allowed us just to use the home language survey, do phone interviews, we could use transfer paperwork from other districts, we didn't have to test every student who came through the door. They allowed us to actually use the access test to confirm our preliminary decision that the students were EL. So we didn't do the testing in 2021 like we typically did. or like we typically do. But as of now, we've tested 301 students, which is, again, a huge increase from 2020 when we were collecting this data. And of those 301 students, 244 have qualified for EL services. So again, our numbers do continue to grow. Most of our growth is coming at the newcomer level. And I've given you a chart to show you where the newcomers are at each grade level. So of our current 511 EL students, 195 are level one or level two newcomer students. And the greatest increase is in grade two at the Mississippi and grades nine through 10 at MHS. And member Graham and member Ruseau, you were on the tours with Mr. Murphy and me back in September. And we went into that grade two classroom and there were only six students in it at that time. And we now have 27 students. So we did, We did split the class. We hired a new teacher and we ended up splitting the class into two because 27 newcomers is not feasible for anyone. And so, you know, that took place right before the Christmas break or winter break that the split happened. And now we have two grade two newcomer classrooms, which is the first time that I've ever had to split classroom in the district. And then we've been capitalizing on you know as our funds, the title three grant to provide additional support because the numbers are high in the other classrooms as well. providing in-class tutors, EL aids. We have the two Lesley interns who are in grades three and grade two. We have a bilingual in-class tutor at the high school, and we have an in-class tutor at the middle school, all to support teachers and students. But these numbers will continue to grow. We do get another surge. at this time of year, especially from Brazil because their school year ended in December. So I am expecting these numbers to grow pretty quickly this year. And then on the last page, I just want to talk about some family engagement activities. We're in the process of building a partnership with an organization called Tech Goes Home. Actually, last year's Harvard resident, Tom Maliszewski, was the one who introduced me to this organization. And we tried partnering with them last year, but they weren't accepting any new districts. So I've stayed in touch with them and they've now opened up where they can take Medford on as a partner. And so this organization provides training to educate caregivers on technology usage. Tech Goes Home will train the teachers to administer the test, I mean to administer the class on technology. The caregivers will get a Chromebook and they'll get a year of free internet. If they successfully complete the 10 hour course. So I've recruited for EL teachers who will take the tech goes home training. I'm partnering I'm using title three funds to pay for the EL teachers to teach the courses. If they can complete the training early spring, we can offer a training this year and then start the school year with yet another training. And we can continue this partnership as long as TechPost Home can continue to provide the technology with it. I can use Title III to pay for the teachers to administer it. And then other areas of family engagement, Our family engagement begins the moment that the students arrive at the high school for their EL testing. Emily Plini is our new assessment specialist. If you recall, Jesse Reinhold retired last year in February. Emily has taken on that position. She immediately connects with families. She sets them up with talking points. She provides them all the information for Medford's multilingual resource line, the resiliency hub. She's the connection between the school and the registration. And she's really done an amazing job building this position even greater than it was under Jesse. She does a great job at making families feel welcome and supported by the entire Medford community, not just the Medford school community. And then we're doing our building-based family engagement nights. They were originally scheduled for fall, but given the constant arrival of new students and families, the Yale teachers decided to wait until January. But due to the uptick in COVID numbers, we're now delaying until February, March for these. and those dates will be forthcoming. And then the District English Learner Advisory Council meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, May 24th at 6 p.m. in the Library of Medford High School.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Mr. Tixera. Mayor? Yes, Member McLaughlin.

[McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Teixeira. That was really great. As always, outstanding. Can I ask how much the Tech Goes Home costs annually? I know it's for teachers to teach to the families in the 10 hours of training. Is that over a divided amount of time? Or I'm assuming, obviously, you wouldn't train 10 hours at once, but how many?

[Teixeira]: It's over. It's up to the teachers who are delivering the classes to kind of make their own schedule for the 10 hours. We pay the contractual rate of $33 an hour. And then I'm actually paying them to go through the training with Tech Goes Home because that's technically their prep time for the course.

[McLaughlin]: How long does that take?

[Teixeira]: It's a 10-hour training course.

[McLaughlin]: Okay, 10 hours for them too. Okay, great. Thank you. That will help me ballpark the amount. And then the resiliency hub, can you tell me about that?

[Teixeira]: So it's on the, it's part of the Medford City Hall website and that supports families with where the food banks are and I think food banks and they help with housing and any issues that somebody's coming up with, especially for a new newcomer family coming into the district to get information. They have the multilingual resource line. I'm not sure if they're connected to each other physically.

[McLaughlin]: Is that what it's called, the resiliency hub?

[Lungo-Koehn]: The vulnerability preparedness grant that we're working off of is the goal is to create resiliency hubs.

[McLaughlin]: Okay. And so on that's on the district website, I mean on the city website.

[Teixeira]: On the city website, somebody dropped off. We have the magnets that have like the telephone numbers for the multilingual resource lines. We give them that information. Emily directs them to the Medford City Hall website.

[McLaughlin]: Great, thank you. I'm gonna look into that a little bit. And then can you just share with folks, I know that you said the 24th, I'm looking forward to the DLAC. Can you share with folks the mission of the DLAC?

