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[Unidentified]: Hi, everyone.
[Graham]: Hi. We can just give everyone another minute or so. Actually, while we are waiting for people to join, maybe I will start doing some of the initial reading of our meeting notice and then we can get that out of the way. So please be advised that on Wednesday, April 27th from four to 5 p.m. there'll be a communications and family engagement subcommittee meeting held for remote participation via Zoom. The meeting can be viewed through Medford Community Media on Comcast channel 15 and Verizon channel 45 from four to 5 p.m. Since the meeting will be held remotely, participants can log in or call in by using the following link or call-in number. The Zoom phone number is 301-715-8592. And the meeting ID is 975-668-61252. Our agenda topics for today are absenteeism and truancy notifications and communications strategy update. I'm just going to take the roll real quick. Member McLaughlin?
[Kreatz]: Here.
[Graham]: Member Kreatz? Here. Member Graham? Here. Okay, so three present, none absent. Do we need to wait for anybody else to join from the administrative team before we get started?
[Galusi]: The superintendent is just logging on right now. Okay, we can give her a minute. Thank you.
[Unidentified]: Hi, Superintendent, how are you? Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone.
[Graham]: So, Superintendent, we already read the meeting notice and took attendance, so we are ready to go. So we can go ahead and dive right in. I know we only have an hour and we have another subcommittee meeting right after this. So my thought is that we'll try to keep each of these topics to about 30 minutes. And if we need to follow up in a subsequent meeting, we can do that.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Excellent.
[Graham]: Okay, so the first topic is absenteeism and truancy notices and the resolution that was unanimously passed by the school committee is as follows, whereas MPS is required to distribute notifications to caregivers regarding truancy and absenteeism and whereas The Medford School Committee and the MPS administration are committed to creating a collaborative partnership between home and school. Be it resolved that the Family Engagement and Communications Subcommittee will meet to review district communications regarding truancy and absenteeism. The committee will review our regulatory requirements in current communications to ensure there is compliance with regulations and that our letters achieve our objectives of collaborative partnership. So, just by way of a little bit of background on this topic in terms of what we hear from community members in particular. Each year, or at least each year in the past, the district has sent out, there are two things that I'm aware of. So one is at the beginning of the year, there's a note that goes out from our district attorney, Marion Ryan, about truancy and the consequences of truancy, which go into some detail to include involvement from DCF and other agencies And then also a requirement that we have to send out notifications once students have missed a certain amount of time under DESE's regulations. I believe it's, is it five days where the notices go out? And over the past, year or so, we have, I know I and probably other members of the committee have heard from families, and I know that the administration has as well, around both of those notices, I would say for different reasons. So what I was hoping we could talk about today is really getting to like level footing on what we are required to do. And I think also understanding the spirit. of what we are trying to accomplish in both of those communications, particularly, Megan, thank you for joining with our Director of Family Engagement on board and to talk about as a district, how do we think about proceeding forward? So I'll stop there. I don't know if my fellow committee members have any questions or comments about this topic that they wanted to share before we dive in.
[Kreatz]: Kathy. Yes, yes. Yep. So I was just reading through some emails we got earlier this year about the absenteeism letters that go out. And, you know, I do agree with some of the concerns and the letters that were mailed out is that we do have the COVID protocols in place where if students are symptomatic, they're close contact, they should remain home and quarantine for the five days. So where the letters are sent out if the students are absent five days, that might be five COVID days. So COVID is new and we haven't updated these letters. So I do think we need to do some sort of an update or addendum to the required letters by law that we have to send out. I wanted to share that.
[McLaughlin]: Same. I mean, I think we've been getting the same emails.
[Graham]: Yeah, exactly. And I guess, you know, before the meeting, I did a little bit of my own digging on the DESE website to try to sort of understand the lay of the land. So superintendent, you can definitely correct me on this because I expect that you're more an expert on DESE regulation in this regard than I am. But my understanding is that that letter, that five day absence letter is a requirement of DESE, is that correct?
[Unidentified]: Yes, I'm gonna.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Sorry, there's a little echo because we're in the same space, I'm going to have Miss Lucy respond first. Thank you.
[Galusi]: That's correct. And so I think what might be just a little important context for this discussion is we have kind of what was in place pre-COVID and then what wasn't in place during COVID. So pre-COVID, there were letters that were created, I believe, with attorney Howard Greenspan. They were at increments of 5, 10, and 15. So those were the levels in which the letters went home to inform families. So that piece is correct. During COVID, there were, of course, different circumstances for why students were absent, and there were quarantining needs. So I do know that those letters, or at least to my knowledge, those letters were not going home during the pandemic. But in terms of, and I know the DESE has, I believe it was this past February, has put new updates on their website. which I haven't combed through all of it exactly, but in terms of like aligning our policy that we're following here for next year makes sense to me.
