total time: 24.15 minutes
total words: 749
[Danielle Balocca]: Hey, Medford Bites listeners. Today's episode includes an interview from Melanie Perkins McLaughlin and focuses on updates about the ongoing work of the school committee. Before we get to the interview, I wanted to acknowledge that this episode is being released on Martin Luther King Day. The West Medford Community Center is hosting a virtual event to celebrate on January 17th at 11 a.m. The Zoom link can be found on the event page on the West Medford Community Center's Facebook page. In recognition and celebration of MLK Day, Medford's Poet Laureate Terry E. Carter shared a poem with me titled, Free by Miss Moen, which I will read for you now. Free by Miss Moen, copyright 2018. What gives us personality? What encourages conversation? What allows you to be comfortable, yet allows for exploration? What makes us unique? What gives us a choice? What allows us to be quiet or use the gift of our voice? Every decision is a fork in the road. Every path that you take can be confidently strode. Never let fear stop you from doing the things you choose. We regret the things we don't do. So what have we to lose? What eats apprehension to let our dreams be made? What lets you step forward to make bad things fade? What brings us to life? What allows us to see? What's the ultimate attribute? It is that we are free. I hope this poem can prompt some reflection on this important holiday. I hope you enjoyed today's interview. All right, thank you so much for joining me today. If you don't mind just introducing yourself with your name and pronouns and your title.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sure, I'm Melanie Perkins McLaughlin and my pronouns are she, her, and I am a school committee member and the mom of three and an independent documentary filmmaker with a small business.
[Danielle Balocca]: Thanks, Melanie. And this is I think you're my first returning guest on the podcast. So thanks for doing it again. Yeah, I know. Yeah, of course. Um, you last time, I think you talked about Amici's being your favorite restaurant. So I wonder if you had any updates on the place that you like to eat in Medford and what you like to eat there.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, so I think it's, there's lots of favorites. So I want to just be clear that, you know, I don't have, it's not exclusive, but where I go most often, I guess is part of it, favorites and where I go most often. So classic cafe I really love in Medford and Mimi over there is so great and friendly. And we go for breakfast a lot and my husband's from Ireland and they have a nice Irish breakfast and I meet friends over there as well. And it's just a great place to go.
[Danielle Balocca]: Nice. Thank you. So the last time we talked, it was before the last election. So congratulations on another term. I was wondering if you had any like reflections on that election or sort of anything that's that has happened since.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. I think it was a really tough election. We had a lot of people running. Obviously, we had a preliminary. There was a lot of social media back and forth. I feel like there was a lot of consternation just based on what's going on nationally around the country. So I think it was a really tough election campaign year for everybody involved. And I think everybody was pretty exhausted when it was done. And thankfully we get a little bit of respite between the time that the election is over and the time of the inauguration, which was just this past Sunday. I'm really excited by, my colleagues in both city council and school committee that have been reelected and also elected for the first time I think there's some exciting things happening happening. I think there's some exciting things happening politically for our city. And I think we're on the cusp of, and actually probably over the cusp of some significant change happening in Medford and in the community, which I think is much needed and I'm excited about. So, and I really was impressed by the inauguration. I thought, you know, the things that the mayor shared with the community were really critical and important when we think about this past term for both the mayor and school committee and you know city councilors like we had never governed during a global pandemic and that was my first term and I think as we were going through it we knew it was incredibly difficult but I think even looking at it retrospect even looking at it retrospectively like we did at the inauguration and really taking a moment to appreciate the gravity of what we've all been through as a community and as a country and really as a world was so powerful. And listening to the mayor speak to that and also to Marianne O'Connell, our board of health speak to that, it was just, it was incredibly powerful. And I think perhaps sometimes we forget that public service elected positions is a service, it's a community service. It's paid, but it's paid substantially low wage for the work that is put in. And so it really is a service that people who are elected bring to the table because of our commitment to the community. And I think sometimes that can get lost in the political atmosphere. And I think the inauguration just really helped remind me of that and renew my commitment to social justice for the community and to advocacy for every child.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, and actually in some of the interviews I've done since our last interview, I've heard your name come up a few times around some of the changes you've helped implement around. One example that's coming to mind is the sort of recognition of some of the Jewish holidays and getting time off for students for those. I wonder like if there's anything that you're looking forward to or anything that's sort of on your agenda for the coming term that you're excited about.