[Teixeira]: So the DELAC is the District English Learner Advisory Council, similar to CPAC. It's supposed to be a self-run parent caregiver organization that will advise central office, advise the school on what they would like to see for their children and their students.

[McLaughlin]: Thank you. And so I know that before there had been some concern around participation with that, but it seems like with the other family engagement models, that might be a rich opportunity to recruit folks for the DELAC. I'm assuming you're already thinking that.

[Teixeira]: And that's why that's pushed out that way, because what we find is that caregivers will respond more to something happening at a building level than a district level. So we're using the building level events to then springboard into the district level.

[McLaughlin]: Right, to build those relationships. Always thinking, Mr. Tichara. Thank you so much. Great stuff. Thank you.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Mr. Tichara.

[lRR2dgf0NZM_SPEAKER_04]: Let me just grab the agenda.

[Lungo-Koehn]: We have number eight, presentations of the public, not to begin before 7 p.m. Regular meetings of the Medford School Committee include this presentation of the public agenda item to give any resident the opportunity to place a presentation before the school committee. A resident may only present once at any meeting. The presentations are an opportunity for the public to make a presentation to the committee but are not an opportunity for dialogue with the committee. If one or more members of the committee wishes to have a conversation about the topic presented, a member may request that the item be added to a subsequent regular meeting. The details for submitting a presentation can be found within the policy BEDH public comment and presentations of the public. Pursuant to policy BEDH public comment and presentations of the public, any resident in the audience may be given permission to speak once on any item on the agenda for up to three minutes. The speaker is expected to keep their comments to the item on the agenda. The speaker must begin their comments by providing their full name and full Medford street and address where they reside. Residents also submit their comments by writing to the superintendent of schools prior to the meeting or by emailing medfordc at medford.k12.ma.us prior to or during the item on the agenda. written comments must be kept to a link that allows for them to be read in less than three minutes, or the comments will be summarized by the secretary of the school committee, a welcoming inclusive community is both a value of the school committee in an aspirational goal. We ask for your help in achieving this goal and value your perspective. When writing or emailing, please provide this required information, the number and name of the item on the agenda, your first and last name, your full Medford Street address, where you reside, your question or comment. Member Ruseau, do you have access to the email address yet?

[Ruseau]: I do not. The password has been changed since I last had access to it. So I see Dr. Cushing is probably going to send that over to me. Great.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Then I'll continue on. I'm not sure if there's any emails in that email box. We do not have any continued business, but we do have new business. Number one, we have a resolution offered by member Ruseau.

[Ruseau]: given at this, yes. I'd be fine with waiving the reading, since we have read it several times, unless somebody else wants to hear it.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion to waive the reading by Member Ruseau, seconded by? Second. Member Graham, all those in favor?

[Ruseau]: Roll call, Mayor, sorry.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Roll call.

[Ruseau]: Member Graham?

[lRR2dgf0NZM_SPEAKER_04]: Yes.

[Ruseau]: Member Hays?

[lRR2dgf0NZM_SPEAKER_04]: Yes.

[Ruseau]: Member Kreatz?

[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.

[Ruseau]: Member McLaughlin?

[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.

[Ruseau]: Member Mustone?

[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.

[Ruseau]: Member Stowe, yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, 70 affirmatives are in the negative, we can waive the portion of the resolution and I'll just summarize that this is just asking our administration for a plan on implementation of the out-of-school suspension policy that we passed about a year ago. Member Ruseau?

[Ruseau]: Thank you, Mayor. So, this is a motion asking that the administration prepare a presentation to us that includes what the plan was, implementations, details, and this was offered On December 6th, there it is under the table, sorry. So the date that I was looking for data was between the start of school and October 31st. I would like to change that to be December 31st, unless somebody has already done the work to do the present, to gather the data. But if nobody has gathered the data, it makes sense to just get the first half of the year. So that is my request. I would like to hear from, I'm assuming Dr. Cushing, whether he has gathered any data before changing that. It's not a problem to change the date. Thank you. So that's, That's my motion to move that ahead with December 31st date, or wherever the last day of school was in December. Is there a motion to approve?

[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion to approve by member Graham, seconded by member Rousseau. Roll call, please.

[Ruseau]: Member Graham?

[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.

[Ruseau]: Member Hays? Yes. Member Kreatz?

[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.

[Ruseau]: Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Miss Stone. Member Ruseau, yes. Mayor Langevin.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Seven the affirmative, zero in the negative. The motion is approved. Thank you. Resolution number two, be it resolved that the administration will present the proposed rate for the before and after school program to the Medford School Committee for approval no later than March 1st. Be it further resolved the rate recommendation will take into account the cost of the current program and the market rates and area programs offered by member Graham and member Rousseau.

[Graham]: Thank you, Mayor. I think we've talked in past years about the before and after school program being a considerable challenge for families on a whole number of fronts, but one of the biggest of which is access to the program, because there's just simply not enough of it to go around. And I think last year when we talked about the rate increase, which was, I believe, tied to the increases associated with the voucher program, we indicated at that time that we wanted to see the rate increases be more commiserate with making sure that the program could be expanded and could take into account the costs of the program. And I know all of this happens, kindergarten registration just opened, and I wanna make sure we're in a position to set these rates sooner rather than later so that registration can open for the program.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Member Graham. Member Ruseau, would you like to add anything? Oh, thank you. Is there a motion on the floor?