[Graham]: And is the 5, 10, 15 day threshold total absences or unexcused absences?
[Galusi]: Um, they're really supposed to be unexcused. Because if there's been a communication or extenuating circumstance so that you have five absences that the building administration or staff is unaware of, then the letter is like a notification piece. So that first letter is that first one at five unexcused absences is literally just a notification. or it recommends that the family can reach out to have a conversation, but it's not really actionable. When you get to the 10 unexcused absences, that results in a meeting with the school principal and maybe other associated staff, but it kind of builds in the level of notification and need, if that makes sense.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Okay. And member Graham, I just wanted to say that during the pandemic, before the CDC changed the regulations, when we were quarantining for the 14 days or the 10 days of school, just by that practice, you had some students that could potentially have missed, they may have had to have quarantined twice or three times. So they exceeded, you know, the total number of days, but those days would have been excused. So I think during the pandemic, it kind of changed the rules that we were accustomed to using.
[Graham]: Yep. I think that's really fair. So I think as we look forward to next year around these letters, I think one of the unresolved conflicts in the letters and the approach versus like the public health guidance that people are much more committed to following now is if you feel sick, stay home, right? And I think that's always been a rule, but people, listen to it a little bit more seriously now than they ever have in the past. And so I'm just wondering, and as I was sort of asking myself that question in preparation for the meeting, I actually went into our policy manual and we have one, two, three, four, five policies at the school committee level that address absenteeism and truancy. And I find them to be rather convoluted, honestly, as I read through all of them. And I do think we probably should aim to be a little bit more simple than having five policies about what I think is really maybe two topics, absenteeism and truancy. So I think we have to, we'll sort of circle back around to those policy issues at the end. But I guess the question is, as we go into next year, how do we reconcile our five, 10, 15 days of unexcused absence with the notion that if you are feeling symptomatic of COVID, which I don't think is gonna go away necessarily, stay home. most doctors are not engaging in those kinds of conversations to be able to provide a note of absence. So I think I would just want us to be able to be clear about like what constitutes a COVID related excused absence so that that can be reflected in our policy at the beginning of the year. And then also in terms of how we count those absences as we go on.
[Edouard-Vincent]: I also wanted to say member Graham, Just one second. Sorry about that member Graham, I was going to say, I, I wish I had nurse director Avery Heinz on the call as well because As the virus, COVID is evolving and there are different symptoms that are happening. Sometimes it is the nurses if they're completing a rapid test. So we have a medical professional that's confirming and verifying that the child is not feeling well or is displaying certain symptoms and to kind of either keep the child at home or keep an extra eye out on the child. At the same time as we look at the attendance policy I do want us to just be cautious, because also during this time of the pandemic where there was so much. know, exposure and students being in school and out of school from a social emotional learning perspective, I think we have to be careful that if a student potentially were to need additional supports or more help that COVID or COVID exposure was not going to be used as a reason to stay out of school, because there are that that's another piece where, when it was the original 510 15 days, you never wanted to get to the 15, you never wanted that to happen. And so the pandemic kind of changed the rules. But now looking at attendance and looking at medical documentation of what we do have what's been submitted to the nurse's office to look at each case, or each situation on a case by case basis. So I definitely am in support of. streamlining and aligning the, you know, the five policies to bring it down to one or two policies that the district is going to, you know, hold up as the standard, but at the same time we just also need to be aware that. you know, some absenteeism is not related to, you know, it's not COVID related. It's a very, very small, small number, but it's a number that we do have to closely monitor and report if, you know, it becomes egregious. So I think that that's kind of, why those rules were put in place, because sometimes students just, they aren't going to school, and then the next thing you know, unfortunately, they drop out of school. And so, you know, Ms. Fidler-Carey might be able to speak to that or just say, like, as she and her team and the engagement specialists are really trying to keep students engaged, working with families, We don't want students dropping out because it's like, oh, I've been out of school 27 days or, you know, whatever the number is. And we have no documentation of what's going on with that student.
[Graham]: Ms. Fidler-Kerry, did you want to speak?