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: There's lots I'm looking forward to. I think there's so much work to be done and that it can get super overwhelming. And so I think this term, I really wanted to, I really was thoughtful about coming to the table with specific goals that I have in mind that I'd like to work on as one of seven in my term, but that I am particularly committed to. And so, The two issues, of course, there'll be many other things that I'll be working on, but the two issues that I feel like I want to keep my focus on in this two-year term are really looking at who is not represented, who's underrepresented, who's not being included in the conversation or part of the conversation in those underrepresented communities, and figuring out best practices and a strategic plan with database data driven outcomes for how we actually change that, which I know is no small feat, but that is, you know, one point of focus that I'm really going to be focused on. And then the other is really looking at academic rigor for students with disabilities and looking at what our curriculum is and really what the differentiation of our curriculum is, because every child is entitled to grade level curriculum and accessing grade level curriculum. And a lot of times, especially for children with intellectual and developmental disabilities like my daughter, who's a seventh grader. We often see, I often see and have seen with other families that our children are not given access to grade level curriculum. And, you know, my daughter is currently in and out of district placement. So it's, I'm not speaking specifically, you know, to our, within our district, but I have seen, you know, examples within our district and my daughter was within our district from preschool to fourth grade. So, and I think there's a lot of reasons for that I think, you know, there's professional development, there's implicit bias there's planning time there's you know co teaching up, there's a whole bunch of things that go along with that. But I think the reality is when we're talking about teaching and learning and we're talking about learning walks and we're looking at enrichment programs and what does math look like for kids or who's getting the awards for the highest scores and whatever, who's taking time to look at our access classrooms, which are substantially separate which is a whole other issue but which is our substantially separate classrooms for students with significant disabilities who's looking at what the curriculum actually looks like in there because are they getting the same curriculum is the first question and you know we know that you know what the curriculum is named at the elementary school level. we know what it is based on what has been purchased, what have you. Is that what the students are getting at the access level? And I think we'll find most often it's not, right. It's an entirely different curriculum, which is in oftentimes, you know, which from what I understand in some cases is a curriculum called unique learning. But does our school committee know about unique learning? Do our general education teachers know about unique learning? Who's looking at unique learning to see how it's aligned with all our other, you know, curriculum Is it grade level access, what does that look like. So I think that that's been a problem that's been ignored for a long time, and in not just this district across the state and across the country and so I'm like all things I try to work on. systemic issues from both a personal perspective and a, and a statewide perspective so I think, you know, I've definitely met with folks at DC around this issue and we know that this is a systemic problem, and, and out of district placements particularly the. private chapter 766 schools are looking more at accountability and how they can be reporting accountability, because interestingly, these out-of-district placements don't even report their data that the public schools have to report around, you know, MCAS scores or, you know, sort of any of the low subgroups, any of that stuff, you know. And as much as there are families out there who I know, you know, dismiss MCAS scores or sort of, you know, don't want their kids taking MCAS, understandably, I think, it's also an accountability measure, right? And so if we're not thinking about accountability measures in that sense, in the MCAS standardized test, what are we thinking about for accountability measures? And so for students with disabilities, I just feel like there aren't a lot of accountability measures, particularly around academics. And while there's a proximal zone of learning that you want, so you're not frustrating the student, There's also having a high, there's a lot to be said for having high expectations and helping your students deliver on those expectations. You know, I actually not in this district, but we actually had somebody say to us at one point that our daughter didn't need to learn about the American revolution. And it's like, in what instance would anybody tell a student in the United States of America that they didn't need to learn about the American revolution? I understand it's not life skills, right? I understand it's not about how to do laundry or cook or anything like that, but so we differentiated the American revolution for our daughter. We worked, we did, you know, scholastic schoolhouse rock, no more Kings, right? We