[Gordon]: Mayor, could I just comment briefly before you vote? Mr. Murphy? Thank you. This is an action that we've been anticipating, and Ms. Fidelicari has been researching various options with her counterparts at different districts. I think we will definitely be able to bring forth a recommendation and report prior to March 1st. Some of that report will be a continuation of the conversation we had last spring when you'll recall that we expanded our intended number of seats. One of the variables that's changed since last spring is we have run into both with respect to after school positions and a number of other positions, a significant workforce depletion challenge that every district is confronting and the after school program is one of the places in which those challenges have been most pronounced. And so that I think will need to be part of the conversation since even if that situation is thawing to some degree, there's no indication that there's gonna be a significant turnaround in the coming months. That being said, we are preparing just as a sort of a note of preparation for the committee and to give you the opportunity to provide us feedback. Based on the conversations from last spring, we're preparing a presentation that would essentially spell out the options for the committee with a potential potential fee increase. And we're looking at the ways in which that could essentially be income dependent. Because we have a healthy surplus in that particular revolving fund, that's how we were able to sustain the significant wage increases that we implemented in order to try to build up a bigger staff. But as I said, that strategy was not wholly successful. And so there will be a question that we'll have to have a discussion with the committee over whether or not increasing the fees so that we can then hopefully attract a wider applicant pool to have more staff in order to have more seats. If all that sequence plays out and then at the end of the day we have, there aren't available workers we're running into the challenge of basically having raised the fee without having expanded the seats. So this is just by way of saying that this is a conversation that we've been waiting for, that we're looking forward to, that Mr. Licari has been asking me when we will be having and has been understandably eager to present me with the information. So my guess is we would do that in early February. And I just want everyone to sort of be thinking about some of the challenges that we'll have to articulate when we have that conversation. So thank you for raising it and we look forward to further conversation.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Is there a motion on the floor? Motion to approve. Motion to approve by member Ruseau, seconded by? Second. Member Graham. And just from the chair, this is just to get a rate that the administration proposes for the afterschool and before school program by March 1st, is that correct?

[Gordon]: Yes, and I think there'll be some policy discussion around how we're gonna structure those fees and what are the pros and cons of doing that.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, thank you, Mr. Murphy. Thank you, member Graham. Okay, roll call, please.

[Ruseau]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Hays.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.

[Ruseau]: Member Katz.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.

[Ruseau]: Member McLaughlin. Yes. Member Ms. Jones.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.

[Ruseau]: Member Estella, yes. Member Mayor Longo.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. The paper is approved. Next we have, be it resolved that the Medford School Committee will amend policy BDE subcommittees of the school committee. The school committee maintains a set of standing subcommittees during each term. It may establish special committees for a specific purpose and to make recommendations for committee action per policy BDF. Number one, the committee chairperson subject to approval by the committee will establish standing committees in the first month of each term. The subcommittee will be established through action of the committee. The committee chairperson subject to approve the committee will point the subcommittee chairperson and its members. The subcommittee may only meet to carry out business referred to it by a majority vote of the committee. Subcommittees will not meet to conduct business brought to the subcommittee by any other means or process. will be provided with a list of its functions and duties. The subcommittee may make recommendations for committee action, but it may not act for the school committee. Number five, the committee chairperson and superintendent will be ex-official members of all special subcommittees. Six, the subcommittee will be dissolved by the committee upon completion of its assignment, or it may be dissolved by a vote of the committee at any time. Cross-reference BEC executive session. offered by member Graham.

[Graham]: Thank you. As we were thinking, as I was thinking about subcommittees as we go forward, one of the things that struck me as awkward about the way that our subcommittees are handled today is that they tend to have a lot of different topics, so sort of all lumped in together. And I know that I would personally like to see the committees be a little bit more sort of finite and clear, but that would, I think likely mean as we think about committees for this term, more committees than we have today, which I know is sort of undesirable for a variety of reasons. And the changes, and I sent you all a document that actually outlines the changes in track mode so that you can see them. but a couple of the, I think the significant changes was just to strike the name of the committees from the policy and just say that they are subject to the organization of the committee at the beginning of the term. And then number three being, I think the significant change, which is that the subcommittees really should only be meeting if they are carrying out business that's been sent there. by the school committee. And I know when I started, there was some conversation about how that's traditionally done, but also that there isn't a rule written down anywhere to the rules conversation earlier that says that that is necessary. And I do think if we are going to move to a model that where there's more finite subcommittees, I think it would be really important for us to make sure that the committee as a whole is voting to send things to subcommittees so that the subcommittees are spending time on things that have this sort of conceptual and general support of the entire committee. And then I think there's just a couple of other changes around language of chair versus chairperson and things like that. But those were the two big changes that I am proposing.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Mayor? Yes. Sorry. Member Graham.

[McLaughlin]: I mean, Member McLaughlin, my apologies. I think Member Kreatz had her hand up first.

[Kreatz]: I spoke first, sorry, but I'll- It doesn't, you can go first, Ms. McLaughlin, that's fine.

