[RhUNhYl62Oo_SPEAKER_05]: Thank you.
[bIcF9zSptpQ_SPEAKER_12]: Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Little person to touch the little person just not working. There you go. Thank you very much.
[Schulman]: For implementation and programming, we have four different programs through Sandy Hook Promise at Medford Public Schools currently. We have Start With Hello, Say Something, Signs of Suicide, and then the Say Something Anonymous reporting system. I'm gonna walk you through some of the other programming so you have a comprehensive view of what we are implementing currently. Start With Hello was implemented in the fall of 2019. There is an annual presentation each fall for students. The goals of this program is to understand the concepts of loneliness and social isolation, and to learn how to create a socially inclusive school community that combats loneliness and social isolation. There are three simple steps to start with hello, which is you see someone alone, you reach out to help, and you quite simply start with hello. The next program, which was piloted in the spring of 2019 and implemented in the spring of 2022, is the signs of suicide. That follows the ACT protocol to acknowledge, care, and tell. There are three steps for ACT, which is, again, the acknowledge, care, and tell, and it is to talk about depression as a serious mental health condition that requires treatment for some people. And if you're worried about yourself or a friend to act and that we are talking about how help is always available as part of all of the programs, they talk about the trusted adults, identifying trusted adults at the school, the supports we have for counseling within the school, as well as crisis center hotlines or calling 911 if that is something that falls in that category. The Say Something program, the Attorney General's Office, which originally connected us again as one of the 50 districts in Massachusetts in 2019 for Say Something, for Cindy Hook Promise, rolled out the Say Something programming in fall of 2021. After some training, we implemented this in the spring of 2022. It has three different steps, which is to recognize signs of signs and threats regarding student well-being and welfare, to act immediately and take it seriously, and to say something, both to a trusted adult. And again, all of these programs review trusted adults within the building, making sure students identify a trusted adult, and talking about counseling services that are available in and out of school. The Say Something Anonymous reporting system was officially implemented in January of 2023. This took one year. of coordination and training with Sandy Hook Promise because the program is very involved. The training pattern was the administration was trained on the system in December of 2022. Medford 911 dispatch was trained both in December and in January 2022. And all faculty and students at the secondary level, the programming is for six through 12. were trained in January 2023. So what exactly is the anonymous reporting system? It is, again, another three-step process. The first is that there are three different ways to send in an anonymous tip. If you feel like there is something in your school community that you are concerned about, you can call the hotline, you can use the website, you can use the mobile app. In step two, all calls and tips are sent through the Sandy Hook Promise crisis line. and a Councilor immediately connects with you, whether that's through text or whether that's through the phone and they have multilingual abilities. And step three, that tip either is diverted to a school-based team, a district-wide team, or Bedford 911, depending on what that tip is when it comes in. So again, a crisis Councilor reviews all the tips with a private chat. It's anonymous and they answer follow up questions. And if they provide them with a specific number for the tip. So if there's any information later, the anonymous tipster can go back to that tip. The anonymous reporting button is on our website under the high school and the secondary schools, as well as additional information regarding the say something process. So the anonymous report button is at the top. And then if you go under student services, there is a section that says say something anonymous reporting system. If you click on that, it provides you with more information regarding the tip line and a direct link to submit a tip. again, from that site. Some of the common reports. This is from Sandy Hook promises database. This is not necessarily from our tips regarding acts of violence, verbal harassment, sexual abuse, threats seen on social media, bullying, bragging about weapons, depression, anxiety, mental health, hopelessness, reckless behavior, social isolation, substance or alcohol abuse. suicide threats, cutting yourself harm, and any other troubling situations or behaviors. So how is it going for us? Tips are coming in. Administrators and Councilors work on tips in coordination with Medford Police. We have received a bunch of tips so far after rolling this out two months ago. Our agreement with Sandy Hook Promise prevents us from disclosing the number of tips or the nature of tips. We work with our team to manage these tips as they come in. And again, with coordination with Medford police as there's needed. And where we are going, Sandy Hook promise programming is now provided at no cost in perpetuity. So that was the concern when we started bringing on the anonymous tip line because it is so complex in terms of training and takes quite a bit of planning to implement it. that we wanted to make sure this was going to be sustainable. And again, it is no cost in the future for us. So we'll be able to continue with this programming if it's successful.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Ms. Schulman. Member McLaughlin?
[McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you, Ms. Schulman, for that report. I just had a couple of questions. How are the students informed of this process in terms of the start with hello, the say something, in the system, how are they trained?
[Schulman]: So there is an annual presentation on say something and start with hello every year. And that is usually through the advisory or the wind blocks.
[McLaughlin]: Do you know if it's differentiated or interpreted at all? It is interpreted, yes. And differentiated?
[Schulman]: Yes, there is additional supports added to classrooms with counseling staff.
[McLaughlin]: Okay, thank you. And then for the data that, so tell me if you would just, if something comes through on the tip line, I think I understood what you were saying, that it will go to an administrator or guidance, right?
[Schulman]: Or Medford 911, depending on the severity of the tip that comes in. So if it's someone in immediate danger or harm, or there's an extensive, you know, weapons report, it's going to go to Medford Dispatch and the school team at the same time. And how are families notified? Families are notified if their student is involved. So the follow-up for the TIP includes family involvement, but TIPs come in, they have the choice of reporting them anonymously, right? That's the basis of the TIP line. So if a student reports it, we don't know who they are, we can't notify families, but if students are involved, we're contacting families as a follow-up process.
[McLaughlin]: Right, but if a student obviously is in danger, you notify. Yes, of course, yes. And then, thank you. And so, just, if you don't mind just procedurally if you'll walk me through it so like sure what happens like somebody gets a. notice on their email and then they walk down the hot like tell me just walk me through it if you don't mind.
[Schulman]: So there are different levels based on the tip that comes in. If it is a tip that requires follow up, but not necessarily urgent danger. So there's someone saying I witnessed someone. you know, talking badly about somebody else or posting something on social media that was concerning, they either call, text, or go through the website in terms of connecting with the hotline. The crisis Councilor takes as much, they have to fill out a form while doing so. The crisis Councilor connects with that person as much as they can. What we've seen is sometimes people fill out the form and then disconnect. Either they're logging out of their computer, logging an app, and there's no continued conversation. But the Councilor reaches out for about 10 to 15 minutes trying to engage that person in continued conversation. Once the tip is finalized enough that there is information, that tip is then sent to the appropriate area. So we worked with Sandy Hook Promise to develop both our school-based teams, our district-wide teams, and working with Medford 911 for how to connect. The tip goes out, and depending on the severity, you either get a tip, a text, a phone call, or both. And they work through a hierarchy. We have three to five people. per team, depending on the team, most it's five or more, and they start calling you one by one to make sure that you've received the tip, or again, it's a text, and then it says on my phone, it says S-S-A-R-S, so Sandy Hook, and I have to open it, and then it'll tell you who's read the tip. We have a process for managing those tips in terms of a schedule for who is responding.
[McLaughlin]: So the crisis team is 24-7?
[Schulman]: Crisis team is 24-7, yes. Tips that are non-life-threatening, I believe it's 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. come to our phone via text. They let us sleep for eight hours. If there is a life-threatening text at night, my cell phone will ring.
[McLaughlin]: And is there an interpretation line for that, do you know?
[Schulman]: Yes, there is interpretation through Sandy Hook.
[McLaughlin]: Otherwise, if people need interpretation. Yes, absolutely, they have a lot.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Great, thank you. Thank you, Ms. Shulman. If I could ask a question. Oh, from the chair, and then I'll go to Ms. Member Graham. Can you tell us how it's been working last 3 months and we able to keep up with the reporting that is coming into school psychologist.
[Schulman]: Yes, we're able to keep up with that. You know there is the training gives us information that says the first 4 to 6 weeks maybe a little bit longer you have a stronger number of tips that come in. So at the beginning it's a lot. But it's not certainly anything you can't match.
[Graham]: Thank you member Graham. Thank you. Why does Sandy Hook require us to sign agreements that you can't disclose the amount of reporting coming in?
[Schulman]: They're really protective around the anonymous reports and their worry is that someone might be able to identify who put a tip in. So if I were to say we received one tip or two tips and then someone's able to identify who put that in, that's the concern.
[Graham]: And so how will we or the public or students know that the program is being executed with integrity and fidelity and all that? Like if there's no reporting, how does anybody know that it's working? I guess that's what I'm trying to understand.
[Schulman]: Well, City Hook Promise is pretty diligent in terms of us as far as what our requirements are and they connect with us regularly to make sure that, you know, both we've received the tips, we have to log on, there's a lot of requirements and they will pull the program if you're not managing the tips and we are required to follow up with what our actions are for the tips. So we say parents called, counseling provided, crisis line contacted, depending on what came in, we are responsible for providing them that information so they know that we're closing that out. Got it, thank you. Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. I was glad to hear that makes a lot of sense why they wouldn't allow that disclosure in the near term. I'm just wondering about disclosure for the previous year, for instance. Obviously, we're not there yet, but the full lockdown of that data does give me pause as to whether we're you know, how's it working? It's good to hear that Sandy Hook is willing to kick us out the door if we're not doing our part. Do they also have any kind of metrics on sort of a quality metric saying you've got 4,200 students, let's just say 3,000 students or whatever are in the program or could be using it. And do they have any kind of metric that says, you know, look, if you're not getting five tips a week on average, you obviously are not implementing it properly. Good. So they will kick us out if we're just not really, it's not getting used. Cause I think that's my concern is. Okay.
[Schulman]: So they have a significant amount of checks and balances. So they track through and make sure, and we have to input how many students were trained. Their general consensus based on our numbers is that we should receive about 80 to 100 tips a year at the high school and then divide that in half for each, 40 to 50 for each of the middle schools. Again, you're expecting more upfront, more come up through the trainings. The benefit of having all of the systems is that there is woven language through each of them. So after signs of suicide, you talk about having the anonymous reporting system. And this is something if you're concerned about a friend and you don't want them to know that you're reporting this, this is an avenue for this, right? Start with hello. They talk about like signs of loneliness. Again, that follows through. But in each of these areas, we have to report who we are training, how much we are training, and we have benchmarks to meet all that. And I have my contacts and the supervisors at Sandy Hook Promise that I connect with quite often. And they're very helpful as well in terms of technical glitches and responding to us and walking us through the process in terms of making sure that we understand who are our contacts at the crisis center and when we need support for something or may need help with the programming.