[0SdCkR9KuqQ_SPEAKER_07]: Sure. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. Again, so the engagement team has been working very closely with administrators and nurses and mental health professionals in all of the schools to look at everything just like Dr. Edouard-Vincent says as a case-by-case basis. So the first thing that most of them do in the morning is review the absence data. So they look for trends, they're looking at kids, they know by now there are definitely certain several kids that they have their eye on that they're watching for the students and then anybody they're concerned about they bring up to they go and check in with the nurses they check in with um the the uh assistant principals to say to find out exactly this do we know is this a student who's shouldn't shouldn't be absent or do we know the reason why they're not here um and they they really paint pictures for each kid and know the stories so they're really It's, it's definitely case by case they're attacking the absentee absences head on. And I've said that. I gave that as an assignment in our second month of school. I said, just as we're getting our feet wet and figuring out what the engagement specialists are going to do, I said, every single day for two weeks, I want you to check the absences and make a sheet. It was really laborious, but it was good practice to say, I need you to know exactly why every student is absent. And then right next to it, how many days before this they've been absent. And it was a good exercise just to get their head in it. I think they've they've expressed a lot of concern about the letters to the engagement team has, they brought this up saying, you know, wondering and I'm glad to have this discussion because I don't know that we ever got to the bottom of it, wondering what is the state policy versus the Medford policy about how many days before a letter goes home. what does the language in that letter look like and who determines it? And is there a way to change it? Is there a way to give different letters to different families based on how cooperative they've been or how receptive they've been to our offers for resources? So I think there is a lot to discuss and a lot of decisions to make. And I'm really glad to make the point, because we were confused by the five policies as well. We looked at all of them and it, It was overwhelming. So I'm glad to hear that your will make this more concise. And I'm glad to get their feedback to bring to bring back to you as you're working on these policies, too. But there's definitely a lot more of a practice of, you know, sort of shared case conferencing about students among the professionals. So not only at the school level, But I'm Dr. Denver's friend son brought up every Heinz and I was thinking of her too, because we meet as hub directors, so all of the directors from the different departments meet once a week as well and and sort of check in to make sure. from our perspective in our different departments, are these conversations actually happening the way that we hope them to? Is there different methods or policies that we'd like to see in place? So I would, you know, I'm happy to bring up at the next hub meeting when I'll bring up to Avery to say, you know, what are the changing ideas about the staying home if you don't feel good policy and like, you know, what's coming from the state level, what's coming from medical, practices medical best practices and what should we put in writing and what do we want to adopt I think that's a great idea.
[Graham]: Thank you, so I think in terms of next steps. As it relates to this conversation, I think there's maybe two components. One is to revisit the letters, and it sounds like maybe Ms. Fidler-Carey's team might be best to take a crack at what those letters might say and bring it back to this group for review, Superintendent, if you're in agreement with that. And then the other thing that I think we should do is we should bring these five policies to the school committee with a recommendation that this group will continue to work through policy revision on them. And so there are five that I was able to find. There's JEC, which is the high school class attendance policy. There's JED, which is the middle school class attendance and tardiness policy. There's JF-R, uniform registration and attendance. Then there's JHBA, the duties of the supervisor of attendance and JHB, truancy. So I think if my colleagues are in agreement, we would put a motion on the agenda to ask this committee to conduct the review of those five policies and recommend changes. So, Member Kreatz, Member McLaughlin, do you have any questions or comments on that?
[Unidentified]: Great idea.
[Graham]: Oh, sorry. Okay, Kathy. So can I ask one of you to make a motion to well actually I just had.
[McLaughlin]: Yeah, I did just have one question so we're gonna. So if I'm understanding you correctly you want to make a proposal to the school committee that we review the policies on the five or so policies on the current policy and make a recommendation to the school committee based on that. It doesn't have to go to like another like rules policy subcommittee, nothing like that. We make the policy recommendation. Correct. Yeah. So I make a motion that we move forward the policy review for the absenteeism and truism through the subcommittee to make a recommendation.
[Graham]: Okay, so motion by Member McLaughlin, seconded by Member Kreatz. Member Kreatz? Yes. Roll call. I'm sorry.
[Kreatz]: I'm a member of Laughlin. I was like, who?