[McLaughlin]: Thank you, thank you, Member Kreatz. Thank you for the motion. I guess the question I have is because there seems like there's a lot of details in this that I think they're discussion. And I'm wondering if I'd like to make a motion that this be moved actually to the rules subcommittee so that we can spend some time sort of digesting and going through this. I know some of the links to the policy that was referred to in the agenda did not work as I was poking through them to see if they worked for community members to be able to have some insight into what this all meant. And so I feel like that's part of the purpose of the subcommittees is for our community members to be able to access the school committee members in a more informal setting. be able to discuss items that are on the agenda specifically. So I also think there's, you know, some of the questions that, for example, are whether they're ad hoc or standing, you know, review what other district policies are in terms of the subcommittees. I know that the subcommittees were sort of switched around at the beginning of our term last time around and you know, some of them have been more involved than others. And so I think it just begs a lot of conversation. So I would make a motion to refer this to the rules subcommittee for a little bit of conversation with the community, as well as the rules committee members. Thank you.

[Lungo-Koehn]: So motion to move this to the rules subcommittee by member McLaughlin. Member Kreatz, you're up to speak next.

[Kreatz]: Okay, yep. So I thank you for bringing this to us, Ms. Graham. So I have, I was reading number three and I just need some clarification. So do you mean that like, so for example, you know, I've been the chair for the building and grounds subcommittee and I have, you know, kind of developed the agenda with the assistance of Mr. Murphy, the superintendent, the Director of Building and Grounds, and then community member input, what they're interested in hearing about. So for example, the Merritt High School sign was part of my agenda last year. This year, something that might be of interest would be bike racks for middle school and high school. I think I'm just confused. So are you saying that the chair would no longer create the agenda And I would have to, or the person who's the chair would have to wait for something to get referred to the committee and how will that happen? I guess, you know, I had a lot of questions about number three. I was confused about number three.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Ruseau.

[Ruseau]: Number three is how the city council does their work, the state legislature, the federal government, all legislative bodies. So I do think it's appropriate that when we spend our money, that the full committee has agreed to it. And we are spending our money when we have the superintendent, assistant superintendents, directors, principles all coming together to discuss something, that is an expense. And without a majority vote of the committee, I don't believe we have the authority as individual subcommittee chairs to spend resources. So do I like it all the time? No, because it can be clunky. But it's literally how every legislative body in this country works. So I don't really feel like It's a change, there's no question, but I certainly support it. Not so much because I like things to just take longer, but because it's not free. It's not free. And that we as individual subcommittees do not have the authority to spend money. Thank you.

[Kreatz]: Just some clarification. I guess I'm not following what you're saying I'm not talking about spending money. I'm simply talking about, you know, when I've been the chair of the building and grounds. I've received updates with exciting news from the vocational school, you know, different things the students are doing. I'm not following what you're saying. I mean, I'm not talking about spending money. You know, sometimes the meetings would be informational where I would be receiving information about updates or where we are with statuses of, you know, like let's say the walkie talkies or, you know, where we are with like last year, for example, where we were with the sign. I'm not following and I'm sorry, maybe if there's somebody else that would be able to explain it to me a little bit easier. I'm just not following like, how would items get referred to like, for example, Are you saying that the only way to have something referred to the subcommittee is what, what you've been doing all along which is like putting your resolution on the agenda so like if I wanted to have something on the, on my like let's say I was the chair of the building and grounds and I wanted to have. a discussion on bike racks and what do we think we have? What do we think we need? We're not talking about money. We're just talking about having a community discussion, which I did get some emails on earlier in September. And we wanted to do something with that meeting, but we were held off because it was the election time. So we couldn't have subcommittee meetings. So at some point that might've been an agenda item. I guess that I'm talking about that. I'm still, I don't know what number three means in terms of how does an item get, if I'm the chair of a committee, how does the item get on that agenda for the committee? Cause I used to be, or the chair would be the person who would build that agenda. Does that help?

[Graham]: Mayor can I, could I respond to that?

[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, member Graham.

[Graham]: So I think in that case I think actually that's a really good example. So in that case, what you would be doing is putting an agenda, a resolution on our standing agenda saying the building and ground subcommittee is be resolved that they will hold a meeting that discusses bike racks. at our various properties and we would all say yes or no to that, and that would be your signal, assuming it's a yes, that would be your signal to then go ahead and schedule your meeting as you see fit. I think that also would be a clear directive that being held off because of an election or something's people being too busy, like all of those reasons why meetings get held off go away, because the committee has then said, this is something we collectively want to put our energy behind, we want to hear from a subcommittee, we want you to go off and do this work, go off and do this work and come back and report back to us. That is how it would work. So you would just put it on this agenda, we would vote on it, we'd send it to your subcommittee and then you'd be free to meet like you always have. I think the challenge is when we all have items that we think we should be meeting about that may or may not have the support of the whole committee, that requires a lot of time from the administration and their time is money because we pay them. And when they're in our subcommittee meetings, potentially talking about things that don't have the support of the entire committee. We're spending their time and more importantly, taking them away from things that do have the support of the entire committee. So that's the goal there is just to firm up our rules of operation around how do things get to subcommittee so that the community who tunes into these meetings, but maybe not the larger set of, you know, hundreds of subcommittee meetings across the year, can anticipate when something is coming. I know there's been plenty of times that had I known what was on the building and ground subcommittee agenda I would have probably attended because I was surprised to hear that things like boilers and things in like big ticket items frankly are being discussed in subcommittee that haven't been discussed here so I think it's just a better way to say this is what the priority of the committee is. There's agreement to talk about this or to take some sort of action. And then that also gives clarity to the administration what we're asking them to work on and what we're not. So that is the goal of number three.

