[Ruseau]: I'd be happy to go over the, you know, the Department of Ed's superintendent review process that we follow.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Sure, that'd be great. Thank you, Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: Okay, so the school all school committees are required to perform an annual review of the superintendent which is our sole employee as a school committee, and the state has over the last four years has changed, three times now, the evaluation system, the original system when I first joined was a. shockingly long and tedious system that, frankly, I can't believe it was ever allowed to go. But anyway, so they revamped it considerably in the second year I was in office, which was four years ago, three years ago, whatever it was. And then again, last year or the year before at the end of the year, they may get another major update. So we have changed our form that we use to match the state. They provide a long list of, well, a less awfully long list of categories that we have to evaluate the superintendent. Generally, at the highest level, there's really four measures. There's the instructional leadership, There's five subcategories within that. There's management and operations, and there are five categories within that. There's engagement, which used to be called family engagement, and frankly is, I think, mostly still, that's what it means. There are four categories within that. And then the fourth item is professional culture, which has six items. In the last update, this will be the first time we're doing this part of the evaluation. They also added the superintendent performance goals and while we've had those I think for four years. They were not included in the actual review until about a year and a half ago. Unfortunately, the state also doesn't seem to think it's important to tell us when they make updates. So that was a bit of a surprise this year that there was some updates that caused us to have to kind of run around and what caused me to have to run around and update all of our forms. So that's the high level, what the evaluation system looks like. There are very long documents that the state provides as well as our professional association on But on the evaluation system recommendations on how to proceed there's procedural steps as to when things happen and who does them, etc. Many, they're all recommendations. And because school committees very dramatically in. size as well as, you know, there's regional school committees with a lot of members. There are smaller towns that have, I believe, as small as three school committee members, but I only know of those that have five. So that there's just an enormous amount of variation in what a school committee looks like. So the guidance is rather broad. The other thing that is important to note is that each school committee member provides their own evaluation to a third party, which, you know, sometimes it's the secretary for the school committee, if there's a, I'm the secretary for the school committee, but in like, for instance, in Cambridge, the school committee has an actual administrative assistant, I forget their exact title, who's an employee of the school committee in addition to the superintendent and does not work for the superintendent. So in that case, the individual members send their evaluations to their executive assistant. Most school committees appear to choose a member of the school committee to serve in the role of taking evaluations because individual members do not evaluate the school committee. We actually sit and do it, but that's not the evaluation. The evaluation, just like all other work products that come out of the school committee, are based on a four vote majority or it didn't happen. So we each do our own personal evaluations and we put them in a pile and somebody, and in this case it's for Medford, it's the secretary of the school committee, compiles them, averages the numbers, takes the language feedback and actually tries to make it not sound too much like Melanie wrote it or Paul wrote it or try to make it sound like it's the voice of the school committee as well as to remove any duplication. Sometimes you know, all the members will say the exact same statement. Well, nobody wants to see seven of the same statements written into a review. So because the review is the review of the school committee, not the individual members.
[Unidentified]: So is there more that I should say? I don't know. I said a lot. I think that's good. Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. That was really helpful. I don't know if that's what Member Ruseau was thinking of from the macro perspective. I think that's super helpful for the process perspective. From the macro perspective, what I was thinking about was more specific to the superintendent and to the last year that we've all been through. So I just wanted to say it's been four years now that the superintendent's been with us. I was actually on the superintendent hiring committee. So I got to meet Dr. Edouard-Vincent back then during the interviews. So that was interesting to see the process and now being able to work together and collaborate. But I guess I just also want, or, and I guess I just also want to point out that it's been four years that Dr. Evey's been with us and two and a half of those years have been a global pandemic and a racial reckoning in our country. And so these have been really trying and very difficult times for everyone, and I want to make sure that we really appreciate that from the, from the start, because in addition to that, I want to point out, as I'm sure we know, but I wonder if the community knows, that Dr. Edouard-Vincent came in four years ago to a system that had been primarily a patriarchal system, frankly, and had been run for 30 years for the most part by another administrator. So all of that, I mean, imagine coming into any system as a new person taking over a position that had been filled for 30 years and run a certain way. And again, during a pandemic and a racial reckoning. So I would just like to start that macro macro view for the for myself and for the community. And then I would just welcome my colleagues to sort of offer a macro comment if they have any, just sort of big picture idea of like what this past year encompassed and coming back to school from a pandemic, you know, from remote, those sorts of things. So that's all I wanted to say. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Member McLaughlin. I think just to piggyback on that a bit too, from what we experienced as parents, as elected officials, prior to Dr. Edouard-Vincent coming on, I think was, and I'm gonna actually spin to the positive. I think the last four, especially the last two and a half years, the communication and the transparency have just been pretty great. Having a superintendent that emails all parents every week with updates in multiple languages is just really such an amazing thing to have as a parent and something I just want to acknowledge as a school committee member. Because I don't ever remember that that happening before and I think it trickles down I think that some of our principals have learned and grown from that and I know like specifically I will, you know, throw some of the administrators, some of my daughter goes to the glen some of Mr. two G's updates and messaging on certain things and. Dr. Marice Edouard-Vincent is always not only doing the same but she's very responsive when I'll say hey this is great messaging I wish all the principal would would deliver a message like this, what happens like hours later, it just gets done. It speaks to the transparency and the communication, which I believe is great. And I also think, you know, whenever I have emails or questions for the superintendent, very responsive, always willing to give a phone call to, I'm sure, every member. And I just think that's also a great quality. So just on the higher level, I wanted to piggyback on what you said, Member McLaughlin, to give a brief statement of some great things that are being done. and Democrats.
[Kreatz]: Yes, I'll make a macro statement. I wanna thank Dr. Edward-Vincent for her leadership. She supports all students, teachers, reading her goals and evaluation that her pre-evaluation. She's been to school events, community events, many, many meetings. She's, you know, she provides the, you know, you know, the weekly bulletin update every week, sharing the news, and, you know, just piggyback on what the mayor said and what Melanie said. It's, you know, she spends all of her time dedicated to the Medford Public Schools, the needs of the students, the community, the families, And she's responsive to the school committee members and our requests and our needs and at all hours of the day and she just she works tirelessly and so I just wanted to, you know, share that and I've, you know, was on the. I was on the superintendent search as well, you know, as a school committee member, and we, you know, got to meet superintendent Dr. Robinson at that time and just got to know her very, very well. And it's like we're a close family, everybody, the committee, the administration, the superintendent. And I just want to thank her for her dedication and her leadership.
[Unidentified]: Thank you, member Kreatz.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Do we want to go through the four categories and instructional leadership? Member Hays has her hand up, ma'am. Oh, I'm sorry. Member Hays.