[Ruseau]: Great, this is excellent. Sounds like they've really buttoned this all up so that they don't have their name getting ruined by districts. Just don't try or I know that like where I work, our vendor has these enormous requirements every year that cost many millions of dollars. The reason we have to do it is because they're the name that ends up in the globe if something goes wrong. So it's good to see they're protecting their reputation by making sure we implement with fidelity. And do you anticipate any, I know you mentioned costs, that it's in perpetuity, it's not going to cost anything for the software. Do we have any estimate on the costs for training staff? It's free. So they pay for our staff's time?
[Schulman]: They pay to provide us with the training. It's our responsibility to make sure that is you know, set in a schedule throughout the year for our staff.
[Ruseau]: That was sort of what's my concern is that, you know, we have the minimum number of professional development days a district can have in Medford. You know, if we're in Cambridge where they have nine a day a year, we have three. Right. Them fitting additional required trainings in Cambridge, I'm assuming is reasonably easy. I just worry long term, or are they tracking the training happen on an individual basis?
[Schulman]: they are tracking the training for students. So once you've trained your faculties and once you've, it's a train the trainer model. So for example, signs of suicide in November of 2019, we partnered up with Everett public schools who are very gracious and allowed us to partner on their PD day. And the district attorney's office came in with Sandy Hook promise and trained Councilors and some administrators on that signs of suicide programming. Councilors are now the trainers for their building, and they make sure that they are training the other Councilors, which is an online platform they could do at their own time, and then working in conjunction with teachers to roll out that programming. So they have really thought it through. There are refreshers every year as well that they change up a little bit. So students, yes, are receiving the same messages, but it's not a canned video that they're just like, we've seen this again. because the hope is that you're keeping them engaged in the process. And they are very thoughtful, and I have been very impressed in terms of what they're offering us, how they're offering us, and how they worked through states and now have had more grant funding to allow us to continue access to the program with oversight. Thank you very much. Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you. Two questions. One is, Does, oh, is this involved with the mobile crisis center crisis at all? Like, do we have a mobile crisis, I guess, van or I guess every, so I've been working with the CBHI.
[Schulman]: Yes.
[McLaughlin]: And I was under the impression that every community needed to have a mobile.
[Schulman]: That is correct. Yeah. So ours recently changed. Cambridge Health Alliance is our, through Rosie's Law, is our mobile crisis provider. They've been excellent so far. The response time is very quick, under an hour, which is legally required to be. So I just publicly say I've been impressed with their responsiveness, and we would utilize them if we felt a student needed an evaluation and needed it quickly, and we work with parents to figure out the best route for that. And do you know who pays for the mobile crisis? It's typically through health insurance, but my understanding is they can't refuse you to a certain point. Yes, that is, it does get complicated at times.
[McLaughlin]: Yeah, because what if you don't have health insurance? Like, what is that? Then we problem solve. Okay. And then the other is, do you know if there exists yet, I know that there was some, there is at least law enforcement training around autism and other disabilities, but do you know if there's any of this that offers training around disability and understanding of, for example, autism or any of the other disabilities where there may be some nuances that you really need to understand from a disability perspective around some of the potential behaviors?
[Schulman]: So yes, there is a responsibility on the professionals who are responding, but in terms of Sandy Hook, they're training us how to receive the tips. So they're not providing training on how to act in your professional capacity afterwards, if that makes sense.
[McLaughlin]: But if there is somebody, if there's a student that is known to have a known disability, I would assume you would then bring in Ms. Bowen's team or others from Ms. Bowen's team, some specialized support.
[Schulman]: Correct. So the benefit is that these tips are coming to the school community. Again, unless it's an immediate life-threatening situation, that's going directly to 911. And then you're working with the knowledge that you already have of your students on how you respond. So they're not requiring us to respond in a specific pattern because every student is different, every situation is different. So they're requiring our connections, right, and our relationships and our professional knowledge of students in order to respond to those moments.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Ms. Shillman. I think you want to revert back to the motion to revert back to the regular order of business. I have a motion to revert back to the regular order of business. Member Graham, seconded by Member McLaughlin. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion to revert has been approved. We have our first item under report of the superintendent. Superintendent's updates and comments. Dr. Maurice Edwards.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Good evening, everyone. So I know I can't believe that March and spring is just around the corner, although snow is continuing to try to poke its head, but that's all right. But I do just bring to the community's attention that there were some special celebrations that are taking place. And this evening, the Jewish holiday of Purim is taking place. Purim means the Feast of Lots. It is a joyous festival commemorating the survival of the Jewish people in the fifth century BC. I'd like to wish all of our Jewish students and families a wonderful Purim. Also this Wednesday, March 8th, begins the Hindu Festival of Holi. Holi marks the beginning of spring and has been celebrated in India for centuries, dating back to the fourth century. It is one of the most popular Hindu festivals, also known as the festival of colors, the festival of spring, and the festival of love. To our Hindu students and families, I hope you have an enjoyable Holi. I have some wonderful announcements to share with the community this evening. This past weekend, 12 of our Mustangs represented Medford at the Region IV Science and Engineering Fair held at Tufts University. 22 schools were represented. The team of Dan Khoi Nguyen, Vina Lee, Owen Lau named their project, I Lost My Marbles. Does more randomness increase the accuracy of statistics-based measurements? These students won the Tufts University Science Fair Prize as the best Medford project, and it ranked 13th overall. They won $250 and qualified for the State Science Fair. The following students, Morgan Reynolds, Oprah McHara, Rakshita Shankarganesh submitted the project, How Does the Weather Affect Cosmic Ray Moons? Julie Desautels, Charlotte Yamamoto, and Marie Loren submitted J Prize, which deals with physics. Mary Schmidt submitted, How to Get Rid of Tea Stains? and Clay Canavan submitted, The Lifetime of Muons Before Decay. All of these students were awarded Starbuck gift cards. Congratulations to our STAR students and special thanks to Mr. Cieri and Mr. Wagnus for their assistance. So congratulations to all of you. I'd also like to say congratulations to our Mustang teams who made it to the MIAA winter season tournaments. The boys hockey team beat Agawam High at home last Monday, 7-1. On Thursday, they traveled to Canton. A power-packed team, and despite a tough fight, lost three to zero. The boys' basketball team lost a heartbreaker at puberty. Are you ready for this? 67 to 66. So that definitely was a heartbreaker. The girls' hockey team traveled to St. Mary's of Lynn And they fought hard as they battled the top ranked team in the area, losing six to zero. We are so proud of all of our winter sport athlete students. We are Mustang strong. Just a note, tryouts for spring sports begin March 20th. Students do need to register on the athletics website prior to tryouts. And speaking of teams, Medford High School just added a new one. This is hot off the press. It's eSports, which stands for electronic sports and is not to be confused with video games. The team takes video gaming to another level with organized competitive gameplay between two high school teams. Our students are so excited to begin competing And we want to thank Mr. Maldonado for bringing this sport to our Mustangs. And this has existed for about two weeks, so it is a brand new team at the high school. More congratulations from our music department. The following Mustang students performed at all states. Joseph Shimon, Jason Taha, Lise Shogren, Ruf Nakatande, Alistair Smith, and Jack Bolito. In addition, Angel Sol's original composition was recognized by MMEA's Contemporary Creators Festival, All seven of the students participated in a composition and songwriting forum that included feedback on Andrew's work from composition and songwriting professors from Berkeley, UMass Lowell, and Boston Conservatory. What a wonderful opportunity for these students. We have a few upcoming events. Our Middle School Unified Basketball Clinic began today at the McGlynn School and will continue after school each Monday in March. This Wednesday, March 8th, CPAC will be hosting a general business meeting by Zoom from 6 to 8 p.m., and there is a Zoom link for that. And on Wednesday, Medford High School will be hosting an advanced placement information session in the Caron Theater at 6 p.m. On Thursday, March 9, CPAC and their partners are hosting Bullying, What Parents Need to Know. It's going to be by Zoom from 7 to 9 p.m. The registration link was sent out by school messenger this afternoon. Continuing our partnership with Spotlight Productions, this weekend, Annie Jr. opens at the Caron Theater. The performances are scheduled for March 9th, 10th, and 11th. On March 18th, Annie Jr. Adaptive Cast will perform at 1 p.m. They sound wonderful, we hear them practicing after school, so I think it's gonna be an excellent treat. I hope you're able to come out and support that production this weekend. On March 12th, the Medford Family Network is hosting a clothing and book swap from 1 to 4 p.m. at Temple Shalom. Please register with the Medford Family Network in order to attend. On March 15th, Medford High School will be hosting two important information events. The Medford-Malden Transition Fair will be held in the gym from 6 to 8 p.m. The fair is designed to provide students, families, caregivers, and professionals with information about community-based services for adults with disabilities. There will be over 25 exhibitors representing vocational job training and support, adaptive education programs, recreational opportunities, and supported housing. The event is free and open to all members of Medford, Malden, and surrounding communities. Students between the ages of 14 and 22 who receive special education services through their IEP are encouraged to attend. The exhibitors will be reaching out to adults with autism, developmental disabilities, intellectual disabilities, and emotional disabilities. If you have any questions, please email Charlotte Heim, our OT transition specialist at Medford Public Schools. That's cheim, H-E-I-M, at medford.k12.ma.us. Also, on March 15th, the postponed 8th grade course selection night will begin in the Cannon Theater from 6 to 8 p.m. It's a very important evening for parents to come out to find out about the course selection for your rising 9th grade student as they prepare to enter the high school. So in closing, March is Irish American Heritage Month in the United States. Beginning in the middle 1800s, Irish immigrants began settling here in Medford. Like so many immigrants before and after them, they sought a better life in America. While Irish Americans celebrate St. Patrick's Day on March 17, we all celebrate along with them, for they helped to build the country as well. I would like to share with you an old Irish blessing. It says, may love and laughter light your days and warm your heart and home. May good and faithful friends be yours wherever you may roam. May peace and plenty bless your world with joy that long endures. May all life's passing seasons bring the best to you and yours. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Dr. Edward-Woodson. We have a presentation on travel forms to be presented for approval per travel policy for the ethics team to travel to and compete at the Ethics Bowl National Competition at the University of North Carolina. Dr. Nicole Chiesa, Director of Humanities, brought this before us last meeting and to the forum today. Welcome.