[Kreatz]: I just have another follow up. So for example, I'm just thinking back to other agendas I've had. So if I had four or five, six or seven things that I was going to put on the agenda, are you saying I would do seven resolutions or seven separate resolutions that I would be putting on the agenda? It's just something new and, you know, I'm just, I'm not sure where the mayor is going to be forming our subcommittees, you know, I don't know what. What, what is my responsibility? I'm just, you know, I've been doing it the other way, building the agenda with the superintendent. I've been working with the superintendent, the finance director, director of, you know, building and grounds and sometimes even city hall. So, you know, I, I haven't been, let's say bypassing the committee. We would only vote for things to move it out to the full committee. And then the full committee would take a vote. We never, voted on anything without the full support of the committee. The only thing that I'm seeing here differently is that in order for a chair to build their agenda, they first would have to add The agenda items to the regular school committee as a resolution, get approval before they, the person could go and then schedule their subcommittee meeting. Like I guess you know like I guess I was just looking for more instructions, you know, because if I take this vote tonight. I have to know what I'm doing as a chairperson. Do you see what I mean? With instructions, because I've been doing it one way the whole time, this is just a new way. I just have to know it all the way through. How am I going to do that? The way that I described it, how it's going to be so like if I have four items that I don't have any items right now in fact but if I had four items I would put four resolutions you know that I would like this to be resolved that it would go on the building ground subcommittee because we would have to take a vote on each separate resolution which would be separate agenda item

[Graham]: So, I mean, I guess member cuts in that case, if you had four items, you could put a resolution that contains the four items. And then if the committee for some reason felt like item number three was not something they could, you know, there could be a motion to sever that out of your resolution and it could be voted on separately. But I think the bigger concern is to make sure that if you are going to go and ask the administration to prepare a presentation and an agenda and all those other things that this committee agrees that those four items are things that A, should be talked about at all and B, should be talked about in that subcommittee versus maybe there's something we would say, gee, I really think that should be something for a regular school committee meeting. So yeah, I think, you know, if they were really different items or they came up over time, you could have many different resolutions, but I wouldn't see any reason to preclude you from also just having one resolution that says here's the, you know, here's the things I want to schedule a meeting about. I think both ways work as long as this voting body says, yes, we agree that that is worth spending our time on.

[McLaughlin]: Ma'am.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Crezza, are you all finished?

[Kreatz]: Yes. So the way I understand it is to add a resolution and then it would get voted on. And then if it was approved, then I could go ahead and build the agenda.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay. Member McLaughlin.

[McLaughlin]: Yes. And I'm just thinking some of this through as well. I feel like part of what has been really beneficial For subcommittees with the community members that I've been working with is that it's, it's been a big part of community engagement and I would really, especially since we know this has already been an identified. uh, goal that is lacking in our district, um, that it would, that it would cause some of the community engagement that we have. And that's concerning to me. I feel like, um, first we would have to get, you know, the delay that it would take even to make a subcommittee meeting is, you know, first we have to get approval. Um, then we can schedule the agenda for the meeting and then we can schedule the meeting. It just feels like a whole series of steps, a little bit like the, the, um, the cart before the horse in some ways. Um, because a lot of times I feel like the subcommittee meetings too are a way to arrive at what motion or policy that you want to get on the school committee through community input and administrative input. And I also, one of the other items on the resolution was the subcommittee will be provided a list of its function and duties. And it's just unclear to me who defines what the list of function and duties are for the subcommittee and how, Are they defined? So I would amend my motion to move this to the rules subcommittee to move this to a committee of the whole because it seems like there's a lot of rich discussion here. And I'd love to see this as a committee of the whole where we can really collaborate and work together on efficient use of our time and continuing to engage the community members. So I make a motion to move this to a committee of the whole.

[lRR2dgf0NZM_SPEAKER_04]: I second.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion to move this to Committee of the Whole by Member McLaughlin, seconded by Member Mustone. Roll call, please.

[Ruseau]: One moment. Still getting used to the fact that when you say that, that's me. Yes. Yes.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.

[Ruseau]: Yes. Yes.

[lRR2dgf0NZM_SPEAKER_04]: Yes.

[Ruseau]: Yes. Yes.

[lRR2dgf0NZM_SPEAKER_04]: Yes.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, six in the affirmative, one in the negative. This paper goes to Committee of the Whole. Mayor. Mayor. Member Ruseau, then Member McLaughlin.

[Ruseau]: I'd like to make a motion that we schedule that immediately right this moment.