[Hays]: Hi, thanks. I just wanted to say, too, given this is my first time going through the evaluation, It was difficult, I have to say, because there are, even though I understand from Member Ruseau that it's been actually streamlined by DESE, there still were 20 indicators that we needed to give an evaluation on or give some kind of feedback on. And looking back at some of the information from DESE, I think as we move forward, I know Member Graham has kind of started us on the path updating this process to more closely match what DESE has. According to DESE, we should be choosing like six to eight of focus indicators that we would really be doing our evaluation on, which I think makes a lot more sense in terms of helping us as a school committee and also helping the superintendent kind of focus on what our main goals are, even though, of course, she's always and we're always looking at the whole picture. You know, I think, I think as as member McLaughlin said, I think that when the new superintendent came in, I think there was hope for or expectation and possibly unrealistic, definitely unrealistic expectation of instant change and we're excited, we're going to make all these changes and kind of update a lot of policies, update a lot of curriculum, just everything. And not only I think was it probably the timeline that people were hoping for, unrealistic anyway, but then you throw in the pandemic and you know, the focus shifted and it had to shift and we're really still coming out of that. So, I wanted to make that point. And also just to make the point that I think anytime you do an evaluation of anyone, unfortunately, I think often you go towards the, I don't want to say negative, but you go to where there could be improvement. And it's also, you know, there's a lot of, I went through and made a list for myself of just all the things that have happened just this year, all the things that Superintendent has done. And there's a lot. a lot. And so I want to make sure that at least I want to make clear from my point of view, when I talk about areas where I see improvement, that we can make improvement or make growth, I don't see that as deficiencies so much as we're always going to have areas of growth. I mean, hopefully we're always striving for more. So I, you know, when we start talking about where we see areas that we could improve, it's, you know, a district improvement, it's certainly Also because the superintendent represents the district. It's improvements that we see are asking her to implement, but I just wanna, again, like I said, that idea of areas of growth and improvement versus deficiencies. So that's where my head is at in terms of the evaluation and the comments I made, and just wanted to say that. Thank you.
[Unidentified]: Thank you, member Hays. And member herself. Do you want me to get to read the review descriptions and all that stuff right now?
[Lungo-Koehn]: That'd be great. Thank you.
[Ruseau]: Sure. So, The being that is from DESE, they of course have more than one scoring system within a single review, because why not? So in the first top section, which is superintendent performance goals, which is on a scale of one to five, there is one is did not meet, two is some progress, three is significant progress, four is met and five is exceeded. And There's some wiggle room as to how many performance goals Superintendent can have. I think there's a minimum of three. I think, I can't remember the full description. Superintendent had four. The first one was elementary literacy, which is assessing early literacy skills and implementing interventions in literacy to improve outcomes by deepening teacher and principal knowledge of early literacy skills. This is considered the student learning goal. There's three categories. And the two focus indicators for this goal were elementary literacy and elementary mathematics, and the score, the average score was 3.69, which is 3.69, right? You know, that's what it is out of five. And Mayor, I'm not sure if we, do we want to read all of the, you've seen how many comments there are. I don't think there's so many that we couldn't read them, but I also don't want to just make the meeting longer than it needs to be.
[Unidentified]: So it's up to you. I don't know how many comments there are, so I'll take your lead.
[Ruseau]: Okay, well, why don't I read them at least for the superintendent performance goals, and then we'll see where we are in time and move into the... Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you. I was just going to ask maybe if we, I want to ask my colleagues, I don't know, do you want to read the performance goals first, and then we can comment if we want to after the performance goals, or did you want to do that? one by one in comment, or I'm wondering sort of what, again, back to process, what my colleagues are thinking. I'm fine with doing the four performance goals and then an opportunity for comments or questions, if that's okay with you, Mayor and colleagues, I don't know, or did people wanna stop on each one? That's what I'm trying to figure out, thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I think we can either ask questions as you have them or stop after each larger section. Member Rizzo?
[Ruseau]: Yeah, I mean, I certainly think... I mean, the opportunity for the school community to provide their feedback was what we've just completed. So, I mean, I... We don't have, in my mind, we don't have anywhere near enough time for us to each be providing our feedback on each of the 20 something items here. That was, I mean, and we received lots of feedback, which was integrated into the document. So we have one hour. We're not gonna get even into the performance standards if we each speak on our feedback on each of these. I think that's why. we're supposed to put it into the form and submit it ahead of time.
[McLaughlin]: Yeah, just a point of clarification. That's not what I'm asking, through the chair. So that's not what I'm asking. I'm just asking if we have questions when you want them, or comments when you want them. So if you want to do it after each segment, that's fine, but not on our individual comments. Thank you. Sure. Yeah, after each segment, after each five, set of five.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. So the first one, which was the elementary literacy, the comments from the committee were as follows, multiple families continue to express concerns regarding interventions and literacy, especially related to dyslexia. They feel disenfranchised by principals and teachers. They also feel they are, there are not enough reading specialists nor enough certified specialists. to meet any of their children, to meet many of their children's needs. Multiple families have shared concerns at the administrative level regarding this matter, but continue to feel concerns have not been adequately addressed. Additionally, we have under Dr. Edwards' instance leadership, the district has implemented continuing in-depth professional development and literacy for teachers K-2, assessments, NWEA map, and programs at Cree and K-2 to improve and enhance our students' literacy skills and our district's literacy outcomes, all while still dealing with ongoing impacts of the COVID pandemic. This has been a tremendous endeavor for teachers, principals, and administrators. At this time, data regarding the impact of these initiatives on learning outcomes and how teachers are using assessment results to inform their teaching has not yet been presented. I'm wondering if we also do we want to hear from the superintendent as we go I don't know how the superintendent feels about that, but it's just real I just realized we're doing a lot of talking, I'm especially doing a lot of talking you are not hearing from the superintendent at all, which I just keep.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah, why don't you keep keep reading and definitely have superintendent speak anytime she feels necessary or anytime a question is addressed.
[McLaughlin]: May I make a suggestion?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: Also, just, you know, again, so we're not hearing the same, but it also feels more collaborative. Perhaps we could take sections or take turns reading the comments so that It's not just all coming from one member in terms of the comments. So I just put that out there as well. I'm happy to do some of the reading or if any of the other colleagues want to, but I think that would make it feel a little less monotonous perhaps. So I would just make that recommendation.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay. So we'll just, member McLaughlin, maybe you can take the second section for us and then whoever else wants to volunteer. members.
[Ruseau]: Oh, I'll finish the performance goals. Okay. Second performance goal is the professional practice goal. And that is to develop skills in strategy development, data analysis and instructional leadership by completing the fourth extension year of the new superintendent induction program. There were two focus indicators the new There was one, it's just a crap, sorry. New Superintendent Induction Program is the focus indicator. And the score for that was 3.96, and the comments on that. I'm glad to see the induction program is complete. More information about data analysis and how this is being used for strategic development and instructional leadership would be welcomed. Dr. Edouard-Vincent demonstrates a substantial commitment to continued professional development and continued improvement in her role as superintendent. I hope to hear more about her learning in the induction program, about how the learning in the induction program has impacted her understanding of her role and actions she has taken in the areas of strategy development, data analysis and instructional leadership as a result. Would somebody like to take the district wide focus on instruction and assessment?
[Unidentified]: I can breathe. I can do it.