started there, which is a great jam, by the way, if anybody wants to listen to that, because it's a great way to learn. I love schoolhouse rock. I had it as a kid myself, and I think it's a great way to learn. And my daughter's really loves music. So it's a great way to teach her and, And we differentiated some books and we were really able to teach her the American Revolution. And she was really interested in it. And did she need to know about like, I don't know, the Magna Carta? And I don't even know if the Magna Carta is part of it, but you know what I mean? Like, did she need to know the specifics about the document and that? No. But what she did need to know was that there's no taxation without representation, right? Why does she need to know that? Because she needs to know about self-advocacy, right? She needs to know that it's important that when you pay into a system, you should be able to hold people accountable and that gets back to the accountability piece too, right? And so those are the two areas of focus I want to specifically concentrate on are, you know, who's not at the table and how do we bring them there and academic rigor for students with disabilities. One of the pieces of advice that I got from a well-respected member of the BIPOC community, actually, Dr. Divya Anand, I don't think she would mind me mentioning, but a great piece of advice she gave me for my first goal was to take the first year of my term and really listen and do listening sessions. And so that's really my goal. I wanna go into the community and into are places where a lot of our underrepresented citizens are. So, you know, churches, public events, homes, other communities, and really listen to people about ways in which we can bring them to the table, what's preventing them from being at the table, and really just listening. And so that's my next plan. I'm gonna start focusing on scheduling listening sessions monthly and maybe bimonthly to really start working on this planning these goals.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, I like how you came sort of full circle around like academic rigor, bring that back to kind of representation, because I wonder like what it feels like for there to be conversations like about particular students or types of students and they're sort of like, and talking about their education in like a limiting way, like, well, she doesn't need to learn about this, we're going to decide, you know, what's best for her. And, and not only like, Is that like exclusive, but also like, what does it feel like to hear something said about you in that way? Right. Um, so yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Also I think about like, even, even like going to graduation last year and watching all of the academic awards for students, right. I was sitting in the audience as the mother of a child with an intellectual and developmental disability. And I was like, huh, this is interesting. Like where are our awards for kindness? You know, where are our awards for humanity? Where are those? And how are we being inclusive around this? How are we really being inclusive about what we recognize is important in our students and in our population? And those are things that I want and I will continue to ask people and bring to the table and hope that we can focus on because frankly, intelligence is not the most important thing in the world.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, and I would say, especially with COVID right like the way the social like the social emotional impacts of COVID or seeing him like the different incidents of like violence at some of the schools like what a cow are we prioritizing, like, you know, the intellectual parts of ourselves versus those emotional. Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right. How are we, how are we really looking at the whole child? And when I say intelligence is not the most important thing, and I don't mean to say that in like a K-12 system, I don't want people to be like, what? You know, learning is obviously an incredibly important thing, but also I want to say variations on intelligence are important. Like, you know, who is to say what intelligence actually is. Right. And so my daughter is incredibly, my intellectually disabled daughter is incredibly emotionally intelligent. Like, I mean, she can pick up on a vibe in a room like nobody I've ever seen. And like, I can be watching a Hallmark movie, not a Hallmark movie, but you know, like a Hallmark movie, a sad movie or something that is emotionally moving. And I can be, I can have my feelings start to get stirred up and she will turn around and be like, you know, I won't have said anything. I won't have shown anything and she will turn and be like, are you okay, mom? You know, everything came on like she can feel it. And that is a huge skill, right? And so, you know, I worked on a film called Intelligent Lives that I actually want to bring a screening to the district. We might have to do it virtually at this point, but we've been waiting to do it in a theater setting, but I think we'll end up having to do virtually called Intelligent Lives. And it really does look at sort of what does that actually mean? And the history of intelligence testing and, you know, which was rooted in academia, right? And it was all around like eugenics and, you know, it was used improperly to really segregate people and say, these are the intelligent people, these are not, and here's the people that get access and here's the people that don't. And it's just sort of the history of it all. And I just think, you know, I like to question sort of the status quo and create systemic change.