[Graham]: Second.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, either January, maybe before our January 24th meeting, I can discuss this with administration this week and get it scheduled. The 24th works for me. 24th is great. 24th works for me. Wonderful. Next up we have number four, whereas students and families have been charged more than 200 per class for summer remediation and credit recovery. And whereas students enrolled in summer mediation and credit recovery are disproportionately more vulnerable subgroups, including economically disadvantaged students, students with disabilities and English learners, be resolved, Medford Public Schools will no longer charge student identified as belonging in the subgroups economically disadvantaged English learners and students with disabilities for mediation programming and credit recovery during summer programming and the academic year commencing June 1st, 2022. Be it further resolved that all students requiring credit remediation to prevent retention be notified in writing through the United States Postal System and email 45 days before the last day of school. Submitted by Member McLaughlin and Member Mustone. Member Mustone or Member McLaughlin.

[McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. Yes, this, this came about as a result of the number of, you know, high instances of obviously remediation both with the pandemic and Um, other issues that we had in our, you know, our most vulnerable subgroups are disproportionately, um, involved in that remediation, as we know, um, based on just some of the, um, items, mr. Murphy was talking about earlier tonight and, you know, other discussions that we've had. And, um, it just seems unfair and unjust to charge students, um, who are already in our most vulnerable populations for. remediation and credit recovery when we know that they're struggling and they're disproportionately a part of that remediation process. So that was the genesis of this motion. Thank you.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Member Mustone. Member Mustone.

[lRR2dgf0NZM_SPEAKER_04]: I heard a man's voice and it wasn't mine. Okay.

[Ruseau]: Whoever wants to speak. Thank you. Do we have an analysis of the cost of this? I don't certainly have any issue with the, conceptually, I mean, as everybody knows, I think we should charge nothing for anything if it's public school. But, I mean, are we talking $10,000? Are we talking a million dollars? Like, I don't know.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Mayor Mr. Murphy has his hand up. Yes, or if you jump in anytime.

[Gordon]: I don't have an exact number Mr. so but it would be a, it'd be fairly easy to calculate. Previously in the school year we presented information to the committee with respect to the breakdown of subgroups of students who are enrolled in the summer school programming. identifying what the potential deficit would be would essentially be based on just looking at as much of a representative sampling of school years as possible so that we could have an estimate. The point that I wanted to raise was that I think that this is a, I think we all understand the intention behind this proposal and if it's something that the committee would like us to move forward with, then we'll do our best to implement it. We do have a set of criteria that the central office provided to schools earlier in the fall that essentially provides guidance to school administrators as to trying to create something of a standard as to when fees should be waived of any kind. And that guidance, which we can circulate to you, just internal guidance that we circulated because in the course of the school year, there's any number of items that the district would typically impose a fee in order for the service to be rendered. And very frequently our administrators are waiving those fees because of individual situations. So we essentially surveyed administrators as to when it was their practice to waive fees and when they thought it would be a good practice to waive fees and memorialize that in guidance that we circulated internally. If the committee were to pass this policy, we would essentially tack on to that internal guidance, the language of this policy, and add those two subgroups for this specific fee, and it would be waived. Now, typically, as I understand it in Medford, the summer program has run a modest deficit of a few thousand dollars. If everyone in these two subgroups are waived, then that deficit is going to grow. And I think it would be beneficial for us to provide that specific information. And I think we could do so by the next meeting so that you can understand the magnitude of this expense. It may very well, in the committee's view, be a worthwhile expense. But I do think it's something that we'd be able to provide more specific information around. Now, that's the financial piece of this. I do think, and I think we've had some discussions previously, that there is a rationale to the fee with regard to the credit recovery program in that in some cases, not all, and we're not in any way implying that there's uniformity with regard to this, but there are cases in which the fee serves as an incentive to make sure that the programming is being completed by students who are enrolled in it. And I'm not sure that that's a strategy that I would personally endorse, but I think it's one that we have to at least take into account, because what we don't want to do is in any way diminish participation for students for whom this is a beneficial program. If the committee votes on this tonight, we'll do our best to implement it and we'll still report back as to its implications. If it is tabled to the January 24th meeting, I think we would be able to provide some greater specificity of information, both in terms of the cost magnitude and then just what the administration's position is with regard to the rationale.

[McLaughlin]: Mayor, I'm willing to table it to the January 24th meeting if Member Mastone is, but I just want to reply also to something that Mr. Murphy was saying, if I may.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, member McLaughlin.

[McLaughlin]: Thank you. So I also I appreciate the introspection Mr. Murphy around the policy and I also just, I guess I want to point to a few things around you know the, the identification of families who may need this type of support. While I think that that's you know. altruistic in its goal. I think that we know that there can be implicit bias in our systems. And I just want to make sure that we are ruling out implicit bias and that we can sort of offer this to it was actually three subgroups. It's the EL students with disabilities and economically disadvantaged, who are disproportionately in this group and being charged for remediation, which it just feels ironic to me that we're charging these populations for remediation when it's sort of a cycle of systemic sort of subgrouping. And we're thinking about achievement gap opportunities and narrowing those for these particular subgroups. And also just having been in one of these subgroups as a child myself, you know, sometimes parents don't ask for, you know, a break, either because they don't want to, they're embarrassed, or because they're unavailable and the children aren't able to ask on their behalf. So I think we really need to think about the whole child in this approach. And I do think that the number would be helpful for the school committee to be able to understand. But I do also want to just put forth to my colleagues that I think that this is, albeit, you know, some cost to the district, I do think that it's morally and ethically the right thing to do. Thank you.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Dr. Edward-Vincent.