[RhUNhYl62Oo_SPEAKER_05]: Good evening.
[Lungo-Koehn]: across the third button. No, it looks like a face, little face with the tap that face.
[bIcF9zSptpQ_SPEAKER_12]: There you go. All right. Sorry. Usually it's on for me. I believe you have the form that was requested at the last meeting, but if there's any questions on it, I'm more than happy to answer.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Great. Thank you for providing it to us. Member Ruseau.
[o9F0qYH9Geo_SPEAKER_05]: I'm just going to motion to approve.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Second. Motion to approve by member Rousseau, seconded by member Graham. All those in favor? All those opposed? Thank you. Motion was approved. Thank you. Thank you.
[bIcF9zSptpQ_SPEAKER_12]: I'm sorry. Yep. I'm staying up anyway. Oh, you, okay. Yeah. I thought you came just for that. I'm like, this is terrible.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I learned something too. I learned tonight. Okay, that makes me feel better. Update on Literacy Corps program review process, Dr. Nicole Chiesa, Director of Humanities, Dr. Bernadette Riccidelli, Director of Professional Learning Assessment, and Ms. Suzanne Galusi, Assistant Superintendent of Academics and Instruction. Welcome.
[bIcF9zSptpQ_SPEAKER_12]: All right, so I'm gonna get us started and then Ms. Galussi and Dr. Riccadeli will also be presenting. So as you know, from many of our literacy reports over the years, the district has been working hard to build our capacity with the science of reading, as well as implement our foundational skills program called Enhanced Core Reading Instruction. Building this capacity was very important prior to selecting or even beginning the process of selecting a new core program. We're very excited today to be here to give you an update on the Literacy Core Program, excuse me, on the Literacy Core Program review process. So I'm gonna begin with the work that was done last year, and then go into some of the work that is being done as we speak. In school year 21 to 22, the district convened a team of diverse stakeholders that engaged in a full review of all high quality instructional literacy materials. Part of this review was familiarizing the team with the mass literacy, which includes skills for early reading, as well as DESE's MTSS system of support. In addition, the team heavily utilized both ed reports as well as curate so that they could make some well-educated decisions on elementary reading program choices. By June 2022, Using these resources, the team had three recommendations for a new elementary reading program. And these recommendations were again, reviewed and still being reviewed by the larger literacy team, which is going on this school year. So we take that group, and then we segue into this school year. And this is what we call the second stage of the literacy core program review. This includes a partnership with Hill for Literacy, a formalized elementary district literacy leadership team, school-based literacy leadership teams, as well as a parent-guardian task force. An integral part of this second stage is the core program review process. And to date, what we have done as a team is formalize the elementary literacy vision. We have, the team has then reviewed the three recommendations that came out of last year. They have then had the opportunity to eliminate, add, and or maintain the three recommendations. And now they will then be beginning a full literacy core program review through the school-based literacy teams.
[Galusi]: All right, good evening. So the second part of your report, I'm just going to go into a little bit more detail about the timeline that you have. So as Dr. Chiesa highlighted, might be it's like moving parts right now, right? So we have the district level leadership team, and then we also have the school-based teams. Those two teams are gonna kind of come together as well as the parent task force in helping to select the literacy program. So the parent, this, I know I've spoken about this previously, but I also just wanna highlight that we've applied for a grant throughout this process. So the grant is competitive, but it's also highly, it's a really tight turnaround. I know I reported on this previously, but I just want to remind you. So the grant, which we have our fingers crossed, apparently it's on the governor's desk right now. So we're just waiting to hear back, but it has to, we have to have everything, we have to have the decision made and all materials purchased and received by the end of June. So in order to get all of this done in a timely manner and make sure that we're incorporating all stakeholders, we're going to be, at the conclusion of this meeting, sending out survey to parents and guardians, elementary parents and guardians, that wish to be a part of this process. And from there, Dr. Chiesa, Dr. Riccadeli and I will be holding meetings, providing them resource materials to review. Part of this timeline, as you have in front of you, just illustrates the meeting dates that we have, but the conclusion of this kind of vetting, deep dive research that will be done will be a publisher's roundtable, which will involve all stakeholders that are a part of this process, where each publisher will come out and hold informational sessions, so that that is an opportunity for the Medford team to ask their questions directly to the publishers, so that, excuse me. So that through this process, they're gathering their questions and then they're able to ask directly to the publisher as well as local surrounding districts that are currently using the program. So there are some practitioners that are also part of these round table discussions. So that way it gives a real complete view for the Medford team in terms of selecting the program. I think that might cover me for right now, but I know that there'll be questions and I'll circle back to this in a minute, but I'm gonna have Dr. Riccadeli just speak about the team.
[Ricciardelli]: All right, so as you have heard Dr. Keyes and Ms. Galussi talk, we have various levels of the team. So the district administration team is the three of us and then Darcy from Hill for Literacy. The district literacy team is comprised of several different educators. We tried to make that team as diverse in terms of the different constituent groups within the school system. So we have elementary teachers, so K-2, so early elementary teachers on the team, upper elementary, so grade three to five teachers on the team, special education teachers, English language learners, teachers, reading teachers, we have school leaders, and again, we have district administrators. Just quickly, I'm going to name them because they are doing a lot of work in looking at the materials and examining what we have. So we have Maria Micheli, Camille Fargo, Carissa Margarana, Lisa Mastone, Paula Burke, Jen Devlin, Katie Pires, Abby Herman, Cindy Griffin, Debbie Notaro, Melissa Daugherty, Alyssa Randazzo, Jessica White, Julie Braley, Hannah Heffler, Kristen Howell, Patrice Madigan, Donna Mazie, Ann Smith, Katie Fiorentino, Katie Rockwell, Shannon Demos, Andy O'Brien, Kathy Kay, Mike DiClemente, and then the three of us, and then Julie Santos and Catherine Cook. So we feel like it is a representative group, again, of the different constituent groups. So to date, what this team has been involved in is formalizing the elementary literacy vision. We are not ready to present it tonight. We'll be presenting it to our district literacy team on Wednesday at our meeting. They voted, they formulated it, and they voted, and there was a clear winner on the literacy vision. We reviewed the three elementary reading programs from school year 21, 22, as Dr. Chiesa mentioned, but they went through the process of eliminating, adding in, or maintaining the three recommendations, and they, with the school-based teams, will be engaging in a full literacy core review process over the next few months. Okay, so, So for the first round, in school year 21-22, and this I don't believe is in your report, but we do have that information. So from school year 21-22, there was also a representative group. The group was smaller, and I think it's important to know that at the same time, they were engaged in a new math program. So, you know, they were competing, interests here with regard to teacher time. So with regard to teachers on that team, we had Maria Michelli, Jen O'Brien, Janelle Hill, Debbie Notaro, Kristen Howell, Donna Mazie, Katie Fiorentino, Shannon Demos, Doug Bowen Flynn, who was a lead teacher for Humanities Department, and it was led by Nicole Chiesa. So you will notice that some of those names are similar to the school years group, but there are some differences. So with that said, we would be happy to answer any questions that you may have.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Ruseau, then Member Graham.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. I was happy to hear that there are surrounding districts that have adopted certain programs that will be at the roundtables. I mean, none of us are silly enough to think that they just got to be there on their own, that they were selected. It was a two-way process of being included. Is there any way we can require that the districts that come to these roundtables are like districts? we're probably not gonna learn much with how Cambridge did. I mentioned them because they are the outlier in the entire state. The resources that they, for instance, could bring to bear on any project are staggering. I wanna know that the programs from the district's perspective are districts that are as like us as, I mean, somewhat similar to us. I mean, it just, you know, it goes through a list of communities for which if they send their folks I hope nobody thinks that's useful information. Thank you.
[Galusi]: Absolutely. And I think that's part of Hill's process when they do this, because you learn so much from the practitioning districts that are already going through it that can explain their personal perspective. Just a few points on that though as well is that this shift. So we also have been looking at neighboring districts to see what they're doing for literacy. I'm on a list serve with the other assistant superintendents. And so there's a compilation of spreadsheets just to make sure the alignment in this shift to the science of reading because every district is going through this. As you know, because we've talked about this several times, we kind of got right on board right away. Many districts are really just beginning a lot of this work. So I also want to say that in terms of the Department of Education and a lot of the research that is out there, equitable literacy instruction is gained through a lot of these core programs. That's why Massachusetts, all of their grants are pushing districts to the alignment of a core program, because the research and a lot of what's out there says that the core programs, whether there's always going to be people that are supportive of a core program and people that don't like core programs, but in the absence of a core program, you fracture literacy instruction. and you can create gaps and holes. And so to make sure that all of our students are getting the literacy instruction that they need, which is equitable literacy, a core program will check all of those boxes. So part of this process is to determine what's best for Medford with the viewpoints of, as both Dr. Riccadeli and Dr. Chiesa mentioned, diverse roles within the district, and then bringing in the parent voice. I understand that parents bring a different lens, which is a very important lens that we wanna make sure we capture, but the content knowledge, the skill base, and the priorities are gonna be different for teachers and parents, but we have to make sure we're capturing all of that.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Great, thank you. Member Graham? Thank you. What programs are we looking at?
[bIcF9zSptpQ_SPEAKER_12]: You want to say? Go ahead. Again, the team is in the process of eliminating or maintaining, but the three are Savices Learning Company is called My View Literacy, Wonders, which is by McGraw-Hill, and HMH, which is called Into Reading.