[Graham]: A member grant, yes. Okay, so three in the affirmative, zero negative. We'll add that as part of the readout to ask the committee to make an official vote on that so that we can continue that work. And then Ms. Fidler-Carey, I will perhaps connect with you about the timing that you feel like you'll need to do your work before we're able to all come back together. The other piece of this conversation that I wanted to make sure we didn't run out of time for is the letter from Mary and Ryan that goes out at the beginning of the year and each year that it goes out, there definitely is a flurry of question and concern. When I looked on the DESE website, I could not see anywhere that required that a letter from the district attorney go out regarding absenteeism, but I wanted to confirm that with with you all that that is not a regulatory requirement that we need to comply with.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Past practice, I know that we've normally sent the DA's communication out to the community as well. You're asking specifically if we are required by DESE to send that communication as well. I can definitely try to, that's something I can find out because I know normally when we, receive communications from the DA's office, we always forward it to that constituency. Usually, it's to the secondary students. But I can work on finding out if that is an expectation. I can reach out to DESE and just see, do they feel, if it's coming from the district attorney's office, then you know, because the departments I believe work kind of in collaboration or in coordination, that I wouldn't think that a communication coming from, you know, one department would really be contrary or opposed to the other. Are you asking that we not send, only send communications that are required by DESE? Is that what you're recommending right now?
[Graham]: So I guess what I'm trying to understand is, what are we required to do? Because I think it's important that we're compliant. If I could like intuit the intent of that letter, it's to set the tone at the beginning of the year that we expect students to come to school and work hard, right? I think there are a thousand ways to achieve that objective without, threatening DCF involvement in your family, which is the feedback that I get from parents with this letter. So I think in the spirit of, and I am completely supportive of being proactive and setting a tone from the district that says these are our policies around attendance. Every single year so that people know what they are and know what to expect and they know the difference between an excuse and an unexcused absence and that definition probably you know it's likely to change over time, you know, as we have seen, but I think my question is, can we move to something a little bit more family centered. in our pursuit to disseminate our policy than a note from law enforcement. I feel like it just sort of jumps way down the line of severity when by and large, what we're trying to do is communicate what our policy is, and the letter itself doesn't actually communicate our policy. So we're sending this letter in a sort of big brothery kind of way, but what the letter doesn't actually do is help people understand what our policy is. So I think my question is, could we move to something that is more effective and less stressful to some of our families? And maybe that's something Ms. Fidler-Curry would be willing to work with us on, but member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Yeah, I appreciate that, especially working on a number of family and community engagement initiatives with the mass spec at the state level talking about, you know, sort of DCF and sort of the role that DCF plays and even trying to build family engagement around DCF and other other folks right like it's a really important and much needed issue. And when people hear that obviously there's a knee jerk response right like there's a that automatically makes the relationship strained between school and family, even, you know, under any circumstances, even if it's just sort of a process circumstance. So I do think it's an important issue to address, and perhaps if it's something that the DA does need to be looped in on for whatever reason that perhaps we're unaware of, it could even be just a further discussion with the District Attorney's Office on how to consider making that a more family-centered response from the District Attorney's Office, even as a way of introduction or you know, something and saying, is there, if there's anything we can do to support or whatever, but, and also stating the policy. So if there's a procedural, you know, process that we're unaware of that needs to happen for some reason that we don't know about that we can find out more about either through Megan or Dr. Maurice or the district attorney's office, then that said, it would be worth having a further conversation about how to make that more friendly.
[Edouard-Vincent]: And I was just going to say member Graham in response to member McLaughlin suggestion I the DA's office they speak with me frequently I work and participate in different things that they offer. So I definitely would be willing to present that feedback to the DA's office. As I was thinking about it and where you were talking about the letter being harsh and thinking just about, you know, the entire jurisdiction, when she sends out communications, it's not only like Medford, it's to like 52 cities and towns or something like that. It's a very, very large number. And so there are different things, of course, happening in different pockets. of the state. So again, some of the harsher language might be because it's going out to a much, you know, wider group of people. So I can definitely take that. you know, take that feedback and share that feedback so that we can look at making it more family friendly. But I do also wanna say that, again, it's a very, very small percentage in Medford, but sometimes we do, if we're not able, you know, through meeting with families and trying to, you know, have this active communication and engagement, On some occasions, or in some occasions, some situations and circumstances, we do have to involve the Department of Children and Families. So I don't want to pretend that, you know, for an entire district of 4,000 students, we never have to pick up the phone call, pick up the phone and make that call, because we are, as educators, we are all mandated reporters. So in some very, very few cases where we haven't been able to come to agreement and students with significant absences and we're not able, we do end up having to go that route, not often. It's the exception and not the norm, but it does happen in some, In some cases, so I do want to just you know be transparent in saying that. You know, especially with the work of our engagement team we work really, really hard trying to keep kids engaged not having students want to drop out and trying to make sure that they're coming to school. But in some cases, there are a small number that is kind of falling through the cracks. And we do have to sometimes take a stronger approach to address it.