[McLaughlin]: Developing a district wide focus on instruction and assessment. So the overall score was a 3.69 and comments were would like to see more on differentiated instruction and universal design for learning to include all learners. We could benefit from the expertise of special educators working with general educators to create a library of sorts of differentiated material instruction. Don't feel the learning walks are as inclusive of all communities as they could be. Also wondering how the curriculum frameworks are being met in classrooms like access classrooms and out of district programs. The superintendent evaluation primarily mentioned professional development as a means of achieving this goal. However, professional development is a short duration activity. We need to see data and accountability on how these professional development topics are actually put into practice. Mention of the monthly coherent practice with principals, but not of how those leaders that incorporated that learning into their schools. If there's data on this, the school committee would welcome it.
[Unidentified]: I can read the next one if you want. Thank you, Member Grasshofer.
[Kreatz]: Okay. Maintaining a learning environment built upon the pillars of safety, equity, and consistency. The score was 3.77. There has been some progress and we have much work to do. Equity is perhaps our biggest need to address. Creating a strategic plan or goal around just this issue would be helpful. Defining equity would be a good start.
[Unidentified]: Members, oh, sorry.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Dr. Maurice, Dr. Edward-Vincent?
[Edouard-Vincent]: Yes, I wanted to ask for a little more clarification on the feedback for developing a district-wide focus on instruction and assessment. I was just hoping that the committee could tell me more about that.
[Unidentified]: And like, what would it look like? Member McLaughlin?
[McLaughlin]: Sure, thank you. I think that in some of this, it would look like general education collaborating with special education and others, so that I know that there's some levels where there's co-teaching happening in some of the classrooms, but not across the district as a whole substantially. And for example, I know Susanna Campbell and Joan Bowen had worked collaboratively with other teachers on differentiated programming and creating a library that's available on our website for some lesson planning that's differentiated, but I'm not sure or it's unclear what's been done in terms of PD for universal design for learning and how that's actually being incorporated into the classrooms. And then in the learning walk, sort of, you know, looking at the curriculum frameworks and how they're being used across the district and also in other districts. So for example, we know we have certain curriculum at certain levels, so elementary, middle school, high school sort of curriculums, but is it the same curriculum that is being used in the special education classrooms? If so, how are they being differentiated? If not, what is the curriculum and how does the superintendent know what the curriculum is? whether we're having high standards for all children, even children that potentially are taking MCAS ALT and don't affect our data scoring. Personally, I think that that could look like curriculum meetings with special education and looking at as a whole. We also have as a responsibility as a district, I understand, Or I've recently understood that we are required to look at curriculum, particularly for our collaborative, and seeing what our collaborative partnerships are in terms of curriculum. That's part of the school committee's responsibility with DESE, from what I understand, but also the superintendent. So I guess I would venture to say, can the superintendent say clearly what curriculum, if any, is being used in these other classrooms? how curriculum is being differentiated for all learners. Again, students with learning differences, but also, you know, students at all different levels, project based learning, what have you, and what that looks like in a variety of programming. So, you know, from the access classroom to the connections to the EL classrooms to to our out of district programs? Do we know what the curriculum is and how are we sort of trying to make sure that we have high standards for all? So again, what would that look like? I think it would be, again, learning walks through those environments and also working with your directors in those examples. So your directors of our collaborative, your directors of our special education, your directors of our EL and looking at how is the curriculum really manifesting across those different strands in terms of really embedding equity. and those in having high expectations for everyone. So I hope that was helpful.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Thank you. It was helpful. Mayor?
[Graham]: Member Graham? Can you hear me okay? Yes. Okay. I am having some internet challenges today, which is why I'm on multiple devices here. I wanted to comment on the comments about PD and how that fits in in terms of, and I think sometimes the question is like, how can we observe that this is happening. And I think PD is a good example. So, you know, we get a laundry list essentially when PD is conducted of, you know, oodles of topics being offered. What we don't ever see is how many people attended each topic. If there were ones that were mandatory, like what was our compliance percentage? And as importantly, like, I think we've seen at times information about like, what did the smile sheet say essentially, which is like, what did the learner say immediately after class about whether they liked it or not, which is why it's called a smile sheet. But I think from an outcomes perspective, like what we don't see is based on the PD, what are we expecting to happen? And how can we, see that actually happening. So, and I think, you know, we hear criticisms from the teachers all the time about meaningful PD and wanting more meaningful PD. And I think one facet of that question is like, what is the application immediately in a month, in two months, in three months that we're expecting. And then can we measure that? Are we seeing that happen? That to me is information that I think would help the school committee and certainly the community understand like we're having these PD days and this is what's happening in them, which is good. That's like good reporting and accounting of the facts, but then how did, How was that investment realized in practice. So what is it that we're expecting to see? And more importantly, did we see it when we expected to see it? And I think, you know, when you talk about evaluating adult learning programs, those are the kinds of measures you wanna be talking about. I'm not a huge fan of going all the way to the like level five ROI extreme, because I think that's like requires a level of, uh, machinery that we don't have. And honestly, um, it has limited use, but I think there are like, is this being integrated into the job kinds of measures, outcomes, expectations, et cetera, that would help us understand beyond like the fact that we offered 40 things on the professional development day. What, what did we see in the aftermath of those 40 things?
[Edouard-Vincent]: Thank you member Graham. So, I just wanted to ask member Graham. So where you were talking about. Would you recommend, are you, are you saying that you're recommending that we reduce the number of professional development opportunities because we do the smiley sheets we do try to get feedback in real time, but also sometimes I think it depends on the content of what they're receiving professional development in. So, for example, this year, when we launched the new math program, the teachers will be receiving professional development in how to use this math programming. So over the course of the year, we'll be able to see, you know, their level of comfort. It's going to take time because it's completely new content, but all elementary teachers will be participating in that professional development. So I just wish, just as I'm jotting some notes, I'm just trying to find out if you're suggesting that as we do the professional development and have teachers provide feedback on the quality of professional development, the accountability piece of seeing whether or not the professional development is actually taking place. that would have to happen based on classroom observations and how the students are performing. Are they grasping the content or not? And so I don't know if it's something like that. So I just was going to ask you for a little more specificity if possible.
[Graham]: Sure. So I'm not in any way suggesting less professional development. quite, quite the opposite, actually. But what I am suggesting is that, you know, we can't, like, we can't, we don't know, like, if you offered 40 things, right? Yes. On a professional development day, like, is there something that is mandatory? I think usually the answer is yes. And if it's mandatory, like, what was the compliance rate? Like, how many people participated in the class? And are we like, Are we making mandatory the things that we truly believe are mandatory. But, and I, and I think then there's like the more elective side of the house right with which I love because it gives all our teachers an opportunity to say, this is the thing that I'm dealing with in my specific classroom and so I'm going to go to that I love that idea. which I think makes, because we have such a broad offering, it does make it harder to quantify our outcomes everywhere. But I do think quantifying our outcomes somewhere in the process for some portions of the PD would be really valuable. And I would honestly start with the things that we think of as requirements. Are they effective and and finding out if they're effective could be about classroom observations, it could be about querying staff 30 1690 days out like there's a variety of ways to be able to check in and say. like this was in fact a good investment because the last thing we want is for to bring in a facilitator who is going to like help with the new math curriculum that basically 30 days out all the teachers say you know what that did not prepare me for what I did in the last 30 days. I think we want to know that because we wouldn't want to do that again and I don't feel I feel like right now that information sort of anecdotal at best and certainly not information that comes to the school committee.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Okay. Thank you for that.
