[SPEAKER_09]: Good evening. We're back from executive session. Next up, we have a consent agenda, bills and payrolls, regular school committee meeting minutes, October 17th, 2022. Is there a motion on the floor? by Member Kreatz, seconded by Member Hays. All those in favor?
[SPEAKER_08]: Aye. Opposed? Yes.
[SPEAKER_06]: Member Ruseau? Just not for this particular one, but I do believe we'll have to take roll calls for everything with a member online.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yes. Roll call vote, please.
[SPEAKER_06]: Member Graham?
[SPEAKER_08]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_06]: Member Hays?
[SPEAKER_08]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_06]: Member Kreatz?
[SPEAKER_08]: Yes. Member McLaughlin? Member McLaughlin, are you on? Yes, now I am. They've unmuted me. Yes.
[SPEAKER_06]: Thanks. Member Mastone? Yes. Member Mastone, yes. Mayor Longo?
[SPEAKER_09]: Yes. Seven of the affirmatives are in the negative. Consent agenda passes. Number six, report of subcommittees. There are none. Number seven, report of superintendent. Superintendent update and comments.
[SPEAKER_08]: Dr. Maurice Edward-Vinson.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good evening. I would like to congratulate our girls soccer team on winning the GBL title with a record of 13 and five, as well as the Mustang middle school cross country team for also winning the GBL title. Additionally, I must congratulate senior Anna Casey of the cross country team who won the girls GBL championship and was undefeated in the GBL in her four years of competition. What an accomplishment. Congratulations, Anna Casey. While we are on the subject of sports, yes, let's give her a round of applause. While we are on the subject of sports, I would also like to congratulate sophomore Brianna Cerullo, who is only the third female to play for the Mustang football team. At a recent junior varsity game against Somerville, Brianna broke the glass ceiling as she scored a touchdown for the Mustangs. She is the first female to accomplish this feat. Brianna plays the running back and place kicker positions. Fantastic job, Brianna. Speaking of football, please don't forget to purchase your tickets to Medford's Thanksgiving Day football game at Fenway Park, which will be played Tuesday, November 22nd at 7.30 p.m. Another reminder, the Thanksgiving pep rally will be held prior to the game on Tuesday in the high school gym. Special commemorative t-shirts, hats, and sweatshirts will be available for purchase in the athletic office and the main office. This is an exciting venture for the Mustang community, so let's go Mustangs. This coming November 11th is Veterans Day. And on behalf of Jeremy Johns, Director of Veteran Services, and Dr. Nicole Chieser, Director of Humanities, I would like to thank the 15 veterans who came to the high school and visited 37 classrooms last Thursday to speak to our students. Veterans Day honors all US veterans for their patriotism, love of country, and their willingness to serve for the common good. I personally know this as one of my brothers made the military his career. In addition, one of our own principals, Captain Michael Downs, also served honorably, and many of our teachers and staff have done the same. We must never forget our veterans and the sacrifices that they made to keep America free. Thank you. I want to take this moment to congratulate a Mustang, Junior Thea Cruz, who currently is an Italian IV student. She won the Embassy of Italy, Italian Cultural Institute of Washington's nationwide contest for students of the Italian language in the United States. Students were tasked with creating a literary form called erasure poetry, tied to Italian artist, Emilio Isgro. This type of poetry erases words and reads the remaining words as a new poem. Both content and the visual aspect were taken into consideration by the judges. Thea was one of three winners in the high school category. She used Giacomo Pucci's famous aria, Che Gelida Manina from opera La Boheme as the foundation for her poem. Thea received a medal of merit and a scholarship of $150. Congratulations, Thea. I would also like to remind everyone to please not forget, don't forget to check our district website for the first edition of the new fine arts in performing arts newsletter called color in courts. It's initiated by our newly appointed Fine Arts and Performing Arts Coordinators, Ms. Suzanne Fee and Haley Rallo. It highlights the creativity in our students and our school community. It also includes a calendar of upcoming events and performances. Don't miss it. November is Native American Heritage Month. which reminds all Americans to remember the important contributions of indigenous peoples, honor their histories, and advocate for solutions to the struggles they still face today. I would like to share a few facts about our Native Americans. They were not granted citizenship until 1924, after Congress enacted the Indian Citizenship Act. The first American Indian Day was held in New York in 1916, and National Native American Heritage Month became official under former President George H. W. Bush, who proclaimed it for the month of November in 1990. There are currently 574 different federally recognized Native American tribes. Massachusetts is home to two tribes, the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe and the Wampanoag tribe of Gay Head. An important reminder from Chief Massasoit, the leader of the Wampanoag tribe, He lived from 1580 to 1661. And he said, what is this you call property? It cannot be the earth for the land is our mother, nourishing all of her children, beasts, birds, fish, and all men. The woods, the streams, everything on it belongs to everybody and is for the use of all. How can one person say it only belongs to them. Let us all take the time to celebrate the important contributions of our nation's first peoples. There are a few key upcoming events happening this week. and next. Tomorrow, November 8th is election day. There will be no school in a district for students. Teachers and staff will be participating in professional development. Most of our school's PTOs will be hosting bake sales. So please support them in this effort. Wednesday, November 9th, the vocational school will be hosting their advisory meeting from six to 8 p.m. Friday, November 11th is Veterans Day, and in observance, there will be no school for students and staff. Thursday, November 17th, Friday, November 18th, and Saturday, November 19th, Medford's own Drama Club presents the importance of being earnest. That play will be taking place in the Caron Theater. And on Friday, November 18th, Medford's own Medford Family Network brings back our Family Fun Fridays. Those events will take place in our high school gym from 4.30 to 7.30 p.m. on Fridays. Our next school committee meeting is Monday, November 21st. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_09]: Thank you, Dr. Edward-Vincent. I'd like to acknowledge our student representative. Sorry, I missed you, Dominico Bruno. Thank you for being here. Next up, we have number two, report on labor relations. Mr. David Murphy, assistant superintendent of finance and operations.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, Mayor, members of the committee. As we discussed in executive session earlier this evening, the district's five current settlements and collective bargaining agreements with five of our bargaining units are currently in the process of being implemented. The we paid out the FY 22 retroactive payments in the most recent payroll disbursement, and I anticipate at this point that the FY 23 retroactive payments for those five bargaining units will be implemented not in the pay cycle that we're currently in meeting this week but in the following one which will be the week of Thanksgiving. That's where we are with those. And with respect to our ongoing discussions with our Medford Teachers Association, as the committee and the community are aware, we did reach a tentative agreement with that unit on October 23rd. That agreement was announced here at the school committee on October 17th. On October 24th, the MTA notified us that they had failed to receive sufficient number of votes in their membership to ratify that agreement. from the district's perspective, that agreement is still in place. And we're grateful to the MTA for the ongoing discussions that we've had. And I anticipate we'll be meeting with them in the near future. And it's certainly our hope that there'll be a second vote in the near future. It's a short update tonight because those discussions are ongoing. There's not a lot that's changed since we last met, but if you have questions, I'm more than happy to answer them. questions I'm more than happy. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_09]: Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Number three we have a report on EL scholarship centering relationships equity and access for teachers of English learners project. Create, Mr. Politics era, director of English learners.
[SPEAKER_03]: Good evening everyone. through a partnership with UMass Boston's Applied Linguistics Department. They applied for a grant with the US Department of Education and we were supportive of that and talked about how we would use that grant for the Medford Public Schools. And what this would allow us to do is provide basically a free half of a master's degree and applied linguistics for teachers and paraprofessionals who already possess like a bachelor's degree going into a master's program. And what this would allow us to do is increase our capacity for not only hiring teachers to work with English learners, but it would also give us the ability to have content teachers not only be duly certified in their content in EL, but they would have all of the theory for second language acquisition as part of what they could bring to the classroom every day. We will be starting this program and this is the first that it's been publicized in the district, so we'll be working to recruit teachers. We have teachers and paraprofessionals. We have 15 slots available and the classes would begin in January. These teachers would work to get their five core classes completed as part of their master's program. And once they complete those five courses, they're eligible for ESL certification. And then they can continue on in the program. They can take advantage of Medford's tuition reimbursement. It wouldn't cover the entire remaining portion of the master's degree, but it would pay for a chunk of it as well. This would be available to elementary, middle, and high school teachers looking to obtain this additional master's degree and certification. And then, With that, there's coaching that's embedded in this for family and community outreach, for providing professional development for other teachers in the buildings that they're currently working on, and they'll be doing that as a cohort throughout the process of their program. Any questions on that part? The second news, which I just added on to this is, as you know, we have a partnership with Lesley University for elementary teachers or teacher seeking elementary certification. They go through a master's program to get their gen ed in grades one through six. They do a year long internship in the EL department. in any elementary school, typically a newcomer's classroom, but sometimes that doesn't work. And we do a balance of the gen ed classroom and EL pullout. And Leslie is extending this program into middle and high school for secondary. So teachers that are seeking to get their master's degree in math, the humanities, can also do an add-on Yale license if they do this year-long internship at the secondary level. And so Medford's also working with them to establish that and get some candidates in the district for that program as well.
[SPEAKER_06]: No questions? Member Ruseau? I would just like to thank you for the effort to find all this money. Free money, from our perspective, is the best kind. So thank you. And do you have any sense yet on how many teachers will be interested? Do you think that you will have to deal with too many people applying?
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't, you know, and so that is an interesting question because there are other cohorts that will be, that will begin like in September. And, you know, I'll stay in touch if we can't, you know, if they don't, if other districts aren't filling them, you know, to see if we can jump in on that as well. So this happened because I was looking for interns to come do their student teaching in Medford and, through meeting the director and going through that. And I brought her down to the McGlynn Middle School to show her the program and program design. And that's when she started talking about this opportunity that they were applying for. And I don't know what like years two, three, and four looked like for them, but Medford would definitely be a part of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Excellent. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_09]: Is there a limit to the pre-half master's degree?