[Edouard-Vincent]: Yes, Member McLaughlin, I did want to make one comment regarding the proposed policy. I know it's being tabled to the next meeting, but as I was looking at the resolution, I should say, the last sentence Be it further resolved that all students requiring credit remediation, and then going on to say that they be emailed 45 days before the last day of school. And so what I did want to just comment on was that within the last 45 days of school there are those students. that might be on the cusp or they thought they were passing. And then it was the last, the second to last quiz that the scale ended up tipping in the opposite direction. So there definitely are students that I know at the secondary level, high school levels that they're closely monitoring. their GPAs and how they're doing over the course of the year. And then there are some students that it really comes down to that last term. So that 45 day window, there could be we might not be capturing everyone. And so that was something that I just wanted to put out there to say that within 45 days, there are some kids, once they get that final kind of, you know, you know, we're down to the wire, it's going to be summer school, it's going to be remediation. Are you going to be able to make it or not? And so I just wanted to that we would probably need to look at that 45 day mark. And so if it is tabled, that'll give me an opportunity to work with Dr. Cushing and the secondary high school principals, secondary principals that are dealing with the summer school programming.

[McLaughlin]: Thank you, I was thinking about that and I appreciate your looking at that for the appropriate timeframe I think that's really important, but I also think that sometimes. The communication parents might not necessarily know or think they you know they know, but or the student thinks they know, but they don't so I think that's really helpful to look at a timeframe. And then also, I just would add that I know you know, not for every student and. you know, I may have had some of these students, I may not have in my own home, but I will say that retention can be an incentive. So I think that that's a really important piece to consider too. So thank you all for looking at this and I motion to table this to January 24th meeting.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion to table by member McLaughlin, seconded by? Second. Member Graham, roll call.

[Ruseau]: Member Graham.

[lRR2dgf0NZM_SPEAKER_04]: Yes.

[Ruseau]: Member Hays. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.

[Ruseau]: Member Mustone. Yes. Member Russell. Yes. Mayor Longo.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, on the affirmative, zero on the negative. Motion is tabled till next meeting. Number five offered by Member Russell, Member Graham, policy BEDH section two will have the sentence written comments must be kept to a length that allows for them to be read into the bracket in less than three minutes, or the comments will be summarized by the secretary of the school committee replaced with the sentence written comments be forwarded to all members of the school committee by the secretary of the school committee in a timely fashion.

[Ruseau]: Member Ruseau. Thank you. So we've had a year. year or five years or something. Sorry, I don't remember when we started doing this, where we were, since the pandemic started, where emails were read into the record. I'll just be blunt, I don't think it works. This results in you know, presentations from the public health update, superintendent's update, and then we read in out loud questions from the public where they ask all the questions that were just answered moments ago. It doesn't make any sense. There's, I honestly can't remember why we decided to start doing this, but the access that the public has to our meetings is greater than it has ever been. As we can see there, well, we're down to 32, but we were up to 60 people on a meeting with, frankly, a rather boring agenda. So if the public wishes to speak in our meetings, they can raise their hands and say their piece, as they have always been able to do and still could, even with this policy as it was written. But I think reading the emails into the record is just not, it's not working and it's not something I see any other community doing. So I recommend that we, the middle ground here that I recommend is that we change it, that the secretary will continue to monitor the inbox as we expect the secretary to do, and that the secretary will forward those emails on. My recommendation is just immediately upon seeing them, there's no reason to wait to the meeting because then the rest of us don't have a chance to see them because we're interacting in the meeting. So this is my recommendation.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion to approve. Mayor. Thank you. Member Ruseau motion to approve by member Graham member McLaughlin.

[McLaughlin]: Yes. Thank you. Um, through the chair, I'm wondering about, um, I think that this was started because actually because of the pandemic and we had moved to zoom and it was about, you know, being able to hear people. We weren't sure how the zoom sort of protocol would work. And I think that that was why it was started, but it was Paulette that was reading them last time, which was the chair, not the secretary. So, you know, that was, Wasn't Paulette reading them? I wasn't reading them in the last two years.

[Ruseau]: Member Ruseau. Thank you. Yes, actually, you're right. It was the vice chair that was doing the reading of them because I was the vice chair for the first year of the pandemic. And so I just picked it up as the person who was at a gigantic screen and it was easiest, I thought. But I've switched it in this change to be the secretary since I was hoping I would be the secretary. I'm sure you've all noticed I bring my computer to the meetings. I mean, doing this kind of work in our meeting on an iPhone is going to be a challenge. And I certainly don't have any problems or qualms doing that task as the secretary. You're right, it was the vice chair.

[McLaughlin]: Thank you. I think the only question I have about this is that I know that there are some community members who have anxiety speaking publicly, right? So to do a presentation before the school committee, I know several community members who just won't do it because they're anxious doing that. So is there a way that there could be an amendment to this just saying that unless the author specifically asked that it be read into the meeting so that that way we give people the window of opportunity if they really are, you know, among those folks who are anxious, being able to present before the subcommittee that they could still have input or have their question addressed or put out there.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_05]: May I?

[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Ruseau?