[Danielle Balocca]: I'm glad to hear that. So those sound like really important priorities, just like a point of clarification. So your term is terms for school committee are the same as City Council two years, and the same as mayor, we're all saying this man, who would that change if there were a charter would change.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, and that's the only way I understand that it can change, which is tough because it does feel a bit like, you know, you're on a two-year term, you're trying to get your goals accomplished and, you know, sort of the reasons that you ran and what's important to you sort of rolling. And, you know, you start to get some momentum and suddenly it's midterms and campaign season again, right? And then you have to like the, all of the energy that goes into that. So it is, it is difficult, which is really why it's really important to, empower the constituency. So getting to the point that you were talking about, like, how can the community get involved? And what can we do? So that's why it's so important to empower the constituency, right? Because none of us does this alone. And none of us does this as a seven member committee, right? Like, it's not the school committee that's, you know, creating effective systemic change. It's a community that creates effective systemic change. And so people really need constituents who really care about our K-12 system and our pre-K-12 system in our community. I think if they can, when they can, however they can, you know, should get involved. And I know that that sounds like an oversimplification as I'm thinking about all the people that are working, you know, two jobs and trying to, you know, deal with COVID and all the other things that are being done. And it's our part as elected officials too to do one-on-ones and reach out to the community, but finding out how people can get involved in making those connections, because there's so many people that have so much to offer our community, but they need to feel like they're actually able to make effective change and be empowered, right? And so I think I would start with the subcommittees and really looking at what the subcommittees are for our school committees and how if there's one that really resonates with somebody or two that really resonates with somebody really looking, you know, to see how one can become involved in those. So I'm the chair of the Special Education and Behavioral Health Subcommittee. So if those topics are of concern or, you know, of interest to folks, you know, reach out to the chair of that committee and say, you know, how can we put this, you know, on the table for the subcommittee? How can we talk more? Because the subcommittee allows for more sort of community involvement and more back and forth and more engagement, I feel like, around those topics specifically. And there are others. There's family engagement and buildings and grounds and rules and policy and equity. And there are several, I mean, curriculum. And they're not committees as a whole. There are three member school committee members, but, and then, you know, anyone who obviously wants to come as community members and then any other stakeholders. know employers whatever that want to come that are interested in those topics and really sort of creating, I think some strategic plans around what would you like that subcommittee to accomplish in a given year right and so instead of like everything needs to be done like let's focus just sort of like you know on on a couple of goals that you feel like are really important for this year and you want to bring forward and what can that be? And we need so much input and so much help from the community because we are, you know, still a seven-person committee or, you know, a one-person in seven-person committee if you're trying to move a particular issue forward and you hope your colleagues are on board and constituents are on board. But really what people pay attention to is I think we've seen certainly in the past few years is is groups of constituents, right? And so I remember when I was the chair of the Special Ed Parent Advisory Council and I had taken some advocacy courses and was learning about how to advocate both at a state level and local level. I remember reading some quote that was something like, you know, one person is a pain in the neck, you know, two person, you know, is an email, you know, four people are a phone call, You know, eight people are meeting 12 people are a policy change, right, really looking at like creating, you know, momentum around particular. subgroups to move things forward, I think is important. And we did that with CPAC. We requested a special education subcommittee. There wasn't one until the Special Education Parent Advisory Council requested one. And my predecessor, Erin DiBenedetto, created it and CPAC met with them monthly and identified specific goals, particularly a disability awareness curriculum, which is now on its third year of piloting. third year pilot in our district and has done extremely well and something I'm very, very proud of and I know that our CPAC is very proud of and that was headed up by Susanna Campbell and other folks in our district, but it started with a group of parents who wanted to make this change. You know, we raised a little bit of money to create a program over the summer where we had a bunch of books that were differentiated Um, at the elementary school level, 30 of them that exist at the library and at each of the elementary school levels where we took grade level content, not we, you know, school committee, I mean, school personnel. So school staff, teachers, paraprofessionals. Anyone really who wanted to be part of this week long course where, uh, Susanna led, um, and they differentiate a curriculum. And, you know, I would like to see something like that, frankly, at grade level. Right. So each of our grades, it would be great from, you know, K through 12 has a you know, scope and scale of the year curriculum that's differentiated for different learners, like, so that we can each have that. And how do you do that? Well, you start with one grade, or you start with one pilot, right? And you start with 30 books. And that's how you build it. You start with one brick, right? And so I think really creating very specific goals is important. And then finding allies in that work is really important.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, so I'm hearing kind of like an openness to hearing from constituents if they're noticing issues or if they're coming up against barriers. And I think sometimes it can feel like you're kind of isolating. I'm noticing this issue with my kid or in my kid's school, and it can feel like maybe nobody else is experiencing that, or I don't know where to turn to. And it sounds like reaching out to you, maybe thinking about some of these subcommittees could be a way to start solving some of those issues.