[Lungo-Koehn]: my view literacy by the service learning company. Thank you for the presentation. I'm sorry just one more question members so last question.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. I'm on the cat. Health curriculum review committee and you know we just did a topic with what we do a topic every time we meet where there are members of the committee that like you know they're the specialists like the experts in the country kind of thing. We have such an amazing community here. When it gets down to that last item on the list and we're doing the selection, I don't mean this to suggest that not everybody doesn't come with all the energy, but there are experts and then there are the rest of us. And this isn't good. Is the final selection gonna be a vote of all people who are, I, it just feels awkward that people who, like two of the people might be experts in the field and 10 aren't, and maybe it's on them to convince the rest what the right choice is, but I do feel a little concerned, like, around this topic of experts versus those of us who just want to participate and help.
[Galusi]: We, we thank you for that. Um, the part of this process, Hill for Literacy has an assessment tool. It's a review tool. So it is a spreadsheet, which we will give to you. Um, when we send out for the parents that are interested, parents and guardians that are interested in participating in this process, they'll receive this as well, but it breaks down all the components of the program. And it's, it's like a rubric with a scoring piece. that will be reviewed by everyone that participated in this process.
[Lungo-Koehn]: So it will kind of come down to the analysis of that data. Great. Thank you.
[Galusi]: All right. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Appreciate it. We are on number five report on track and field athletic needs and equipment. Dr. Peter Cushing, assistant superintendent of enrichment and innovation. Dr. Cushing.
[Cushing]: Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the school committee. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you today. Last week, a number of parents and students spoke on some issues with the track team, the track and field team. And what I did was I took time last week to go and visually inspect much of the equipment that I've listed on the report. And in large part, most of the equipment looks functional. However, there's definitely some wear and tear and there are some items that can be replaced. I really want to thank Coach Donlan as well. Not only is he a great teacher to see in action by his record this year and his opportunity taking the time about an hour and 15 minutes last week, meeting with myself and the superintendent, he really demonstrated his passion for the sport, his love for our students, and you know, definitely has the makings of a legendary coach, uh, as, as he works on med for track and field. So, um, the first action item is to really look at the coaching needs. Track and field is very discipline specific. Uh, if anyone on the committee has participated in track and field, um, there are two main categories. There are your running events and there are your field events. And then within those, there are certain disciplines, uh, as, In my coaching experience with track and field, the way that I've seen it set up is, generally speaking, the coaches are assigned by discipline, regardless of gender. So, the throwing coach will work with both males and females, the sprinters coach, the distance coach, the high hurdles coach will work with both males and females and they will work to really hone those disciplines. That's one of the suggestions that we have moving forward. We're also going to add an additional coach based on the enrollment and make that judgment annually. So traditionally Medford has hired three coaches, but there is an opportunity to add an additional coach. And so we're going to take that opportunity. The stipends are something that we are working right now as part of the December 19th agreed upon collective bargaining agreement. We know that our stipends need to be examined and we are building a committee to work with the teachers association. We've had initial conversations and we will be taking a hard comprehensive look at the stipends. So the first part of the action plan is to post for a second head coach, but to really work within the structure that I mentioned to field test this year the best way to do that. So. Action item two is to identify the budgetary resources and fund codes. One of the things we need to make sure is that if we approve money, that we actually have the money to spend. We need to be fiscally responsible, but these are the items that in speaking with Coach Donlon would be most beneficial at this time. So the 23 hurdles, 45 hurdles were purchased about three years ago. So there's some that are in great shape and there's some that are not in functional shape, You can see that those hurdles cost probably about $9,000, the 45 that were purchased. These 23 hurdles would cost about $4,140. None of this includes shipping, which is usually an additional cost. The four 12-pound shot puts would come to about $162. For eight-pound shot puts for female competitors is $128. For male discuses is about $200. For a one-kilogram female discus is $160. Two javelins, we do have a number of javelins, but they are showing some wear and tear. They are functional. They are functional, I do want the committee to know that. I didn't throw them myself, but they are functional. That would be about $400, they're about $200 a piece. And two high jump standards, they're about $700 for the set. That's on the high end. The issue is right now on one of the high jump standards is there's a vice grip pair of pliers because, and I don't know how this happened, because it is about a quarter inch to a half inch thick bolt that has a heavy duty ring that you're then able to twist to unscrew and adjust the height. Um, I honestly don't know how it broke off because it is such a robust piece of equipment, but it did. And so a vice clamp, we're having our metal fab students take a look to see if they can weld something onto it. Um, but, uh, for $700, it would not be that much of an investment. Uh, so then some low, no cost, um, items or some cost. We don't, I don't have the numbers on action item three. So the district over the last Four years has purchased at least one full set of uniforms and some additional as well. And so what that did, though, is that some students only had triple X. or double X according to the coaching staff. And so if you're a sprinter and you're only uniform available to you as a triple X, well, that would be big, even for some of your biggest throwers. So what we're going to do is we're going to try. And one of the problems with track, I will say, having coached it previously is having the right number of uniforms in the right sizes. It is a challenge just because you could have a bunch more kids come out one year because of the popularity. and their sizes may vary. So we'll definitely get students to have an appropriately sized track uniform during the upcoming season. Discus cage at Hormel, that broke prior to last season. I spoke with the Medford Recreation Department. I also have an email back and forth with them. They ordered the cage. The athletic director made them aware that the cage was broken. They ordered the cage, but with shipping delays, it didn't come in until after the track season was over. We reached out to the MIAA. We were approved to, from what I've been told, we were approved to have another area on the baseball field serve, I'm sorry, on the softball field serve as track officials can be their own governing body at times when they show up on site. And if they don't think something is good, then they can say you're forfeiting that event or whatever it may be. And so that is what seems to have happened last year. So, but the track, the discus cage will be replaced prior to the first practice this year, according to Mr. Curley and Mr. Bailey. So that's actually item four. Action item five, uh, sand pits are filled with a gravel type sand. Now they haven't been rejuvenated in a number of years. Um, we brought the issue forward. Also coach Donlan has been replacing the, uh, the spike plate, the jump plate, which is just a piece of wood. So imagine how many tracks spikes at that through practice. And it's an annual replacement that, uh, both he and our I believe our carpentry shop has been helping to replace that with Coach Donovan over the past several years. So I've worked, I've spoken to Kevin at the Metro Direct Department, and they will take care of both rejuvenating the sand, as well as the jump plates, if that's the right term. Apologize here. Let me just make sure. Action item five, sand pits. Okay. Perfect, action item five. Action item seven, outdoor starting blocks at Hormel or Hormel Equipment. So I inspected two of these. One is in perfectly fine working order. The other has some missing spikes. I will say, in speaking with Coach Donlan, once again, having coached track and having seen a lot of track meets in my day, because they're a tremendous amount of fun, and if you haven't been to one, I highly encourage it. It is normal practice for students to stand on the starting blocks. All right. It's something that some sprinters want because they want that additional assurance that the block is not going to slip. I myself was not a sprinter. So we, but I have seen it. I know sprinters that that's something that is not a level of comfort. However, Mr. Bailey said that the medical recreation department is planning to start their own track program for Medford youth. So he is very open to purchasing those. The starting blocks are about $200 a piece. I would say that there need to be about eight purchased, but they have a significant amount of spikes similar to the spikes that would go on the bottom of your track spikes, your sprinter spikes. So they will dig into the rubberized surface at Hormel. Let me just make sure of this. Okay. Yep, Simon, thank you, Madam Mayor. High jump mat, it's actually a four mat system. The three base mats run about $12,000. They're about 15 years old. They do need to be replaced. The goal is to have them through this coming season budget next year. The cover mat, which was purchased after the fact because the old mat wore out. Generally speaking, these mats are not put away during the season. They're just left out to the elements. That's every track program that I've ever known of because they're such a burden. They really are a burden to move back and forth. And so the top mat was replaced. That's about a $2,000 mat replacement. So we will budget to make sure that's done. We're also gonna check if with some of our renters, if they're planning to bring in their own mats when they rent our facility next year, one of the colleges that rents our facility. I haven't heard back from their athletic staff yet. My apologies. And then the indoor starting blocks do appear to be functional from visual inspection. They definitely don't have the same wear and tear that the rubber mounts. plates that your spikes would go into as the outdoor. Those do have some noticeable wear and tear. However, if we can repair these, I think that would be a good cost savings measure. They're bolted to the floors in the high school gym. There's one that is missing a bolt at the rear, but it still has the front bolt. Coach Donovan mentioned that there is some slipping involved. So if a student doesn't properly engage them, so we're gonna see if we can have them repaired prior to having them replaced just as a cost savings. And then finally, there are only two schools in the GBL that have indoor track facilities. And because of that, the GBL made the decision at the end of this year to go to have all of the track meets hosted at the Reggie Lewis Center for next indoor track season. So that is the report thus far. I really do want to thank Coach Donlan. I would thank the parents and the students who came up. And I also want to mention that to anyone listening or whatever to feel free to reach out to myself, the building principal, the athletic director, for other issues you may have with any of our programs. I definitely want to be able to help parents and students get what they need.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Dr. Cushing. One question from the chair and then member Ruseau, and then I believe we might have a resident who wants to speak on Zoom. Question for you on point number one, which is the coaching. So it sounds like there's always been three. We may go to four.
[Cushing]: what happened with the last season with where it was just coach Donlan and I know one was one coach was out on leave but do you know what happened with the third coach so there was so there was a third coach um yeah okay so two present one one was out all right but I will say there's no there's no denying coach Donlan had a tremendous load upon him For the spring season, we do have already one person in the building and one person who works at a parochial school in the community who have shown high interest in coaching as assistant coaches. If one of those people could elevate to that and we find another coach if they want to stay as assistant coaches and, you know, I was encouraged by my conversations, but I don't want to speak any more about those. But the district would be very excited to have Coach Tomlin as part of our staff.
[Lungo-Koehn]: So we don't know if that's going to become a reality just yet? Correct. Thank you. Thank you for the update. Thank you for looking into this. On behalf of myself, I'm sure, and the entire committee. Member Ruseau?
[Ruseau]: Yes, thank you. The budgeting, when would these mats be needed?
[Cushing]: They would be needed following Thanksgiving of next year. The mats are in, they should be able to make it through the spring season. I'll be honest, I don't know if we were to order mats today, similar to the discus issue, and I can honestly say that I have not looked into what the shipping would be, but if we were to order them today, I don't know that they would be in for, start of the season. I would also want to look into if the mats are going to be left outside for an entire spring season that we purchased, and I don't know the cost of this, an appropriate tarpaulin cover to cover and make sure that they are secure. The unfortunate thing is that, you know, while Hormel is a locked stadium, from what I can tell, they could be subject to vandalism and other things.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Member Graham.