[Graham]: Yeah, completely understood. And I think there's likely a way To have that letter authored by you that reflects our policies and our practices that you know handle like the majority of our students and the issues we're going to encounter in the course of a school year, and then provide a link to. DA Ryan's letter, which does include a whole bunch of legalese about the law around the requirements to send your kids to school. So I think it's important that we provide that information for those who are interested in reading it. I just think fronting with that information loses the message about partnership collaboration and what our policies are here in Medford. So I think there's a way to accomplish all those things as long as we are clear about what the requirements are. But I want the communication to be about what is happening here in Medford and what our commitments are to family engagement. And I feel like the current approach is like not quite getting us there. So a revision to that, I think would be welcome. Member McLaughlin, did you have your hand in the air?
[McLaughlin]: I just wanted to say the appreciation for what the superintendent was sharing about and I know that member Graham and members understand this as well. But you know those those children that can fall through the cracks I mean we see that harmony Montgomery case right how many times how many, you know that school really, you know, school school systems failed her, you know, and we don't want that to happen with any of our children of course so. are students, of course. So there is a fine line. But I do think the fronting piece is the piece that we really need to get across that this is a caring community. And you know, one that wants to support the families and have the family centered message, and then the additional information. So, but I can appreciate where you're coming from as well. Dr. Edwardson, thank you. Thank you.
[Graham]: And I think if we take a holistic approach to this letter and the 5, 10, 15 day letter that we were talking about, there's probably an opportunity to be progressive in how much of that information we are putting in each of those subsequent letters when we have families that we are really concerned about so that those things can be formally documented as well. So sort of considering all of that as a package of communication, I think is really important too. Okay, so in terms of next steps, superintendent, you will do a little bit of investigating about the requirement from a regulatory perspective. And Ms. Fidler-Carey, I will connect with you about timing in terms of our next meeting. And then we will put that resolution to review those policies on the school committee, the next school committee agenda. And then this group will reconvene at some point in the next few months. Any other questions or comments about topic number one.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[Graham]: So topic number two. The the resolution passed by the school committee is whereas the communications engagement and strategic planning subcommittee. met on 12-1-2020 to discuss the district communication strategy. And whereas during that meeting, the administration discussed goals for a new and comprehensive platform to manage communications and the need for a new website, be it resolved that the Family Engagement and Communication Subcommittee will meet to review the progress to date, understand current efforts, discuss future efforts, and identify funding requirements to meet the goal of having a cohesive communication strategy that meets the needs of families and the district. So I was hoping in this meeting we could hear some updates I think back in 2020, which does feel a little bit like a lifetime ago. There was a new, you all were considering a new platform which would have been implemented in the summer. of 21 that would have consolidated communications. And I just wanted us to start with getting a better understanding of where you all are in that process, whether it's been delayed or where we're at, so that we can think about the upcoming needs.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Yeah, so to your point, yes. And of course the pandemic did cause some delays, but there has been significant progress. There is a lot of work happening right now with the district hoping to transition to a new vendor, final site, a more robust vendor with greater capacities, greater flexibility. And so there has been significant progress on that front. And so at a future engagement meeting, we would love to be able to update you, the entire committee, on where we are currently in the work that we're doing. And we are hoping, significant progress has been made, but we are hoping to be able to launch this new site by the summer of 22. So this coming summer is our anticipated timeline of launching the new site. But we would love to be able to get that in front of you, you know, maybe in six weeks time or a month's time to be able to show this group the progress. I can say from what I've seen thus far, it's much cleaner, user-friendly, and very, very proud. Many of our vocational students have had the opportunity Graphics, Lisa Miller working with her students, our media students, adding videos. So there's a lot of student involvement, student engagement, I should say, in this new website platform. It's user-friendly. There is like a scope and sequence that they are working on for how we would be able to roll it out to the district and really work on significantly improving and increasing communication at a district level and providing families with more than one platform to hear and receive information about what's happening in the district. So I was really excited about the last draft presentation that I was able to see. And I think that this body will be equally excited to see that this is modern, it's sleek, it's clean, the pictures are vibrant, and it's logical. Very, very logical, very, very clean, very user-friendly, and You know, although the last website was a significant improvement from the original version. This new website that they have been working on is even significantly more improved than what we're accustomed to.