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Absolutely, because what we hear a lot as full committee members, too, is that, you know, we might get one email from you, but we might get another email from somebody else who has a similar concern or another email from somebody else. So, you know, part of our job, I think, too, is connecting people while keeping confidentiality, obviously, if people want confidentiality, but connecting people or being able to spot systemic issues, right, and be like, OK, this is a concern. I know you've been interested in this. Are you interested in coming to the subcommittee meeting or are you interested in how can I move this forward with you? You know, we've had a lot of. we've had a lot of families, frankly, reach out in the past. I've had a lot of families, frankly, reach out in the past year, year and a half regarding bullying. And bullying has been an ongoing issue in our, in our, in every school district, right? And especially as we're seeing in this past few months, right, at a number of these different school district, Danvers is coming to mind, other places coming to mind, but also very much in Medford as well. And so that's a huge topic, right? That's a huge issue. And it's huge around, we are moving, we are, have some things moving forward in our district around you know, training for parents around sort of what it looks like, what your rights are, you know, what is and isn't, you know, how parents, you know, the school districts are required to file a report and do an investigation if it's even suspected, you know, they can't just say, no, we don't think so. Like there's all these things that maybe folks don't understand, but that is not something that one person or even seven people on a two year term basis can fix. It's something that has to be identified and worked on. And that people have to prioritize and so you know family engagement has been really important to me and we did a family, we had a family engagement audit last year where we had a program that was worth the Department of Education that Medford was elementary and secondary education that Medford was one of, I think, five or six school districts selected to be part of this. this audit, you know, this family engagement audit, and we had it and we had a report that came out of it. And, you know, there was some really valuable information in there. And one of the things that was talked about that was that it needs to be prioritized, that we really need to focus on the importance of this and training staff around why this is important and what have you. And so there was a second part of the family evaluation project that was this year, that you could continue on, you know, what the work that was done last year and continue on this year. And, you know, that came to the floor of the school committee, and it was voted on that we were not going to do that this year. And, you know, the irony was not lost on me, frankly, that, you know, we were told that our problem with family and community engagement was that we needed to prioritize it and make it sort of, you know, systemic. And then we voted on not being able to continue this project this year because it wasn't a priority, based on all the things that we had to deal with. And I get everything can't be a priority, right? Like, we can't have everything as a priority. But we also have to be held accountable for what is a priority. And our constituents have to decide for us, you know, with us, what those priorities are.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, I can appreciate that, especially in the time that we're living in right now, where there's so much like health and safety, I'm sure that you're having to prioritize in terms of COVID, that it can feel like our memories can be short, right, that like, we can see these themes emerging, and sort of have you know they get pushed to the to the back of the line but I appreciate you sort of continuing to bring them up and like holding them as as valuable as as they are like in the mix with all of these other things too.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you and you know as I'm saying and I'm like oh, I'm probably going to get in trouble from, you know, some colleagues or from some community members for saying that but I think it's important to say what we feel strongly about right and what we feel passionately about and not in a way that is critical and not in a way that saying hey you're not doing this, it's in a way, how can we help. make this happen, right? And these are my priorities.
[Danielle Balocca]: It doesn't mean that they're everybody's priorities, right? Sure. And I think too, like to the beginning of our conversation, right? Like the folks that are most impacted by that lack of engagement or lack of connection are also impacted by COVID. So like in the way that we're all suffering, they're probably still suffering more. And so, you know, I do think that's a valuable thing to hold on to.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right. And it's not an easy answer. It's not like, okay, you know, we have to, you know, we'll just do more of this. I mean, it's a complex answer and there's, you know, it involves a lot of different layers and levels, you know, from wraparound services and, you know, behavioral healthcare and food security and, you know, just so many things it does. But like, again, you have to start with that first brick. Right. Sure.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah. Awesome. I think this has been really helpful. And I'm excited to see what you know what comes out of the next two years. Is there anything else that you want to make sure to mention before we wrap up?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Anything else that I want to make sure to mention, um, you know that, that that people keep holding us accountable, but also know that we wanna work with, not against, like we need collaboration, we need community, we need to be able to move things forward. And ultimately, no matter what end of the political spectrum any of us are on, I think that we all ultimately want the same thing, which is, what's best for our kids, right? How do we enable our children to have of fulfilling and happy life. And I think that when we bring that to the core for each and every one of us, maybe that can help bring out some of the humanity in all of us. Yeah. Keep on keeping on with your good work. You're doing great.
[Danielle Balocca]: Thank you. Thank you. And I really appreciate you coming back and hopefully we'll connect again soon.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: We will. Take care.
[Danielle Balocca]: All right. Bye. Thank you so much to Melanie for our conversation today and your continued support of this podcast. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. And as always, if you have feedback about this episode or ideas for future episodes, you can email medfordpod at gmail.com. You can also subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on Spotify and Apple podcasts. Thanks so much for listening. Guys, what's the name of the podcast? Never Bites. Never Bites. Good job.
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total time: 24.15 minutes total words: 749 |
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