[Graham]: It's great to hear we're making some progress on recruiting additional support for the program. This is not the first time we've had athletics related discussions where we've not only lacked a person to play the role, but we've lacked a person with a skill set to be the coach. And I just want to ask that before we, if we are, putting somebody in place to help with administrative items and that kind of thing. Obviously like that's its own skill and you don't have to know how to throw a javelin, but we do need to find qualified coaches who have skill and can teach the kids. So I know that we're kind of coming up fast and I hope that some of these folks have skills that are complimentary to each other. So we don't have like a bunch of sprinting coaches and no coaches for the field events, but I just, I think we need to invest a little bit more energy in recruitment and really tapping people on the shoulders. I had a conversation with a parent today about alumni and what are we doing to convince alumni to come back and coach and support. So I just think there's a lot of work to do in the long term that is over and above what has to happen to make sure the season in the spring can proceed, that we should not shy away from just because the immediate issue is resolved. So I think, you know, we've heard this with other sports teams as well over time, and I'm sure the stipends have something to do with that. But we also just need to put forth the effort to go out and find the people with the qualifications that are going to be the best coaches for the students that we are trying to teach.
[Cushing]: Yeah. And one of the action items that I didn't put in here, but definitely came through my conversation with coach Tomlin is the specific professional development that coaches will need. Um, you know, there are coaches clinics, there are various things, but again, you know, those will come down to dollars and cents budgeting that really needs to be well thought out and make sure that, um, you know, we invest in our coaches, um, and really make sure that we have as much support for them as possible.
[Graham]: Yeah. And, you know, certainly in fairness to coach Donlan, as he had a really big task ahead of him, it's really hard to think strategically about how to grow a program, how to bring in professional development, how to create like a pipeline of students that want to come back and all the things, if you are mired in basic supervision and all the, you know, all the other stuff that is really, really important. but doesn't create a program that has like its own sort of life line to hang on to. So I think, you know, and again, I think this is probably true of lots of our sports teams. What is our strategic plan for each of these sports and what is needed? I think we've asked questions before about the athletics revolving account and I don't know that we've ever seen anything that like paints a really clear picture of what's going on at in the various sports, but I think asking the athletics department to start to think about the strategy around how do we create high caliber, high quality athletics teams? How does that contribute to students staying for Medford and going to Medford High and not leaving for all the other schools in the area that are relying on schools like ours to train middle school students and then coach them, right? So how do we create a situation where we have some strategic planning going on that starts to sort of shift that at various sports, I think is a conversation we need to have. And it obviously needs some dedicated budget and that kind of thing. But I think it's really important as we think about the whole child and what gets kids up in the morning to go to school and what constitutes an education. It's not just about what they learn in the classroom. And maybe it's athletics, maybe it's track, maybe it's e-sports, like it could be any of those things or none of those things. Or theater. What's that? Or theater. Or theater, all the things, right? And so how do we try to pay a little bit of mind to that part of the educational experience as well is something that I think when we talk about climate and culture at the high school, that all sort of wraps together for me. And I want to see us make some progress on that in the next year, year and a half.
[Mustone]: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you member Graham every stone tour. Thank you for connecting with everyone over the last week that's great to reach out to the formal and the rec department, I'm excited about them starting a youth track program. And I'm just wondering is there coach app or job website for coaches specifically I know it's posted on NPS. And is it posted on school spring or spring school yet?
[Cushing]: I don't know that it's posted on school spring. I do know that we post to frontline. And the head coaching position while approved is not posted yet, but will be with great speed and haste. So there's just one hurdle. no pun intended for us for us to get over with that. Okay.
[Mustone]: And is it that you've looked and there's no, I don't know about coaches. I just don't imagine there would be a specific coaching.
[Cushing]: No, the MIA has some, but it's not well used. It's, it's generally speaking close to school spring. I'm also going to reach out to Dave McGill for sports enterprises, um, because he has a broad reach. And so my hope is that he will be able to do that. I also know that other schools and districts use their booster clubs. I'm not saying that we have a track booster club, but this is something to think about to the future, that the district can only really support X number of coaches. This is a real problem, especially when it comes to football and hockey. So they can only support one or two or three coaches. because then it just becomes inequitable for other sports. But they look to their booster clubs to essentially stipend or give honorariums to volunteer coaches, but at least it's a little bit of something. But the people who spoke last week and the people who emailed you were on target with what they said about the stipends. Thank you, Dr. Cushing. Thank you, Dr. Cushing.
[Lungo-Koehn]: We're gonna move on to number six. Seems like there's no more hands raised. Number six is report on Medford Public Schools budget process for fiscal year 24. Dr. Marice Edouard-Vincent, superintendent. So good evening. I'm going to be presenting the FY 24 budget update.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Thank you, Dr. Cushing. And so to start to kick off our budget process for this year and talk about our timeline, I just wanted to take a moment to go through the slide deck with you. You can advance Dr. Cushing. Thank you. So for last year in June of 22, our operating budget was $68,994,776. And as you can see, our wonderful students, our wonderful programming here in Medford, our arts, our teachers, our students actively learning, engaged, involved in, looks like an art class, and The money that we use, the money that we use to run the district is to provide our students first and foremost with the best quality education possible. The next slide takes that 68.9 million and it kind of just gives you a general breakdown of how that money is divided up. is allocated toward general education. 9.1% is allocated towards security and maintenance. 25% is allocated towards special education. Student services equal 5.25% and administration is 6% of that pie. Thank you, Dr. Cushing. I just wanna share a few numbers.
[Ruseau]: Do you want us to hold questions to the end or when we'll have to flip all the way back the slide deck? I don't care either way.
[Hays]: Do you mind to hold?
[Edouard-Vincent]: And then, cause I may end up answering a question on a future slide, it's possible. And then we'll go back. And I have a hard copy with me as well. So right in front of you right now what the slide is showing is our ESSER estimated budget for this year. And it talks about some of the key investments that we made under personnel, engagement specialists. We had 1.05 engagement specialists, one school nurse, floating nurse. three behavioral specialists, reading specialists, ELL newcomer instructor, contractual stipends, professional learning, literacy, Hill for Literacy, responsive classroom. Camp Mustang, we have that as a TBD. Our MBTA pass program currently right now is about $15,000 a month. So for the 10 months, that's 150,000 coming out of ESSER funding. Emergency connectivity fund, there was an additional 90,000. And then under miscellaneous cell counseling programs, our rebus professional development training for our administrators, talking points and other subscriptions, that was approximately $50,000 that we spent on ESSER funding for this year, estimated budget. So moving forward to fiscal year 24 for next school year, you see before you four key priorities which are aligned to our strategic plan. Implementing curricula, which you heard earlier about our literacy presentation, there are important shifts in curricular investments that need to be made. Looking at assessment, instructional strategies to support all of our students. Our second priority is going to be focusing on building culture through community engagement and fostering collaboration. Our third priority equity, but looking at equitably supporting the academic, the social emotional learning needs and physical needs of all of our students. And our fourth priority would be looking at school infrastructure, student supports and safety of creating a safe learning environment for all of our learners. So those are kind of the buckets that we're going to be focusing on as key priorities which are all aligned to our strategic plan. And to go a little deeper on, again, this slide, which is showing next year FY24 budgetary priorities, we will be sending out a budget survey. And there's an asterisk next to the word needs. And at the bottom, it says it reflects the preliminary information. So we do not yet have the survey. The surveys have not gone out as of yet. But as we receive the survey data, as that data comes in, it will also help to shift our budgetary priorities. But this is just a draft. We're still looking heavily at strategic staffing investments focused on our most vulnerable learners. professional development and training, which is critically important. We're investing in talking about spending hundreds of thousands of dollars. In the literacy program alone, it's estimated to cost about 600,000, which will appear in a later slide. But to spend that kind of money, more than a half million dollars, and not include professional development for our educators, it doesn't make sense to bring in such an expensive program and not provide the training. So professional development and training is critically important for our academic success here in Medford. Also, we want to continue with district-wide professional development on restorative practices, responsive classroom, and further curriculum training for the elementary math and literacy. And as we continue to look at other programs, such as the HECAT program, any other programs that we may be thinking about bringing on board. In terms of summer programming, it's something that we do feel is very important. We know that there is significant cost with that. So we are looking at pursuing grant opportunities to continue several summer programming options for our community here in Medford, from literacy to math, to finance to sell programming during the summer, and then a few miscellaneous. supplements that we will need as part of the newly negotiated contract. We will be working on the high school scheduling, which is finally fully merging the vocational school schedule and the comprehensive school schedule, having the two schedules talk and be aligned because we still have the five day, six day schedule. So it's a lot of force fitting. And so we agreed to have a consultant come in to support us with the high school scheduling and at the elementary level where we have also shifted where our elementary schools will be having the additional early release half days. So for that, we had to do some shifting. The meetings are still taking place, but for elementary scheduling, we will need to have a slight increase in staffing. So where elementary scheduling is concerned in order to make the new schedule work for all of our students. That's something that we're aware of. So we just wanted to put that down. Again, it's a draft, but just for you to start kind of chewing on some of the ideas that we wanna put forward during this budget process. Thank you, Dr. Cushing. I also want to just highlight a few FY 24 initial budget drivers. We are currently, we have four collective bargaining agreements that we're still working on. We have potential unanticipated maintenance costs where, you know, I shared with the committee, you know, that the high school has a lot of, old pipes and, you know, freezing and just different things that have happened. So we've, we've been dealing with several unanticipated maintenance expenses and we know that those kind of kinds of expenses will continue to pop up. So we just have that listed there for something to really keep top of mind. I also want to share that out of district tuition costs for FY 24, we are expecting a significant increase of 14%. This is not exclusive to Medford Public Schools. This is across the entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts that all districts have been notified to expect an increase of 14% for special education out of district tuitions. And so that is a significant increase in one year to be able to make the necessary adjustments but I just again wanted to put this out before the committee for you to be aware that this is a new piece of information that all districts are dealing with and I do believe that there's been a lot of legislation and working with members of the delegation to try to see if something can be done with that number of 14%, but as of right now, the communication that did go out to all districts is that that number is expect a 14% increase. So we're also keeping that in mind. And there are also just ordinary anticipated financial challenges that may come along. In Medford we were hoping to be able to add a theater teacher, a 1.0 that is one period that one position that we were thinking about trying to add, but again, we have the wonderful theater, we wanna make use of that. I did mention on the previous slide about the high school and elementary school schedule consultancy, that's critically important and it was negotiated in the CBA. So it's something that we must work on to make sure that we're in compliance with our CBA. And then we're looking at augmented bus transportation costs to plan for high school yellow bus routes. If that's something that still ends up being part of where we land when it's all said and done. Moving on, for next year, it's critically important that our proposed final ESSER budget next year, FY24, is the final year of ESSER. We have approximately $3 million left. This is the final rollout of ESSER. And there are a few items that are already listed. The curriculum for the new elementary literacy program is approximately $600,000, which I said earlier in the presentation. Ms. Galussi and the literacy team, they have pursued a grant. If that grant, if we are able to secure that grant, it's for $300,000. which would be a significant grant. And as Ms. Galussi mentioned, it's already at the governor's desk. So we are keeping our fingers crossed and really hoping that that is good news. So that number there of approximately 600,000 would be cut in half. The restorative justice and the bystander intervention. This is training that we would love to have at the secondary level. It is approximately $100,000 for literacy, which we've been working with partnering with them for multiple years, helping us with rollout of literacy instruction. Their programming is approximately 90,000. So those three pieces would be potentially coming out of ESSER monies. And the $250,000, the balance of the elementary math program, that's the remainder of what is due. Those monies came out of our general fund. So just so you're aware, that 250,000 came out of the general fund. So these are just proposed costs for the 3 million. And as you can see, just in some of the programming, it could be nearly $1 million. So for FY 24 planning, some additional planning that we're doing, we have some wonderful, happy students sharing, telling us that they can be the best you can be. We have to still think about transportation. the summer of 23 planning, which I mentioned a little bit earlier, the governor's budget proposal. We know that that is pending, but we're going to be working with that. And then we're going to be scheduling committee of the holes. On the final slide, we have a tentative timetable Our strategic planning goals were approved in June of 2022. And we will be sending out budget surveys between March 7th and 17th. We're doing a 10 day window with the budget surveys to gather data and look at that data and see what is available for us. Budget meetings falling between March 28th and April 25th. recommendations to the committee for me around May 1st, May 15th, approximately, school committee requests. And the municipal appropriation, we know what that is in June TBD. school committee adoption. We have two meetings which are on the 5th and the 12th of June and implementation of this budget would take place on July 1. So this is just an overview to hopefully whet your appetites and I'm ready to take any questions. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Edward-Vincent. And I know this came with a tentative timeline, so I suggest that all my colleagues let Dr. Edward-Vincent and the team know when you're available, when you aren't based on that timeline so we can create a final document. Member Ruseau?