[Unidentified]: Thank you. Member Ruseau? You're muted, Paul.
[Ruseau]: Whatever I was saying. Thank you. Whether or not there's less PD or not, it's not the size of the pile, it's what's in the pile that matters. We have the same conversation around the testing we do of students. We want to get rid of testing that's duplicative or not serving to do anything other than take up more days of taking away instruction to sit and do testing. For me, it's the same idea. And we did put into our policy last year on annual reports and presentations that we would get an annual report that includes, I think, all the items that Member Graham just said, whether it was mandatory or optional. spending data, like what did it actually cost, and whether it was in-house or external provider, and participation rates. So, I mean, I feel like when we hear that there is not enough professional development, and then we see the list, It's these two things do not, they just don't make sense together. And what I think is going on is the teachers are saying that the professional development they get isn't what they need or want. And so I may have just beat this to the death, so I'll stop talking. Sorry.
[McLaughlin]: Mayor, I was going to say, point of order. Can we get back to order? Thank you. Not anything on any members, but I agree if it's for 42. and we have to get through the rest of them. I'm happy to read the next one if you like, or if someone else wants to. Yes, that'd be great. Thank you. Okay. So now we're moving on to the superintendent performance on standards. So there are a number of standards with subcategories. So standard one is instructional leadership. And under that, there's a 1.1 curriculum, 1.2 instruction, 1.3 assessment, evaluation and data informed decision making. So those items are sort of the subsets of the larger instructional leadership items. So if it's okay, I'll just read standard one with those items and then maybe another colleague can raise their hand for standard two and we can hopefully cruise along. So standard one instructional leadership, the overall score was 3.01. They were three paragraphs of comments. Basically, again, wondering if this is happening with special education and programming curriculum out of district placements, whether all students are in a proximal zone of learning. Are they getting age appropriate grade level instruction through curriculum throughout, of high standard curriculum throughout our schools? Dr. Edouard-Vincent's commitment to improving curriculum and instruction at MPS is clear. There's much work to be done. The work happening at the elementary level is evident across literacy, science, and math. Commitment to math excellence at all levels is clear. There remains opportunity at the secondary level to focus on remediation of students in literacy and math in particular. where elementary experience was not the same as today's standards. There's more action needed to bridge gaps because of the pandemic that existed both before the pandemic and certainly were exacerbated through the pandemic. The K-12 health curriculum needs to be a significant focus in the next year. It's not implemented consistently. and pandemic-related gaps are not closed. The elementary curriculum is not up to par, and the current curriculum does not adequately reflect focus on all the aspects of health expected from a modern, comprehensive health curriculum. I would also add, if I could just add the ring here a little bit, maybe we can add it in, is that there's nothing for special education in terms of the health curriculum as well, differentiated health curriculum. A focus on instructional leadership needs to branch out from just the core curriculum areas that are covered by MCAS testing. So again, not just focusing on the MCAS testing curriculum levels, but across all instructional levels. A health curriculum that's taught by appropriately certified professionals that covers all areas of health, inclusive of sexual and reproductive education needs to be a focus in the coming year. Sexual and gender minorities do not appear to be receiving appropriate health curriculums that is inclusive of their needs. And again, I would add the same for disability and perhaps EL, I'm not sure. This topic has been brought up many times, but continues to not receive attention it deserves for the health, safety, and happiness of our students, not covered by the heteronormative health curriculum. I'll also add DESE just modified their health curriculum frameworks. It was something like from 1999. So it's something that's a state level issue as well, but definitely needs to be looked at. And then under curriculum, the score is 3.07. So the score for instructional leadership as a whole was 3.01, curriculum was 3.07, instruction 2.96, assessment 3.11, evaluation 2.94, and then data-informed decision-making 2.97 with a comment. This is happening as it's published on the DESE site, et cetera, but growth data, student learning, et cetera, is not something that's shared with school committee or public. The SE and public would appreciate more reporting on our data, even if it's merely included in our meeting packets as informational. So if someone wants to take standard two,
[Kreatz]: I can take standard two.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Okay, I'll wait for you to go through all of them and then ask the questions at the end.
[McLaughlin]: Can I may or actually can I ask if it's okay for Maurice to ask the question. Because I'm afraid I'll forget as if we move on to the next one so if we could just stay in that at least a subset with all those categories.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yep, Dr. Edouard-Vincent, then we'll have in the member credits is offered to read management and operations.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Okay, just, I wanted to say, as I read the feedback under instructional leadership that I did agree with the feedback that I know that there is work that needs to continue to be done where it was talking about the secondary level remediation for students in literacy and in math, especially trying to close the gaps from the pandemic. And so I definitely, in agreement with the feedback that's being shared, I just wanted to offer that as we think about layering the different programs, K-12, one of the things that I'm always trying to balance is like the caseload, the workload on the teachers, because if in fact we end up I'm introducing too many different topics at the same exact time, then you don't have time to really go deep and fully understand like we when I got here we adopted the fast science and now we just adopted the math and We're looking at the literacy as the third program. And so I just wanted to share that I am trying to balance how much is a reasonable amount of new content new programs to be able to present. to the teacher. So that is part of why there isn't this let's go whole hog and change everything all at once, because it's overwhelming. The teachers need to have time to learn the new programs and then to be able to teach it. So I just wanted to say that I did agree with that feedback, but I just wanted to provide a little context as to why I wasn't trying to go faster at a faster rate because I truly don't want people to feel stressed or overwhelmed that it's too many programs happening all at the same time that they're not able to fully process it. And for the data informed decision making. My hope is now that we have NWEA and where you were talking about growth data. Yes, this was the first year. And so we never had a data system in place. So my hope is to continue to show the growth, which is what I had presented a few weeks back, that we want to see where students are starting, whatever their starting point is, whether they're a student with disabilities, whether they're an English learner, where they start and where they end the school year, are they showing growth? And so as a district, we were showing growth, that we were hitting at least 50% at almost every single grade level. We were above the 50th percentile. So I'm hoping next year as we have our second year of using an additional assessment system, because the MCAS again, you have to wait a year to get that, that that's gonna help. So those are just my only two comments. Thank you.