[Cushing]: Hello, I apologize. I'm in transit to get my daughter to soccer practice, so I apologize for not having my camera on. But I also wanted to say that as part of our district communication plan, we're actually right now working on a marketing communications plan to present probably to this group in the next meeting. We'll do some internal reviews and then be able to share out. That is spelled out in the strategic plan as something that we will have connected to the strategic plan. Right now, we use School Messenger as our mass communication system. And we were considering switching that up to go with another vendor. And one of the things, hold on one second, I apologize. So I apologize for that. But we're also looking because final site offers mass communication. text messaging, phone calls, emails, all the broadcast systems that right now reside with School Messenger. School Messenger, in my experience, as was just shown about three weeks ago when we put out some signs of suicide information, for some people that email came through fine, for a lot of people that email came through as massive when you were trying to look at the images. Hopefully, Final Sight's mass communication system will offer us a consistent platform to really work across that's connected to our website, connected to our social media feeds, and gives parents and community members a seamless experience of communication with their schools and their districts.
[Graham]: Thank you, Dr. Cushing. That was actually going to be one of my first questions, which was like, what is the scope of what final site is providing to us? So it sounds like we are planning to use their website platform for sure, and we're still considering the communications pieces, or have we already made that decision?
[Cushing]: No, it's under consideration. The issue with the communications systems and having worked with this previously, not the person responsible for it, switching that is not something to be taken lightly because when it goes wrong, your district loses the ability to get an emergency message out. So it's just something that we wanna make sure is done very thoughtfully, very carefully and has appropriate fail safes in place and that might just mean carrying over school messenger for a month or two while we onboard a new system to make sure that everything's working well.
[Graham]: Sure. The other questions that I had around some of the work that you all are doing in regard to the budget is I think it's wonderful that students have an opportunity to participate in this process, especially those in the related vocational teams, but students move on. And I do feel like we need to have a sustainable way to keep the integrity of our information where we want it to be. And I think in all fairness that putting that responsibility on students and in classrooms from year to year to year is not a way necessarily to do that. So I think one question I had is what sort of central supports are you all planning on so that we don't solely rely on students who have their own learning curriculum that they need to be worried about?
[Edouard-Vincent]: So I work Vincent. Yes, member Graham. Yes, I wanted to share that in this new iteration, it's definitely more built out more robust. One of the things that with this upcoming shift to a new more robust system, each school is going to have a lead technology support staff person affiliated with the new platform. So to your point of, you know, students will graduate those kinds of things. Yes, they will, but there's also going to be a much larger team that will be working directly with communications on a school by school basis. And so now we're going to have a broader school based communication team. So that is one shift that we are in the process of making for next for next school year. And we've already identified individuals that are highly skilled with technology and have excitedly taken on this charge to be part of this process as we are really trying to just evolve and have a truly comprehensive communication system. So I feel very encouraged by this new team of individuals that will also be helping to support and work with us in terms of communications. And will that team be
[Graham]: teachers or administrators? Like what is your vision for how folks in each of the schools will be like rolling into this effort?
[Edouard-Vincent]: So I was gonna say, oh, Mr. Murphy, did you wanna, you want to comment? Let me let Mr. Murphy.
[Murphy]: I'll just, to the superintendent's point, I mean, the choice to go with this new external vendor for the website is an attempt to professionalize our web-based presence. And in professionalizing that, a lot of work becomes a lot easier because we have essentially external, for lack of a better term, although this might actually be the correct term, customer service representatives from final site who are assigned to Medford and help manage the technical aspects of the work. So that takes that part of the burden that we've been shouldering off of our internal team. At the same time, it opens up new opportunities to communicate via these platforms. And to Dr. Cushing's point, hopefully a proliferation of platforms managed in a way that we can target, offer targeted messaging in when appropriate broad-based messaging. So that the school based team is essentially a one per building stipend in position to an internal staff member who's embedded in that school community and then can take direction from that school leader to make sure that there are timely relevant. and compelling updates so that all of our school communities are able to benefit from this investment we've made in the vendor. There will obviously, there'll still be a centralized component of that, that will function in coordination with the superintendent's office so that when we have organizational wide messaging, we're using that. But in terms of sort of how that work is divided up, it's a combination of the customer service personnel that are now essentially work for us as an outside vendor. and then the team of individuals who will be responsible for helping to manage their individual school communities' messaging. But their work, while they happen to, in many cases, be the technology teacher and has a certain level of familiarity and so on and so forth, it's really the principal's office that is responsible for sort of prioritizing and crafting that message. And then the modest stipend positions at each school are sort of doing the execution of that work so that we have a level of consistency across each of our school communities. Because if we just made this investment and told our school communities, okay, we've got a new website now, here's a how-to list as to how to post, you're gonna invariably, it doesn't matter if there's eight schools or 125, you're gonna have inconsistency. Some schools are gonna use the platform, some aren't. So this team, is gonna be, we're gonna be working with them in coordination with final site, so they have an understanding as to what our priorities are, what's the how-to, and then we're working with principals over the summer when we come back to school to make sure that they know that the reason we've made this investment is for us to improve our overall communication with primarily families, but all stakeholders.