[Ruseau]: Thank you. I have a couple of questions. One was on the slide with the FY23 budget. Are those numbers representative of the portion of that $68 million, or do those include things like grants or special education funding that comes in a year late?
[Edouard-Vincent]: The pie grant was reflective of the $68 million operating budget. It was not showing all of the other grants.
[Ruseau]: Great. Thank you. When we do the bus contract, I feel like we keep talking about busing and the contracts here and then it happens and then we're just showing the contract to sign as as if we're not the other person signing it. And I understand we essentially live in a no bid there's no bids for the bus contract. There's the bus company. It's this de facto monopoly that the state somehow and the federal government have not cared much about. But we have things that this committee wants to change in our bus contract. And I think we should have that conversation before there's a new contract that's drafted. So I don't mean to add yet another meeting, our opinions on the bus contract and what needs to be different so that a negotiating position is actually approved from the committee. Seems like we should really have that this year.
[Edouard-Vincent]: So great minds think alike member Rousseau, because today prepping with the team, we were talking about providing a bus contract update at the March 20th meeting, am I correct Dr. Cushing? And we're working closely with Fiona here at City Hall so we are those talks have already begun preliminary conversations and that was one of the things that we said we know that it's. You know we wanted to list it so that you're aware as just all of the things that were, you know, taking all of these pieces and starting to just chunk them and say, you know what are going to be our huge priorities. So we do want to get that before the committee. to be able to just focus in on the transportation piece. So we did want to have a report to present at our next regular meeting. And if after that presentation, you know, the committee decides they would like a committee of the whole or a different specific meeting, then we definitely would be more than willing to do that.
[Ruseau]: Great, thank you. And then my last question should be quicker. I don't know if it was the last budget or the budget before they do run together, but when the city allocation came in at the last minute, it was last year, and the amount of money, it might not have been last year, forgive me, whichever year it was, the superintendent's office went off to figure out how to cut a bunch of money because the allocation and the approved budget were not the same number. you all worked like round the clock all weekend long to get that done, but the committee was not involved. And I just think, you know, last year there was our vote for the municipal appropriation. We split it out into the appropriate votes last year. And I just want to reiterate how important it is that we do not have us approving a budget and then you being asked to spend the weekend with your staff in a bunker chopping, if that's the situation we're in, without the committee having something to say about it, because we are supposed to have something to say about that. So I just want to reiterate how important that is. I have no idea what the budget's going to look like, but if that happens, I don't want to find out that you got rid of a director of something and you did all these other things in the dead of the night without us having a say in the matter. So thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you member Ruseau, I can answer that. Last year was a tough time because we didn't have CFO for many months, 11 months to be exact. Currently we have a full-time CFO and a new budget director working diligently on the city budget and forecasting. So we should have a number of schools within the next several weeks. Yes. It's very good news. Good news for now. The last two years, three years, we've cut from the stabilized, tried to go even on the city side so that we could give it the most we could to the schools. Obviously there comes a breaking point. So I think we're somewhat at that, but we'll do our best to give as much of an increase as we can. And we have this year and next year that we are able to use funding to plug any gaps. Last year we used about $7 million. It needs to be decreased. And then eventually after there's no more opera money, that's when we have to, we're already doing forecasting to project what, if any, of an override we would need.
[McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin? Yes, thank you. I was just looking at the schedule, superintendent, for the virtual listening sessions on April 27th. And I'm wondering if that's one session you're planning on having or more than one session and if there will be session or I would like to suggest that there be sessions with interpreters available.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Thank you, Madam McLaughlin, I can do that. Again, I wanted to get a draft schedule out to the members to at least have an idea of when the request was made to set the timetable forward. So we can definitely do that with translations and have additional, yes, yes.
[Graham]: thank you. April 18 is during school vacation week.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Thank you. Thank you for that.
[Graham]: Um and I guess I was looking at sort of the cadence of meetings. So, there's like four planned budget hearings on our list. Um I think we could probably like do it in three if they are not attached to other like You may not need to find, in my opinion, you might not need to find a replacement for that meeting if the sequence of topics can shift. I can't imagine that we could spend an entire meeting talking about the increase of the out-of-district tuition. It is, it is true right and so there's probably like lots of opportunity for us to talk about other things so that line up with the priorities that we will all share with you. So I think, you know, maybe we don't need for maybe three is fine. And that would be fine. I think the virtual listening session, is that the same as the budget hearing that we are required to have as a school committee by law about the budget, or that is something separate completely?
[Edouard-Vincent]: This one in April, I was thinking the official budget hearing would either be the late May, early June. Normally we do it closer to the end. This virtual listening session was more to like give the community or other people an opportunity to see what direction are we moving in and then we will have the survey data. So it's just another opportunity to receive feedback.
[Graham]: Okay. Um, and that, so I think the only other thing that we should try to do on this schedule is identify when that like statutory budget hearing is going to happen. Um, it can, I think it can happen at a regular school committee meeting as long as it's posted. So maybe may 15th is the right time to do that. Um, or it's just like where in the calendar that falls so that we don't lose sight of it. I'll mark the May 15th date as the... So then people will have an opportunity to go to the listening sessions and participate in these meetings all along. And then that can be the formal hearing.
[Edouard-Vincent]: You're saying within the regular meeting or do a COW?
[Graham]: I think it could go either way. I think it just has to be noticed.
[Ruseau]: I think it's actually a specific special meeting. It's not part of the regular meeting. It's not a COW either. meeting. And if I may, I think also that has to happen prior to our vote, which I'm reading is the 15th. Is that when we would vote on our request?
[Graham]: Well, our approval of the final budget is not until June. So there's like the request and then there's actually like approving the budget, right? So there's two steps in our process. And I don't know that the law says specifically like, cause the budget isn't approved until it is a real number, right? Or not approvable until it's a real number. Our request is just a request.
[Lungo-Koehn]: If I recall how we handled it last time. Thank you. Thank you.
[Hays]: Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay. So anybody will note any dates, just like, um, school vacation week. I noted that as well. So a few of us picked up on that. Um, and then we'll get those to the superintendent. Thank you for the presentation and, um, love the pictures. Um, we have presentations. We do not have any presentations of the public. So we'll go on to continue business number, um, 12 based on the February 6th, 2023 committee of the whole meeting. The Medford School Committee shall develop their goals for the remainder of this year. Moving forward, the Medford School Committee will develop their goals and objectives for an 11 month cycle, starting in January and ending in November of calendar year. Motion was tabled on March 6th, 2023 by member of a stone. We are taking it up again tonight because we are at a reasonable hour. So who would like to start? Member McLaughlin. Thank you.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you. make a motion that one of the goals for the school committee be regarding equity, in particular access for all families to school committee business. Specifically, I would recommend that we make a goal of being able to have translated materials of the school committee meetings and at least two to three, excuse me, and at least two to three perhaps three meetings over the course of the year that are similar to like a town hall with interpretation and offered in perhaps multiple languages. There's a number of ways that it can be done. I know that it's done in a number of organizations, but I would really like my colleagues to consider equity as one of our goals that can be accounted for come next year, where we can demonstrate that we've, had some thoughtfulness around what equity actually should look like and how we can start moving that forward as I know it's one of the primary goals for the superintendent as well.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Dr. Edward-Vincent?