[Kreatz]: Thank you. Okay, so I'll start on standard two, management and operations. The score was 3.15. There is feedback under several of the sections under standard two. So I'll read the feedback for standard two, and then I'll, you know, continue on with the score for each other. subset and read the comments for that. So standard two management operations 3.15. The changes to the budget this year were effective and efficient. The committee was able to get a comprehensive view of the priorities and discuss in a positive and productive manner. The state of the district system is poor. By systems, I'm referring to processes, technology, and people that comprise the foundation and infrastructure on which the district runs. There needs to be people There needs to be. I'm sorry I'm just missing my spot. There needs to be considerable focus, moving forward and prioritize a well run set of administrative functions without improvements on the administrative side of the house, the districts continued improvement in curriculum, and instruction will be limited compliance with school committee policy is low. And in the case of out of out of school suspension policy inadequate. The committee proactively provided an extensive amount of planning time as the administration to come back to us with any changes that they felt would be needed to operate operationalize the policy. and to articulate what financial supports are needed. None of this occurred. Students appear to be regularly suspended this year, which is complete conflict with the policy set forward by the committee. As another example, the committee also adopted policy that outlines regular reports, and went throughout the school year, we expect to receive them. There has been no acknowledgement of or accounting for those reports this academic year. 2.1 environment the score was 2.97. We are beginning to evaluate operational systems in a district that has long been without. The next one was 2.2 2.2 human resources management and development score was 3.24 a standard report of other school committee committees receives is the personnel report continuing hires termination leaves of absence workers conversation and other positions. This report is invaluable for understanding the state of the organization. This report is received monthly, or more often other districts, while it is understood that due to disconnected software systems. This report cannot be generated without substantial work effort. And that's we have not pressed for this report. There does not seem to be a plan to replace this disconnect software system, so that the administration can begin providing this critical report. This report is more than nice to have. It is considered mandatory and members of other school committees are shocked we don't get this report. Identifying a path forward to replace the software systems or connect them or merely to fund some kind of a project to make these reports easily generated is something we would like to see. So this is critical report can be generated and supplied to the committee is something we hope we can start in the coming year or two. Then we have 2.3 scheduling and management information systems. The score was 2.84. There are still multiple calendars throughout the member public school system. These multiple calendaring systems, which do not speak to each other result in predictable failures, such as double booking of spaces. This issue has risen to the forefront numerous times. The committee has made clear our desire for a single calendaring system, or at least some of the operationalized method to ensure the problems of the multiple sources of truth is resolved and to improve transparency about who was using our space and for non-NPS affiliated groups, what they are paying for the space. And law ethics, 2.4, law ethics and policies, the score was 3.11. 2.5 fiscal systems, the score was 3.56. And the overall score overall was 3.15 for standard two management and operations.
[Unidentified]: Thank you, Member Kreatz.
[Lungo-Koehn]: We have standard three engagement. A little small on my computer, but I guess I could try. 2.66, family and community engagement needs improvement across NPS. While we made gains early in the pandemic, those efforts of collecting feedback, hosting Q&As and roundtables, and providing substantive updates have not Continued in general, our public relations efforts are low. For example, the website redesign is being undertaken with no stakeholder involvement, which is likely to mean that it will miss the mark of expectations for students and families. Going forward, I'd like to see Superintendent focus on creating a district-wide culture of communication and engagement at every level of the organization. engagement 2.54. We have a lot of work to do.
[Ruseau]: Yes, Member Ruseau? Sorry, the updated version that I sent later in the day had more comments, and I see that you don't have them right there. Let me just, want me to just read the rest of the comments for that item? Sure. Because I know you don't have them in front of you. Dr. Ed Robinson is actively engaged in both the school community and the wider Medford community. She attends many school sports and cultural events, as well as many city-sponsored events, often during after-school hours and on weekends. This involvement in student and community activities is valuable in helping families and students and their families feel supported and welcomed by MPS and MPS administration. This year saw the hiring of re-engagement specialists, a position newly created on June 20, 2021. These initiatives to foster relationships with MPS students and families who have less engaged with the schools, increased opportunities for two way communication with students and families has needed communication that is focused on district learning initiatives, as well as community building students and families need more consistent opportunities to provide feedback, ideas, and concerns both in person and through surveys. I also hope to see the superintendent's Friday update email, which has been a consistent and important method of communication with the community, evolved both in format and content. I did send all the members during this meeting the update, which I realized I only had sent to Suzy, so my apologies.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yep, I have the update version up now.
[Unidentified]: Thank you. We can continue. 3.1.
[Lungo-Koehn]: 3.1 engagement, we have a lot of work to do in effective family and community engagement. The district has an FCE audit done through a state run process in 2020, 2021. The outcome of the audit was that there was not commitment to the time it takes to build FCE throughout the district. When I've offered the opportunity to continue with the outside FCE consultant at no cost, the district somewhat ironically declined due to lack of time and resources. Sharing responsibility, 2.56. Communication, 2.79. Good to see the weekly communication, but this is a one-way communication. You need two-way communication culturally proficient that goes beyond a curriculum night or weekly newsletter. Family concerns, 2.76. We have work to do in responding effectively, equitably, and efficiently to families and community. As the audit indicated, we do not appear to have any provide feedback care system in place. This results in email being the sole method, which is both highly time consuming, but also a method that allows for any analysis of what is received. Surveys repeated over time can yield valuable information about trends and highlight changes in how well we are doing and in the needs of families over time. Does somebody want to take over as standard for professional culture?
[McLaughlin]: I was wondering if we can comment on If I can raise my left one. Thank you. I just wanted to comment and I'm happy to read the professional culture. Next, but I just wanted to sort of comment on the family engagement piece because I think it's an important one that. sort of was one of the lower scores, needs improvement sort of score. It was in between the, a little bit more than a two point, it was a 2.66. So not quite there yet with a three. And I just think that that's something that, you know, while we have a new department and, you know, that department's growing and frankly, you know, from member Hays' perspective at the beginning of the meeting as well, there's just been so much that has been done compared to the previous administration around this, just like thinking about, materials being translated that hadn't before, and a family and community engagement, you know, liaison that we didn't have before, just so many things that have been done. So I do want to say that as well. But I do think that this is a huge area for improvement. And there's lots of opportunity here. And we have so much expertise in the community, both families and community organizations. community organizations where we could really build community-based schools and be able to leverage a lot of the resources that are there. So I just sort of wanted to expand on that a little bit. And also just in terms of communication with other more marginalized communities. For example, I know that Talking Tools is a software program that I believe that Paul, Director Paul Teixeira uses, and that the district has access to that. And it was something that I was speaking with him about, even in terms of having the superintendent and school committee members have access to that, talking points, so that we could actually talk to people who are not English speakers in their native language, that we could text with them, and that it could be translated. and vice versa. And so I know that they've been using the Talking Points app, and it's been super successful with the EL teachers. And I would say, why could that not be expanded to, again, the superintendent and potentially school committee members, so that we're thinking about how we're engaging our more marginalized communities, because it does seem all too often the emails are from the same people. the same people are at the table, the same people come to the meetings. And I would really like to see that disrupted. I'd really like to be able to work collaboratively in figuring out how we can really engage families. So that was just the feedback I wanted to offer. And I was wondering if Dr. Edouard-Vincent has anything to say on that.
[Unidentified]: Thank you. Mayor. Dr. Edouard-Vincent, thank you.