[Graham]: Great, thank you.
[Murphy]: Thanks.
[Graham]: Member McLaughlin, Member Kreatz, do you have any questions so far?
[Kreatz]: No, this has been all very, very interesting. I really appreciate all the information that we've received today. Thank you.
[Graham]: Dr. Edward-Vincent, the other question I had is, you know, I think websites have two, like, important components. One is, like, the structure and the look and the feel, and the other is, like, the quality of the content. And I was curious if you could talk to us a little bit about how you have engaged families as you have called through content or what your plans are to engage families for feedback. I feel like I have heard from folks over time, particularly folks that don't go to Medford public schools and are trying to learn about us. I can't make heads or tails of the content on the website, so I'm just curious like what efforts there have been to actually engage families both inside and outside of the district.
[Edouard-Vincent]: So I think anecdotally hearing feedback, some of that feedback, like what you said, people trying is scrolling down, not knowing where the right tab is, where do you find something that this, the last draft that I saw, it is so much, when I say it was so much more streamlined, sleek and clean and user-friendly, it's, like the difference I'm not trying to make a commercial but between an Android and Apple, where, you know, Apple is kind of sometimes has the reputation of just being like more user friendly more intuitive. So that that piece of it is definitely. definitely readily available. And I also think the fact that we're now working with Final Sight, where we have access to, I think, more highly skilled individuals, people with greater expertise, that they have also been able to give really solid website feedback in terms of like, this is what needs to happen. But an actual pilot just yet or Maybe a survey or a platform with families, a meeting with families. As of yet, to my knowledge, I don't believe that that has happened yet because it's still in a draft phase, but I would definitely say when we have you know, the more corrected version presented to this body. And this body has an opportunity to kind of see it in action and, you know, give feedback. And maybe as that particular meeting is coming up, maybe to spend a little more time saying to families as well, please jump on this particular subcommittee meeting because we're going to be piloting or doing a demonstration of our new website that's expected to come in the summer of 22, and we're looking for feedback and create, you know, use this platform as an opportunity, or from that presentation, create, you know, an additional opportunity to get feedback and have people, you know, look at it and see the interface and say like, oh, this is excellent, or, oh, don't forget about something to consider. Is there a way to add X, Y, or Z before we try to take it live? So definitely open to that. to receiving additional feedback, definitely open to it.
[Graham]: Yeah, I think that would be great. I think it will be helpful for us to like publicize that opportunity in this meeting. And I think we would be probably like, I'm thinking likely to get folks within the district interested in like participating in that discussion. What I am curious about though, is like whether we would be successful in getting people who are not in the district to engage in this kind of a meeting and how we reach out to, and I don't have any particular suggestions, but how we reach out and find families. And I'm thinking specifically of the new families who are trying to think about, do I go to Medford Public Schools or do I try to get into a charter school? The charter school websites do a big job of making people feel compelled to engage in their charter school. And I think, by contrast, like our websites never sort of gone after that same aim. And so I think folks, you know, there may be some folks in the community who might be willing to chat with us informally or outside of a meeting, but I would be really interested in their feedback too, because I think there is a population of people who never like walk through the door that are also looking at our website. And I wanna make sure we're thinking about their input and feedback too. Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Yeah, I think this is a really interesting point and important point regarding families being involved in the process and, you know, there is the, the mass family engagement center. That's not far from here it's just in Charlestown but it's a statewide one and they offer lots of supports and services so I know, Miss fellow carry has done some training with mass spec. And I'm sure if there were, for example, what you're saying is, you know, whether there would be some folks who would consider looking at a pilot website with family community engagement feedback. I mean, there's a whole resource community at MassVAC that is just constituents that are all family and engagement coordinators and community members, but also families from other districts, you know, people that are looking and doing comparative analysis of family and community engagement across districts. So I definitely think it's something that, you know, If you guys are interested in having some feedback and looking at feedback, they'd be available to help support that too. They've been more than helpful in offering support, really trying to move family and community engagement forward across multiple districts. They've mentored programs, they have a whole bunch of things, but I think specific to the website and looking at sort of how to engage people. I just shared in the chat, the BPS example, that was from a Mass Effect training as well, but there's a lot of resources there too. that I'm sure we could capitalize on.