[Ruseau]: I don't actually inherently have a problem with that. The issue I have is implementation. So I mean, I would be okay with it if we would say something like the secretary can read the message and decide that it is not necessary. So like in our most recent meetings, people email in and they list nine questions to ask. And it's just like it's an interrogation of an administrator from an email, not even from a person standing there asking questions which, and I, I'm particularly uncomfortable where I get to decide whether it gets read into the record or not, I don't feel, I don't know if other members would be comfortable with that, but it just feels like. a good way for one of us to be targeted because we decided we weren't going to read it because we didn't think it was necessary or appropriate. It's also worth noting, we sort of had this problem that we didn't address. And we, I don't think we, well, I take it back. Remember Vanderclue, a couple of times last year when she was reading emails, really declined to read the email because of the content. People write things that they wouldn't say out loud. And I'm not talking about questions about grading or something, I'm talking about things they wouldn't be willing to come to the podium and say, they will happily type it in. And so, I mean, I didn't make a stink about it when member VanderKloof made that decision. But the bottom line is, is that she was, you know, using her judgment to do something that I don't know that we all should be doing that we should be censoring the public comment. So I prefer something more black and white, where I don't read them in that there may all emails received. our public record and freedom member, it's not freedom, public records requests can be used to access them. And obviously if they're forwarded to all the members, you know, we're free to do what we want with them as well. I just find it, you know, the issue, I do think there is an issue we need to address around. And I think member McLaughlin, you brought it up when we did the policy updates around public comment where we expect members of the public to provide their name and residential address in Medford. And that there are certain circumstances for which that's not safe for some people to do. And I know Massachusetts has a law that, I forget what it's called, but there's a mechanism for that. But that's not what you're talking about here. You're talking about just like how uncomfortable it is to get up and speak. And that I can certainly relate to. I'm certainly open to finding another way, but using up tens of minutes, an hour meeting is just too much of mine on.

[McLaughlin]: Thank you. That explanation was very helpful. And I guess if community members feel like there's something they want to address, they can reach out to their, any one of us and ask that it, potentially be put on the agenda or what have you. And I didn't realize that there were some that could not be read into the session last year, but I'm not at all surprised, frankly. So I think that that makes sense.

[Lungo-Koehn]: And if they're forwarded to the rest of us, sounds good. Thank you. Second. Motion for approval seconded by member McLaughlin. Roll call vote. Thanks. Five. Member Ruseau. Oh, sorry, thanks.

[Ruseau]: Yes, thank you, sorry. Member Graham.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.

[Ruseau]: Member Hays.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.

[Ruseau]: Member Kreatz.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.

[Ruseau]: Member McLaughlin.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.

[Ruseau]: Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau, yes. Mayor Lococo?

[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, 70 affirmative, zero in the negative, paper passes. Thank you. We have number 12, condolences. The Medford School Committee expresses its sincere condolences to the family of Mel Vernia, Chicky Miles, great honor of Kim Miles, the data director for the Medford Public Schools, Also, the Medford School Committee expresses a sincere condolences to the family of Lena J. Muccini, mother of former mayor Stephanie Muccini-Burke. Ms. Muccini also served as a lunch mother at the former Osgoode Elementary School. The Medford School Committee expresses its sincere condolences to the family of Philip M. Antonio, former nurse at Medford High School and aunt to former Andrews Middle School assistant principal, David DeMattea. The Medford School Committee expresses its sincere condolences to the family of Robert A. Sestito, grandfather of former Missitech Elementary School teacher, Kristen Rabbit Cardone. And lastly, the Medford School Committee expresses its sincere condolences to the family of Frances Chicky Morton, mother of Brooks Elementary School assistant and administrative assistant, Michelle Morton Hardy. and sister of the late Anna Glenn Cross, longtime administrative assistant at the Medford Vocational Technical High School. If we all may rise for a moment of silence. Thank you very much. Our next meeting will be, regularly scheduled school committee meeting will be in the Alden Memorial Chambers, Medford City Hall, in addition to Zoom. on Monday, January 24 2022 at 6 30pm. And before we adjourn, I just want to point out that our city colleagues city councilor Nicole Morell had her baby right after the holidays and we just want to congratulate her publicly and wish her well. Is there a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn by member McLaughlin seconded by. Member Graham and Kreatz, roll call please.

[lRR2dgf0NZM_SPEAKER_04]: Member Graham.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.

[Ruseau]: Member Hays.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.

[Ruseau]: Member Kreatz.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.

[Ruseau]: Member McLaughlin.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.

[Ruseau]: Member Musil.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.

[Ruseau]: Member Rizzo, yes. Mayor Lococo.

[Lungo-Koehn]: Absolutely, thank you for dealing with me through my power outage in North Medford.

Lungo-Koehn total time: 20.42 minutes total words: 2567	McLaughlin total time: 16.56 minutes total words: 3003	Hays total time: 1.89 minutes total words: 304	Ruseau total time: 16.36 minutes total words: 2291
Kreatz total time: 7.52 minutes total words: 1153	Graham total time: 12.61 minutes total words: 2147	Scarpelli total time: 0.02 minutes total words: 2	Edouard-Vincent total time: 16.09 minutes total words: 2225
Teixeira total time: 16.66 minutes total words: 2450