[Edouard-Vincent]: As I was looking at the feedback, I think I was surprised and a little taken aback at the engagement rating. And so I guess one of the things that I am, when I have the opportunity to be with families and I talk with them, Many, many times families have said to me how appreciative they are of the weekly communication and realizing, feeling like they are aware of what's happening within the district globally. And in our weekly communications that go out to the entire school community, when appropriate, we do include whether it's CPAC announcements or other types of things that are happening on the community or city side, we do try to include those events to broaden the stakeholders who may be looking at it. So I guess I was just gonna ask for, I looked at the feedback, and I know where On bullet 3.3 about one way communication we do translate all of the communication that we send out, we have invested in talking points as a district. So I do know. there are opportunities for teachers to communicate as well with some of our families that are ELs, where English is not their first language. So I do feel like we have tried to be consistent at least and having one format or a way of communicating with families. And so I don't know, you know, specifically, but if other members wanted to just speak to some of the pieces under engagement. And as a district, we made significant investment in our engagement specialists, which again, are another layer that didn't exist before, but we added that whole department to really try to meet the needs of some of our most vulnerable students that may in other situations be falling through the cracks. So I just was hoping to get a little more feedback or clarification on that overall rating. Thank you.
[Unidentified]: Member Ruseau? Thank you. I mean, so, you know, this review is
[Ruseau]: superintendent review, but it's a review of the school system, because we don't get to review principals and assistant superintendents. So, I mean, I think that your personal communications that are going on on Friday are in fact, excellent. And, you know, I remember early on in the pandemic, I think, when I provided some feedback on the formatting, and you took it and you improved it. And that I think is not in my mind this is not what this relatively low score is about it's that you know you're one person um and frankly I think your communication that's going out on Fridays is great and it couldn't be better everything could be better but um but you are not all of the other people that should be communicating out and that's where I feel like I see weaknesses in um consistency, which is a huge, you know, is one of your principle, I forget the word I'm looking for, but consistency is critical and important. And at this point in time, it seems like to the large extent, principles and other people who are communicating out to families are on their own. And I recognize that there's not a public relations or marketing office to draft templates for everybody to use and find out what all the various communications that go out in a year are and make sure that they're consistent and using the right language and translated ahead of time, frankly. I mean, a lot of the communications the district sends out are not unique. Like every year they're the same communications with tweaking dates and places and names. And yet, is there a giant folder in somebody's computer or office that everybody's pulling from? My sense is the answer is no. And so for me, that's why this score is, I mean, obviously this is not just my score, it's everybody's scores average together, but having a consistency all the way from the top to the bottom, is creates cohesiveness. It ensures that we are all using the right language. And that's for me why I think that this area has an enormous area for improvement.
[Unidentified]: Member Graham.
[Graham]: Thank you. I think the other, a couple of, I'll say sort of small examples of what we're talking about here come to mind.
[Unidentified]: Member Graham, I can't hear her anymore. I believe member Graham froze.
[McLaughlin]: Do you guys want me to read the next one and when member Graham comes back on she can comment? or not, ma'am.
[Graham]: I'm sorry, can you hear me?
[Unidentified]: Now we can. Can you all hear me now? just now.
[Graham]: Okay. Sorry about that. I do not know what's happening with my internet today, but it's like flaking in and out on different devices at different times. So that's why you see me keep popping in and out of the meeting. So I can give you a couple of examples. So on the same day, I got several things home from Lucas's class. And one of them was a permission slip about, had the Procter and Gamble video that we use as our health curriculum for fifth graders. And it said, you need to return this to us. And there were options to opt in or opt out. I explicitly had a conversation about aligning our strategies and prostheses there to what Desi says, which is we can, and frankly should, provide opt-out language for parents who want to opt out. But I was left with the question of, what if I don't send this back? Did all of those kids also miss the the tiny little sliver of health curriculum that we've got for them. The second piece of paper was a permission slip for Junior Olympics, I believe. It had the wrong dates. It asked for volunteers, although Most of like, we never actually got any communication about what that meant. And then I forget what the third piece of paper was on the same day, but there was like another similar communication issue. And I just look across like all of those things, and they're all very small, but the small stuff really matters. And I want to point out that we do have a public information officer, I would like to see us think about the culture of communication in the district in total, and really think about how do we improve, much along the lines of what Member Ruseau said, how do we improve not just how the superintendent communicates, because that is unequivocally better than under our past superintendent, but all the ways that we communicate from small to tall, There's wild inconsistency and the barrage of forms that come home at the beginning of the year that ask for the same information in triplicate. The fact that a week before school starts, there will be a litany of repeatable questions about buses that will appear on social media. Those are all indicators that we have work to do.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. So we have professional culture. OK.
[McLaughlin]: Sorry, hold on one second. Make sure I'm having on. Professional culture.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I don't make sure I'm on the right before we go to professional culture. These these were merged, so they're not specific comments for every now. These are emerged, correct? Yes, because I did put some positive things in there and I I just don't see much.
[Ruseau]: Let me go look at your review. I'm sorry if I missed them. I did miss a number of days earlier. No, that's OK.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I just feel like we should be pointing out the good things, too. Agreed.
[McLaughlin]: Do you want me to reach standard four, Mayor? Please. Standard four, professional culture. This is 2.88 overall. And then we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6 subcategories. But interestingly, one, two, three, four of the six subcategories don't have any comments. So I actually have some questions on them because I wasn't sure from colleagues. But professional culture 2.88, the superintendent should focus on relationships building in order to further her objectives around curriculum and instruction. I'd like to see her build strong relationship with teachers and staff and begin to reverse decades of mistrust and non-collaboration that have been present in MPS. Concern about the climate and culture of high school and would like to see action to address the structural ways our organization hinders progress on achieving a positive climate and culture. The organizational structure is not optimal and needs to be significantly overhauled in order to see alignment with student achievement goals that will close gaps and serve children. School committee is available to collaborate, support, and provide resources. This work is difficult. We'd like to see more effective collaboration with the school committee and other stakeholders to move the strategic vision forward. There's been examples of cultural proficiency issues at various places in the district this year. For example, a dress code at the high school that indicate there's more work to do to create the kind of environment that we all wish to see for our children. Through her own continued professional development and the many professional development opportunities she's implemented for administrators, teachers, and other staff. Dr. Edouard-Vincent demonstrates a strong commitment to continuous learning and high standards in the area of communication. Dr. Edouard-Vincent has implemented, continued some valuable systems of communication with families, Friday emails, and staff learning walks and listening tours. While these are a good foundation, there's not enough evidence that they are being consistently and fully utilized as a means to inform and involve these groups in order to advance the work of the district. Commitment to high standards 3.37 high standards are only high standards if they're consistently applied work to be done to ensure high standards are universally applied throughout the district. The places where our standards need improvement are mostly known and therefore it's the willingness to act on those challenges across the district that appear to be the difficulty. For cultural proficiency 2.87, communications 2.69, continuous learning 2.87, shared vision 2.84 managing conflict 2.64 perhaps it's the pandemic and the ongoing disagreement and dissent but the superintendent could be more direct and a stronger leader when it comes to this standard managing conflict. And then mayor if I can ask a question on the professional culture or sort of if I could raise my hand if Yes, yes. Thank you. So for professional culture sort of as an overall standard, the way I just sort of want to explain the way that I saw the standard for professional culture was more about the again, because we're evaluating the superintendent and not the whole district. It was more about how the district and teachers and staff and others are all interacted in communicating with each other. And I do think that we have a some professional