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's 15 people, 15 teachers and paraprofessionals for this January cohort, but they will have other cohorts throughout the school year.
[SPEAKER_09]: Great, thank you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_09]: Moving right along, number four, report on enrollment, Dr. Peter Cushing, Assistant Superintendent of Enrichment and Innovation. I know a report was left in our desks.
[SPEAKER_04]: The report that I gave you prior to the meeting, I just want to make sure that you have the third page. I wasn't sure if that was as part of the submission earlier, but presently we have 1,982 students at our elementary level. So we are also showing 924 students at our middle school level. and 1,256 students for a grand total of 4,162 students across the district. You can see the breakdowns throughout the entire district per classroom, per grade. And you can also see the breakdown of middle schools for each side at each school and at our vocational and med high school and career technical education with the third page breaking down each individual program with their current enrollments in grades 10, 11, 12 as the exploratory programs are still for the freshmen. Currently there are 268 students in CT exploratory out of a class of 342 students. Also just wanna call your attention on the last page that we've had 286 students tested in the EL department. 117 of those are kindergarten students who have been tested. And so right now we're looking at approximately 134 students out of that testing who received services and are now part of our EL program. So I wanted to provide that information to you. I want to thank Kim Miles for helping for building this report and pulling the requisite information and for all the teachers and educators who are working as we've had you know students returning to us this year.
[SPEAKER_06]: Mayor? Member Russell? Thank you. I was just looking at last year's numbers, at least according to the DESE report, and we had 39, 37. So that's a good increase. I know that we had a drop. I haven't gone back and looked further. So is there, I mean, I haven't looked through this report since it's just right here. Is there a particular area where we're seeing a lot of, I mean, that's what, nearly 200 students?
[SPEAKER_04]: We're seeing students returning to us from private schools, from charter schools. As you can see, from the preliminary charter and other regional vocational charter and other public school numbers, we wanna try to recruit those students back to us even more so, but we are seeing those students return to us and we are seeing an influx of students from other nations.
[SPEAKER_06]: Okay, great, thank you.
[SPEAKER_09]: Member Graham.
[SPEAKER_07]: Can you tell us that I'm looking at the charter numbers for enrollment this year so 3.95 is our charter school enrollment and I think that amounts to 7 or $8 million of tuition going out to those charter schools. How does that compare to years past the 3.95? Do you know?
[SPEAKER_04]: critical part of your question.
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh how does the 395 compare to years past?
[SPEAKER_04]: That's saying that's so that's saying about average with the exception if you'll notice in grades one two and three those numbers are higher than than the later years and The inference is that during the pandemic, other people may have chosen different options based on how other schools may have operated than traditional public schools. And so now it's our job to try to recruit those students back.
[SPEAKER_09]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_06]: Mayor.
[SPEAKER_09]: Member Ruseau.
[SPEAKER_06]: Just on that point, I believe we were at our charter cap. So being steady makes sense because we can't exceed the charter cap. Although I thought the charter cap might be a few students over 395, actually. So that would be surprising and lovely if we were under the cap. Obviously, the smaller the number, the better for us, but that would explain why we have been steady. I can't quickly find the charter numbers because it's the DESE website. Enough said on that, thank you.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes, Member Mustone. Thank you for the report, Dr. Cushing. And I don't know if it's too late to ask if we could share this on the screen just because the class sizes are so low on average in every school in every grade that I know that's always a concern over the years for parents class. I know when Tegan was in kindergarten, it was 27 and then fifth class was added to bring it down. But I mean, looking at this, and I'm not a mathematician, it looks like almost the average class size is 20 across the board. Would you say that's the average class size? Yeah, so I just, I think that's great for, I don't think I've seen it in black and white to realize how great that is for classroom. I know Declan has 19, so I didn't know if he was the outlier, but that seems like it's the average. So thank you for that. But this is a great, I mean, to share with, community to see those numbers. Thank you, Dr. Cushing.
[SPEAKER_08]: Nope, I can share it right now.
[SPEAKER_09]: And is the new EL enrollment numbers, the 134, is that in addition to, or is that's finalized, correct? That's the current numbers, that fluctuated this year.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's for this year. Yeah. New enrollments.
[SPEAKER_09]: New enrollments this year, okay.
[SPEAKER_04]: And while Mr. Teixeira will give a further report about this later in the year, I wanted to call attention to 286 students tested. That's about one to three hours per test based upon a family's home language survey. So us receiving those students, greeting them into the district, entering them in. Some students may then never join the district because they may move to somewhere else in Massachusetts, the United States, or may return back to their home country.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yep, we will.
[SPEAKER_06]: Mayor, one last.
[SPEAKER_05]: Member Ruseau.
[SPEAKER_06]: Thank you. This is a new format of this report and I just want to say bravo because it's very nicely done.
[SPEAKER_04]: All kudos need to go to Kim Miles, our data specialist on that.
[SPEAKER_06]: Please make sure she receives our thank you because this is excellent.