[Graham]: Thank you, Member McLaughlin. I think your chat comment also brings up a question about what our strategic plans are for the website in terms of language translation. And I didn't know, Superintendent, what the vision is there or what the roadmap is.
[McLaughlin]: And if, and if we can also decide accessibility to because there is a whole contingency around accessibility with, you know, not just language but around and I don't know I'm not an expert in this field at all but there are plenty that are around, you know, for people who are either vision impaired or, you know, hearing impaired any of those things there's there's certain standards that. You can go by when you're building and certainly the website people who know you know who are building. Some of them know it, some of them don't, but there are certainly experts out there who do so if I could just add that to member Graham language, language and accessibility.
[Edouard-Vincent]: So for languages, it definitely will be able to be translated into multiple languages. And I'll say a little spoiler alert. I was trying to keep some surprises, but I was really excited by the draft presentation that we got to see and the significant progress that was made. There is a plan to actually try to slowly roll out you know, multiple ways of communicating and where you were talking about accessibility. Not everyone has a computer or a desktop where they have access to that all the time, but almost everyone does have a good old cell phone. One, if not two, if you're lucky. And so we are definitely, this new platform will also have a component that is cell phone friendly. So from an accessibility in terms of access where, you know, I'm sure 97% of our community has access to a cellular phone. I'm sure that not only parents and caregivers, but also students, especially at the secondary level, because I know some elementary students may not have cell phones, but for our students as well, they would be able to download the app and have the downloaded app version of the website available so that they would be able to receive feeds and, you know, important pieces of information related to the school. So there is, um, you know, I gave a little bit of a spoiler alert but there are definitely a lot of additional functionality that isn't available. I also had asked about the text messaging option, which is critically important. When we just, you know, got off of the April break and you know, I got an alert for my child to just say don't forget to conduct your rapid testing it's Sunday. So something as simple as that a very, very brief text message that wouldn't take up that much space, but just another way for know to communicate with families it would be one-sided but it would just be oh remember this is happening in your building or this particular event is happening so really hoping to eventually get to that level of functionality where it doesn't only have to always be an email but you know all the time we're checking our text messages because we get a little alert and using that functionality again to be able to communicate with parents on timely events, not oversaturate their text message inbox with a million messages a day, but those particular messages where you may want to say, here's a little reminder, and you see it and you're like, oh yeah, I need to do this. communicate with them. So we definitely are in agreement. And I do feel the direction that we're moving in is really going to put us in a much stronger position to provide accessibility, language translation, and keep our families informed, and up to date on what's happening in the district.
[Graham]: Great, thank you. The other thing that I just wanted to mention, because it actually came up I was in another meeting last evening with some community members and when we talked originally about this topic we talked about sort of a stretch goal if you will that there would be some availability for our PTOs to engage on the messaging side of things in some way shape or form and I think at the time What we talked about is, you know, PTOs having access to be able to send emails and things like that in some fashion that would take advantage of folks who have opted into that kind of a communication, but require sort of one-stop shopping for families to submit their information. And then an actual platform for PTOs, there are some PTOs who, have and manage their own platforms, which is really time consuming. But, and then there are others, and I was talking to members of the community last night in communities where they don't have that. And so it's very, very difficult for them to engage their communities and create community amongst folks. So it's, you know, they sort of talk about the same usual set of suspects and it's just sort of a, bigger part of the conversation. So I just want to put that like bug out into the world so that as you talk with some final site, perhaps they have some options there as well that we could consider. And it is five o'clock and I don't want us to go over because I know Member McLaughlin and I both have another meeting to get to. So is there a motion to adjourn?
[McLaughlin]: And I just add one thing when you go to the website folks to just in terms of the accessibility. So there are options that can have you can just simple options like you can do image descriptions there are simple options where you can do text readers like they're embedded in the thing so that people who are not able to hear or see, you know, that kind of thing. Okay, thank you just making sure we understand. So motion to adjourn.
[Graham]: Motion to adjourn by Member McLaughlin, seconded by Member Kreatz. Roll call, so Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin? Yes. And Member Graham? Yes. Thanks, everyone. Three in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Meeting is adjourned. Have a good night. All right, bye, have a good night.
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