culture concerns around, what's the word I'm looking for? sort of a, I guess there's sort of a negative environment right now. And I don't know if that's an artifact of, you know, sort of whatever this post pandemic phases or pre post pandemic phases or what have you, but we definitely have, you know, a low mood at the schools, if you will. And so that's one of the things that I saw this particularly as, and I just want to be really clear around the cultural proficiency piece, which is under the professional cultural culture, which was a 2.87. I just want to just make a point here for me that that is not, in my opinion, what some might view as cultural proficiency as a whole in that professional culture. So in other words, I think Dr. Edouard-Vincent has done a tremendous job bringing diversity to our district in terms of reminding us all, why diversity is so important in our district, why equity and inclusion is so important in our district. And that cannot be easy for a woman superintendent, who also happens to be a person of color, coming into a district that's been very traditional to have to do. So lifting that weight all this time, I'm sure, has got to be really difficult. And I just want to say that from the Haitian Flag Day to the The weekly, I mean, the school committee updates when the superintendent is very inclusive of different events, not only in the community, but nationally, the need for hiring diverse staff, all of those things I think have been exceptional. So I just wanted to sort of make a point here that I feel like there was some, again, and this is an artifact of DESE, I think there's some embedded names in here that I'm not sure necessarily go with culture and proficiency under professional culture. And again, I think that might be an artifact of a privileged system, frankly. So I just wanted to put that piece out there that I think Dr. Edouard-Vincent has done a lot, and it can't be easy in that realm. And I just want to let her know how much I appreciate her for that.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Thank you, Member McLaughlin. If I could, from the chair, my comments, I guess, didn't go through or So I just want to point out disagreement and dissent where, you know, I'm talking about managing conflict. I gave the example in my review on something that I thought brought, you know, a lot of disruption and conflict to the city, but how the superintendent and her team handled it with such grace and did a fabulous job. And, you know, it is a touchy subject. We didn't renew. a contract, but, and people were very upset. They had questions, they had concerns, yet it was a matter that really couldn't be discussed. Um, so what the superintendent did was make sure she brought in, um, families at a meeting and she, you know, with, along with her team brought in families to really listen to, um, get their concerns and ideas and questions out on the table. And then at the same evening or the night after, you know, brought in faculty and staff to really talk through it and to work together, put a, I know a good hiring team together to make sure everybody had a seat at the table. And I just think the plan that was put in place and how it was executed was pretty amazing. And I just want to point that out because that's how, you know, we got through such a tough situation. It could have been a lot more on our backs and our shoulders, but it was handled the best way it could, in my opinion. And I just think that should be added to the comments. That's where I, when I saw managing conflict, that's the first thing that came to my mind, because I feel like 2.64 is just extremely low. You know, there is conflict in our community. There's conflict in the, United States conflict in the world, but that's not the superintendent's, you know, complete responsibility to solve. I think when you talk about managing conflict within the school atmosphere, that was something that probably was the biggest thing I can remember in the last two years, other than, you know, dealing with the pandemic. And I just feel like Tempers were calmed down and everybody had a seat at the table and was heard and involved however much or little they wanted to be. And I just want to commend the superintendent for that.
[Unidentified]: Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. I'd like to make a motion to amend 4.6 conflict management, the feedback to include the feedback that the mayor just provided and asked that the mayor just send me the language that she just said, or previously says she had in her review. It did not come across to me, I did go and look, but I don't doubt that she wrote it, so.
[McLaughlin]: And may I ask member, through the chair, that any other, obviously, I think it's obvious, but just wanted to be sure that any other comment is included. And thank you for putting this all together through the chair, member Ruseau. I did it last year and it's time consuming and tedious. And so thanks for putting it together. But if any other comments could be added, and then if it's okay to just rename the evaluation as updated or final or something like that. So when we're deleting the other ones, we're not getting confused about what we have and what we don't, that would be super helpful. So I second that.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, a motion for rules.
[Ruseau]: Go ahead members. I'm not sure that I don't have other feedback to include. So I'm not sure what's being suggested by others.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion by members so seconded by member McLaughlin that I will send you the language either tonight when I get home at 830 or tomorrow morning and that will be this document will be amended.
[McLaughlin]: I'm sorry, I thought that, Mayor, may I? Yes. I thought there were other comments or from earlier too that had not been or had been overlooked. So if there wasn't, I apologize. But if there is, I would just ask that obviously that they can be included. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, there was, I think I had one on communication and engagement. So I can try to find my document if I saved it. If not, I will put some thoughts together and send those to member Ruseau by midday tomorrow. So there's a motion on the floor to amend because for some reason my comments were left out. Roll call, please. Member Graham.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[Unidentified]: Member Hays.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[Unidentified]: Member Katz. Yes. Member McLaughlin.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: Member McDonnell.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: Member Rossell. Yes. Mayor Landau.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. Motion is approved. Is there a motion to finalize this so we can move on to? Mayor, the superintendent has her hand up. Oh, I'm sorry, Dr. Edward-Vinson.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Yes, Mayor, I just wanted to, and I welcome the feedback. I wanted to talk a little bit about the cultural proficiency rating, and I guess I would love to hear a little more, but when I went back to look at What's in the standard ensures that policies and practices enable staff and students to interact effectively in a culturally diverse environment in which students backgrounds identities strengths and challenges are respected. As evidenced by the sufficient sufficient provision of guidance supports and resources to all schools to promote culturally responsive learning environments in school cultures that affirm individual differences of both students and staff, and I do feel that. That is something that is happening in Medford. If you go to the schools, I was at the, you know, Missittuck and the Roberts today. And I do feel when I'm in the schools, any of them, that the students are valued, whether it's showing flags from the diverse representation, but the students and families, whether it's their background, their identity, their strengths, their challenges, Medford really does a very good job trying to welcome all. And so I just was again because I don't I don't know what went into the. you know, that rating, but I just was wondering, in addition to all of the DEI work that we're trying to do with professional development, I was just hoping to get a little more feedback just to help me understand what I need to do more of. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Maybe we can all think through that and provide some feedback through phone calls to Dr. Edouard-Vincent or email if nobody has any comments right this minute. Member Ruseau?
[Unidentified]: It's hard to talk about this particular one.
[Ruseau]: What the superintendent said, I don't think is incorrect. I think it's, however, the adult view of the situation. That's how I'll put it. I don't think it's the student view of the situation. So, I don't have any, I can't be more specific than that, other than to say that, you know, that it just, this just feels like this is an adult assessment. The number is not an adult, is not an assessment of how the adults in the building perhaps feel about the places, but students and certainly some staff, I think, do not feel that we are particularly culturally proficient. We are incredibly diverse, which gives us a great opportunity to become culturally proficient. You know, if it was like, a, you know, someplace in New Hampshire where everybody's white and everybody's, you know, Christian or Protestant or whatever. Everybody's, you know, effectively the same to a large extent. it's harder, I think, to become culturally proficient. There's just no opportunities to exercise that muscle. But Medford has, frankly, has the opportunity that many communities could dream of to really become culturally proficient. I don't think we're there. And I don't so much feel like it's a reflection of the superintendent, because I think we've heard very clearly that the superintendent, is, you know, is a rock star in this arena. But the superintendent is not all the employees and the superintendent, we evaluate the superintendent and really re-evaluate the school system in this process. So I certainly would agree it's not a reflection on the superintendent on her specific cultural proficiencies, but making that come down and be part of all of the schools and all of the staff and not just be a I mean, I'm just saying, don't be a two hour PD. I have no idea how that even works out, but I'm just, that's my feedback, because I know you wanted feedback and it's a hard one for me to really kind of come up with on the spot.