[Edouard-Vincent]: Yes, Linda McLaughlin. I'm just asking for a little greater clarity. I guess I'm trying to make sure I'm following. You would like school committee documents Translated or we're saying to hold special meetings with translation available.
[McLaughlin]: I, yes, so one of the things is it just so for edification for the public in the community as well. Translation is material so that's print document interpretation is word spoken. So I'm looking for to, I'm looking for, you know, and they don't have to be all of the materials at once I know that there's a, there's a. a cost involved, so I would like to say that, but frankly, also anyone that's receiving federal funding is really required to be translating materials, so I want us to really set a goal for having translated material and, in addition, having at least a minimum of three town halls, committee of the hall meetings, whatever you want to call them, with interpretation using our two highest use languages in the community.
[Lungo-Koehn]: May I ask a further clarification? Can we just maybe edit it to say increase translating materials. I just know on the city side, we are making great strides and translating more, but it is, something that is just taking some time. But as you do different types of materials, I think it's costly, but also time consuming. So I just don't wanna put that on us to push onto the administration to translate everything all at once. I think it just needs to be gradual. So we don't set ourselves up for failure.
[McLaughlin]: Yes, and so I'm willing to say a certain percentage with the goal of increasing each year, so I would defer to my colleagues about that. But I would also say that I wasn't necessarily assuming that the district would be translating material. I was assuming potentially it was a budget line item where material is being translated for the district because It's something, again, that is required. If we're receiving federal funding, it's something that is required. So, I mean, that's up to the district and the superintendent to decide how they wanna think about this, but I really think it's past time to be thinking about it. And I would really encourage my colleagues to consider this as one of the goals that we really wanna focus on. And I do hear you, Mayor. I don't think, you know, everything everywhere all at once. Like I don't think, you know, but I think having measurable goals and benchmarks around this would be really important. So I would like to open that dialogue up with the committee. Thank you.
[Hays]: Member Hays. I just wanted some further clarification too about the town hall meetings. I'm not, I'm unclear whether you're talking about specific topics or you're talking about, I'm not sure what you're talking about with town hall meetings.
[McLaughlin]: Sure. I think in general, a lot of our community are that are not English speaking as a primary language, perhaps don't understand the function of the school committee don't understand how it operates don't understand any of those things. So as opposed to having just a committee meeting. a typical general committee meeting that is then translated, I think it might be better to have a topical, like two or three topical meetings that are then translated. Of course, they would have to be public meetings, they're committee meetings. They could be considered committee of the whole, town hall, what have you, but it could be topical. What is the school committee and how does it work? How can you get involved with your children's schools? Any number of topics, but I would say a minimum of three. with, you know, specifically with the guidance on, I know that Haitian Creole is one of our primary languages. I don't know what the second highest spoken language would be in the district, but I would really focus on, I guess, the first two with maybe, three might be ambitious for town halls or meetings, but maybe two meetings between now and when we set our goals next time that are really meetings to build it's also community engagement. So it's not just equity, it's under the community engagement goal as well, to build community engagement. I mean, our demographics on our high school and our other schools are very clear that we have, I think, what did we say last year at graduation? Something like 300 different countries represented at graduation, which is fantastic. But I think there's a lot of families out there that we're not necessarily reaching. So in response to that, I guess I would say topical.
[Lungo-Koehn]: So we'll scratch the wording town hall, because town hall maybe is more of a question and answer type open public meeting for everybody to come and ask any question on anything. That's what I think of a town hall. I don't know what else my colleagues think. So you're thinking maybe like one of our final budget meeting would be? No.
[McLaughlin]: No. And so this is really about opportunity for engagement and understanding so it's about building family relationship and in community and having interpretation so maybe it is a committee of the whole if you need a name for it, a committee of the whole or two committees of the whole. where they are opportunities to have a discussion on a topical, whether it's how to get engaged with your schools, how to ask question and answers of your school committee, what is a school committee, how do you affect policy change if needed, any of those topics. I mean, the topics I think can be decided, but I think the important piece is that we're opening a forum that offers translation and people to understand the process. So I don't care what we call it.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Got it. So could, can I make a suggestion from the chair, if my colleagues don't have anything to say, could we set the goal that we have one town hall in the fall that will give us a chance to get through the budget, let them, let the administration plan the town hall in the summer. And we do it as a, just like we did I think we did a couple meetings all through Zoom and then there was breakout rooms where there'll be the Haitian Creole breakout room, the Spanish, the Portuguese, and then anybody who's attending to ask any question from the district will have admin in each one and they can ask any question they have about the new school year. So sometime in September, October, and we talk about the school year.
[McLaughlin]: Certainly, that's one option. Thank you, Mayor. That's certainly one option. I mean, I just was at a conference on Saturday and did a presentation that was a simultaneous interpretation in Vietnamese. And so you can either do simultaneous interpretation where you stop and pause, or you can have the breakout rooms, like you said. Even with the breakout rooms, you don't have to have administration in each of the breakout rooms. You can actually have people listening in their language and the main meeting still happening. and so that there are people listening in their language, but the main meeting is still happening. Yeah, and so then we're still all part of the same meeting, because what I don't want is, no, I don't want people to go in other rooms with one administrator and talk, because that is sort of defeating the purpose. I want us all to be part of, I think it is more like a town hall, because it's more of a sort of question and answer discussion, but it can be called whatever. I think it would have to be facilitated, obviously, we wouldn't just have you know, random questions or whatever would be facilitated and topical, but I do think it's an important step towards recognizing that we need to engage other communities. So yeah, I'm fine with, again, a fall start if folks think that that makes sense, but I guess looking specifically at a goal, you know, we talked about having goals for the school committee and looking specifically at a goal that we can be held accountable for as school committee members, I would say, I would, respectfully ask my colleagues to consider equity to be one of those goals and two measurable ways that we can achieve part of that goal between the time we have now and in January, when we would reestablish goals. I think we said, I don't take me literally, I don't remember the exact date when we said we would do new goals, but that we would have equity in the way that we could, or that we would address equity. And two of the ways that we would address that is one, with an increase of a certain percentage of school committee materials being translated into at least one of our most popular languages. And then to at least, you know, one to two for this year, because we're already on the short end, we, you know, we're already on the short end of setting the goal. So for this year, I would say one to two town halls that are in the two primary languages or that offer translation in the two primary languages.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I think we have three here in Medford.
[McLaughlin]: What are they?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Portuguese, Spanish, and Haitian Creole.
[McLaughlin]: Oh yes, Portuguese, right. Spanish and Haitian Creole.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I'm almost positive.
[McLaughlin]: Yeah, yeah. So I think that would be a great example.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Great. And it would actually be the superintendent that knows best because I think the city has learned from the Friday updates that come in multiple languages that has been a great asset to our families. So goal number one, equity and access to all to increase translation of materials and to have one to two town halls, first one being in the fall with that is translated in the three most commonly used languages here in Medford. Interpreted. Interpreted in the three languages. Member Ms. Stone, you had to be late on first. Is this on a second goal or on this?
[Mustone]: I can wait if you're going off.
[Graham]: So, as we're talking, I'm wondering if like to be really concrete, we could say that our goal starting in the fall is that the agendas will be translated so that people proactively can understand what's happening and that there's a mechanism for folks who may want to participate in our meeting to tell us that so that we can do what we can do to get services here. And then second part being the town hall listening session so that those are concrete, measurable. We can see it, we can observe it. We have an agenda that's translated each week, et cetera. So I think that would be a great way to start to focus on helping people proactively understand what happens here at the school committee meeting and know what is on the agenda even. That's great. Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: I'm sorry. Sure.
[Mustone]: No, I was just going to say, could one of the goals be to expand our finance? I love that in the budgetary priorities, you have a theater teacher. So I think just the option of expanding or the goal of expanding more theater electives, both in the middle school and the high school. And if we could even increase the music options in the middle school and the high school, which of course would take on more staff. But I really think we've all received a number of emails with all the benefits of theater and music for students, both in the middle school and the high school level.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you.
[Mustone]: Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Excuse me. I just wanted to respond to the chair to member Graham's recommendation for that equity goal. I think that's reasonable. Although my only concern about agenda only, which I think it is good to have it in a step fashion so that it's also not overwhelming for the reader. One of my concerns is that by seeing the agenda only and not the minutes or the notes at this point, but ultimately minutes, I hope, I'm not sure that people can understand the resolution of the process. If you're only seeing agendas over agendas, is anything getting done? I'd like to think creatively about that.
[Graham]: Yeah, I mean, I agree. I just think we have to start somewhere. And if we try to start, like, too big, I think we're going to struggle. I just don't want to see us get none of the things done because we're trying to do too many things all at the same time. So, and, you know, this is through November. So, If we can make that part of the process, hopefully we have our new communications director on board, then come November and December, we can be talking about that next iteration after that. I guess that's my thought.
[Lungo-Koehn]: From the chair, I think this is a great goal, but the work of the goal is gonna fall on our superintendent and the admin shoulders on this goal. So I do think we have to just take it in stride. We do have so much going on.
[McLaughlin]: Well, yes, thank you. Mayor? Um, yes, but again, I think that when you say it, when we say like this, the, the work is going to fall on the, the, the school, I think we all have to be responsible for this as well. And I don't necessarily think that it's all the work just goes on the school. I think that we look at the budget and we think about how are we allocating this in our line items in our budget. So, you know, our, our budget shows our values as well. So I think that it's not a matter of here is more work for the same amount of money. It's no, this is important and we need to. think about how we're doing this so that it is meaningful and that we're all taking ownership of it, number one. And number two, I agree that it's important to have it graduated, so I'm fine with that, with the understanding, as Member Graham was saying, that it would be expanded, that this is because we have such a short schedule on these particular goals, as school committee members, that we will look to be expanding this. But I think, obviously, that will be assessed when we reconvene or when whoever reconvenes for the next set of goals that they'll be setting. So again, I just have a motion for equity to be one of the goals with those understandings that were discussed. If there's a second.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion for goal number one and goal number two to be our goals for the year by member McLaughlin. That's your motion. Seconded by member Kreatz. All those in favor? All those opposed? goals have been set through November for school committee. That's not the only goal, right? Two goals we just approved. That's one goal. Oh, did we?