[Unidentified]: Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Yeah, I just wanted to add, yeah, the school system as a whole, the community as a whole. That's one thing, the superintendent individually, and I felt like particularly for an evaluation of the superintendent that, you know, this number was a little bit off. So I appreciate member Rousseau sort of looking, you know, mentioning the district as a whole and some things that need to be worked on. But I think that that's a community effort and a collaborative effort. both from the school committee, from our families, from our teachers, from our staff, for everybody. It's not one person that can direct any of that work. This is very difficult discussion and conversation. That's why they call them courageous conversations. But I think that this is work that we all have to do. And so I appreciate that the superintendent is leading the way in this. And I hope that we can support her and that our schools and our community will support the work as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
[Unidentified]: Thank you. Member McLaughlin.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Mustone.
[Mustone]: Hi, thank you. I think we're probably wrapping up since it's 528. But two points, which I wasn't sure if other people are going to touch upon them before. I didn't want to repeat my colleagues sentiment. For communication, I know teachers have spoke to me about just more communication directly with the teachers. We do all appreciate the newsletter for the families, but maybe there could be a separate newsletter. It doesn't have to be weekly, maybe monthly, just for the teachers to know what's happened academically. Schedule-wise for the different grade levels, or maybe some points of information that are coming down from DESE. So, teachers on across the board know where you are coming with with your vision or your goals I think that would be helpful so they all know why things are getting implemented because this is what you're hoping to do to benefit public schools to make them better for every child which I know. I know without a doubt that you are thinking of every child every day. And the second part is now that COVID is subsiding and that we can, I know you love to do the data stuff and that we have science that is rolled out. We have math that is mid rolled out. And now also, now it's time to look at the English for, ELA for all grades and for social studies slash history slash civics. But I think now that we have more time because you have less responsibility with COVID decisions, which you had to make those on a daily basis, that I think parents, those are my two things that parents have said to me recently, is now talk about English, social studies, and teaches more communication directly with the teachers And that's, I think other than that, I know you are on the clock 24 hours a day, every day of the year. And I think most of the community understands that and appreciates that. So I just look forward to now, you know, I guess going back to when you were hired and your goals then, now, you know, you were slowed down with COVID, but now you can kick it back into gear and it's exciting to see what Medford Public Schools are gonna go. So thank you, Dr. Maurice.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Thank you. I'm sorry. Sorry. I just wanted to say that with the teacher communications, one of the things that. is currently happening is between both Ms. Galussi and Dr. Cushing. They were sending direct communications to teachers talking about grade level teams and scheduling and meetings. So I can work on trying to revamp that, but there is a communication mechanism in place for teachers directly. It was just being managed by the both of them to the respective teams. So I just wanted to comment that there is there is communication, but we can work on letting them know that I agree with what's being sent out. But thank you for all the feedback.
[Mustone]: Thank you. We're all on the same team.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion on the floor?
[McLaughlin]: Motion to approve?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion to approve as amended. Member Ruseau?
[Ruseau]: I just... Member Huston said something that also reminded me that, you know, When we're doing this review, the hardest part for us is that we are not walking the halls and sitting in every classroom in the district. And a lot of these questions, frankly, are things, especially the old version of the evaluation. It was as if we were everywhere all the time and could know everything. It was bizarre. This one's better, but it still has a lot of that, that we are expected to just mind meld with the entire staff of the district and all families. So, what something number of us don't said though, I'm sorry that Dr Edouard-Vincent said about you know that communications about becoming principals and assistant superintendent Lucy, and I'm just like, blind CCing us on things that, you know, aren't for us, we're not the target audience, but blind CCing us throughout the year on things that you're like, you know, this was in the evaluation and let's blind CC the school committee. So they see that it's happening because when we come back a year from now, a lot of us will look at the last review, our last comments, and we will be like, I don't feel like I know anything more about this than I did last year. That doesn't mean it didn't happen. And the time to try and convince us that this stuff happened is not when we sit down to do our review. So that's just a suggestion I had. And I see my case.
[Hays]: Thank you. Member Hays. Thanks, I just I wanted to add to that in terms of I think that's, that's part of what we can improve on with the evaluation process. Also, I looked at some other cities and towns just to see how it's done in other places. And And I think they also said this in my orientation, that part of the process when we create the goals is to really talk about what evidence we would need to see to be able to evaluate you clearly and accurately and fully. So I think that as we move forward and start to really try to update this process and make it mirror more, I think what Desi intends, that's a piece that we really should be doing is really being clear about what evidence we want to see so that you know what to expect from us because You know, if it's open-ended and you don't know, you may feel like you're providing us what we need and we're looking at it and going, but I don't know if that quite meets what I was thinking. So I think if we can all be on the same page about what evidence would give us, you know, would help us to be able to evaluate you, I think that it will go a long way to making this process easier also and fairer. Thank you.
[Unidentified]: Second, sir. Approved. Mayor.
[Ruseau]: I think the mayor.
[McLaughlin]: She said she had to leave at 530 I wonder, but she's still on. Is the vice chair available.
[Graham]: So we have a motion to approve the superintendent's evaluation as amended by member Rousseau, seconded by member McLaughlin, is that right?
[Graham]: Yes, sorry. So let's call the roll.
[Ruseau]: Member Graham.
[Graham]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: Member Hays.
[4thVVEd7zdo_SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: Member Betz.
[4thVVEd7zdo_SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: Member McLaughlin.
[4thVVEd7zdo_SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: Member Bissette.
[4thVVEd7zdo_SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: Member Rossell. Yes. Mayor Lococo.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. 70 affirmative, zero in the negative, motion passes. We have, I think it's labeled, I'm sorry, I had to switch to my phone. because I only have till 5.30. Number three was listed as motion to motion to calendar, which we already approved.
[Graham]: Can we back up? We have the school committee dates, which we need to vote on today. We should not be taking a vote on the calendar because it was already approved. Correct. Is the motion to approve the school committee dates? 2-2023.
[McLaughlin]: Through the chair, it was member Ruseau who motioned, and I seconded. Roll call, please. I think, excuse me, point of information, I think member Graham was asking for clarification that the motion was to approve the school committee calendar.
[Ruseau]: The school committee meeting calendar.
[McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Graham]: Correct. Member Graham? Yes, the motion is to approve the school committee meeting calendar, which is the dates that we will hold regular school committee meetings in the 2022-2023 school year.
[Unidentified]: Papa?
[4thVVEd7zdo_SPEAKER_02]: Yep.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. Member Graham?
[4thVVEd7zdo_SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: Member Hays?
[4thVVEd7zdo_SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[4thVVEd7zdo_SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[Ruseau]: Yes.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Some of the affirmatives there in the negative motion passes.
[Ruseau]: Motion to adjourn.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Second by member Rousseau, seconded by member McLaughlin. Roll call please.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[4thVVEd7zdo_SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
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