[McLaughlin]: We can separate the motion.
[Lungo-Koehn]: We already took the motion.
[McLaughlin]: Okay, well then. Yeah, I mean, Yeah, I'm okay with making that amendment to the motion, that equity with the measurable benchmarks we mentioned of one, or A, having school committee agendas translated in our primary languages, our three primary languages, beginning September, and two, having at least one, for lack of a better word, people can call it what we want when we decide, a town hall discussion with interpretation.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Do you want to move motion for reconsideration? The motion was taken. Yes, I want to make a motion for reconsideration by member McLaughlin, seconded by member Rousseau. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Okay.
[McLaughlin]: Okay. Thank you. So did you get any of that?
[Lungo-Koehn]: No. I have it all. You can read it because I don't have any of it. Markie, do you have it? No, she gets it from me. Oh, she gets it from you.
[McLaughlin]: It's fine, I'll do it again. I am making a motion that our school committee has goals, equity being one of them as a accountability measure based on our goals with two sections of equity measurable benchmarks, one which be-
[Ruseau]: Type fast, not that, too fast. Two seconds of equity goals.
[McLaughlin]: One, which would be having a translated agenda beginning September, school committee agenda beginning September, and our three most often used languages, which is Haitian Creole, Portuguese, and Spanish.
[Lungo-Koehn]: And two, that we host
[McLaughlin]: a town hall, for lack of a better word, with interpretation, interpreters, and also in those three languages, and it can be a topic-based town hall, and maybe we can think about what that is between now and the beginning of September by talking to some of our community members. who might be interested in specific topics. And then two would be expanding the fine arts. And maybe member Mistone could speak a little bit to that amendment. Expanding the fine arts, just expanding the fine arts.
[Lungo-Koehn]: In the middle school and high school and explore additional music and theater opportunities. Perfect. Explore additional theater and music opportunities.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you. So, I have a motion if I can get a second.
[Lungo-Koehn]: For both of those.
[McLaughlin]: For both of those. Okay. It's one motion.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yup.
[McLaughlin]: One motion. Yes.
[Lungo-Koehn]: To include goal number one, goal number two by member McLaughlin.
[Graham]: Is is this the only are we where we can still have other goals, right? We haven't talked about Medford High and I don't think we can. Sorry. Um I don't think we can like button it up if we have not addressed anything about Medford High.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Well, maybe Member McLaughlin, if you could hold your motion, because I think it was suggested we do two to three goals. So let's talk it all through. Yeah, if we want a third, or if we want to change any of these. Member Mustone, you had your light on first, and then Member Graham. No, I'm good. You're good. Member Graham.
[Graham]: So I do think one of our goals has to be around creating and approving an action plan for the next school year at Medford High. So we talked about the action plan that's in place like right now. We have a consultant who's doing work. We have a climate survey that's coming up. We have a climate and culture assessment that's coming up. So we've all these things happening and the output of all of that is meaningless if we don't create an action plan that turns those things into observable change in the building. So I think one of the things that's incumbent on us to do is to request and approve an action plan for the high school for the next school year, ideally around the start of school. But I think it's the single hottest question in the community right now. And we need to make sure that we're being responsive to that. And that as we talk about the budget, as we talk about all these things, that we are aligning with these goals that we're going to create to drive some of those budget decisions that we inevitably always have to make. So I want to make sure that things like, do we have enough assistant principals gets talked about, discussed, prioritized, all of those things when we are handling the budget. I feel like talking about it as the creation of a FY24 action plan and approval by this committee of what that action plan is for the FY24 school year is probably the right way to describe it right now, because we have all these moving parts that are still coming into focus.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Member Graham. Member Ruseau?
[Ruseau]: Could you repeat that, Member Graham?
[Lungo-Koehn]: action plan for 2023-2024 as it relates to Medford High School that we request and eventually approve such plan. Thank you. Member McLaughlin.
[McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. So in the way that that is measurable is that it is that we are receiving a plan and approving it. So we would
[Graham]: want to be, we would want to approve the plan, you know, around the start of school, so maybe by October 1st, because then we want to see it executed right across the year and be able to say, we're doing these things, we've done these things, here's what's changing.
[McLaughlin]: And will data be collected across the, over the year by us to, to demonstrate that we're being held accountable to that plan? So the point, I think, I guess part of what I'm asking, I think it's a great idea. I'm trying to understand the measurable, the way that the community can measure whether the school committee was accountable in the process. And so maybe it's just in the first phase because it's the second phase potentially for the next set of goals might be around review. Okay, all right, okay.
[Lungo-Koehn]: That's exactly what I was gonna say. Yeah, this is the first part of a goal that we'll continue on in our next yearly goals.
[McLaughlin]: Okay, so I make a motion for those three goals for school committee.
[Ruseau]: Did you get them all, Member Ruseau? I got them. I didn't think all the other members had a chance to perhaps propose their ideas of goals.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Ruseau?
[Ruseau]: I wasn't trying to get myself in the list, but there's four other members here that might have ideas. I was wondering if we were gonna let them speak.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Anybody's welcome to speak.
[Hays]: Member Hays? Well, we had talked last time, it's kind of an easy goal to put in because we're already doing it, but we had talked about the updating of the superintendent evaluation process as being one of the, possibly being one of the school committee goals, given that we're already in process of doing that. So I'll throw that out as an idea.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I feel like we've accomplished that and you've taken the lead.
[Hays]: Well, we're still working on it. So, I mean, just a thought, it's already, it's already happening. So yeah. to add so that the community knows?
[McLaughlin]: I think that's an easy goal to accomplish since we're already underway on it. So I would be fine with adding that as a fourth goal, if you will, because I think we are underway for doing that. And again, I think, thank you member Hays for that process and getting that underway and for MASC for informing the process for everybody being so patient with the process, but I think it's much improved, and I think that's a great measurement of how we've worked together.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Agreed. So wanna add that four goals.
[63m6ohF-DtU_SPEAKER_07]: Does anybody else have anything to add? Member Kreatz? Yes, I had that one too as a reminder. And then I also have, and this is something I think that we have to do, is replace the finance director, Um, so that's something that I had down as well, but I just think that's something that, you know, it's just something that we have to do. So I don't know if it's actually, um, a goal, but you know, it's, it's something that I had down that and something we're already doing, which is the earlier budget process, which the superintendent presented tonight. So we got that information.
[Lungo-Koehn]: earlier budget process, which we already started tonight.
[63m6ohF-DtU_SPEAKER_07]: And lastly, submitting the MSBA application, which is something that we're going to be doing. Is that correct?
[Lungo-Koehn]: We can make that goal number five. We need to make sure that's in. How about that? So number one, equity. Number two, expanding fine arts. Number three, action plan for 2023-2024 Medford High School. Goal number four, superintendent's evaluation, which is underway. needs to be completed, and goal number five, submitting the application to the MSBA for Medford High School.
[McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. Motion to approve.
[Lungo-Koehn]: By member McLaughlin. Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: Yes. Thank you. Before the meeting, I looked up what other school committees do for goals, and I'm looking at an example from Falmouth. The most striking thing is that school committee goals are for a bunch of work for school committees to do, not for their staff. I feel like we've just created a pile of work that we're just going to be able to come to a meeting and vote and say we had our goals and they were met or not met. But none of us has to go do any work other than perhaps go to the meetings. And I look at other goals from other committees and the committees are doing all of the work, all of it. Figuring out how to have processes so when we change policies, we actually say what the policy is and we say what line is changing from what to what. whether we have goals around motions that are not seven paragraphs long, we've all done it where we just, my motion is, and two and a half minutes later, we stopped talking. That's not a motion, that's a conversation. And somewhere in there is a one sentence motion. And then, you know, when I go to school committee trainings, the motion should be read at least four or five times by the chair before we vote. That's what they say when you go to the trainings on how to run a good meeting. I would never expect the mayor to do that because we'd be here all night long figuring out what is the language. We leave it to Markey and Susie before her and Lisa to go to the video and try to figure out what the motion was. Those are the goals that I see when I look at other school committees. So nothing that has been brought up by any member here I disagree with. I just feel like we just need to add two more staff people to the budget to accomplish them. And my understanding of school committee goals was the goals for us as a body and how to do our job better. That's just all I wanted to say. I didn't really add a goal, but I really thought it was important that I say what I thought school committee goals were.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, member Ruseau. Motion on the floor by member McLaughlin, seconded by member Second. Kreatz, roll call, please. Member Graham. Yes.
[o9F0qYH9Geo_SPEAKER_05]: Member Hays.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[o9F0qYH9Geo_SPEAKER_05]: Member Kreatz.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[o9F0qYH9Geo_SPEAKER_05]: Member McLaughlin. Yes. Member Mastone.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[o9F0qYH9Geo_SPEAKER_05]: Member Ruseau. No. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Six in the affirmative, one in the negative. Motion passes for the five goals. Number two, second reading. Recommendation from the strategic planning subcommittee meeting held Thursday, February 9th, 2023. Member Graham, Chair, Member Hays, Member Ruseau. Proposed policy for dedication and naming of school committee buildings, facilities, and grounds. The school committee has sole authority over the naming or renaming of buildings, interior facilities, and grounds in the public schools. The school committee recognizes that the names of school facilities must be undertaken with care and scrutiny. This policy is intended to ensure that names and or other wording associated with school facilities will promote and or be consistent with the goals of the Met for Public Schools. The naming process should include student, family, community, and staff voices. Bless you. When naming a school facility, preference is given to those persons, organizations, and events which had a substantial impact on the education of Medford students, persons or events that reflect the increasing diversity of Medford students' population, This guidance shall not preclude consideration of names or persons of local, state, national, or international significance. Names of persons employed by the school or city at the time of dedication shall not be considered. The school committee reserves the right to remove a name at any time if it is in the best interest of the district or donor to do so, or to protect the reputation of the district and or the donor. In order for a building facility grounds to be named that is accompanied by a financial contribution, the following procedure shall be followed. A written request is placed on the regular school committee agenda. The item should specifically specify the intent of the requester and the details of the intended financial contribution. It should offer appropriate background information and the person or organization in the request. The school committee will consider the request and invite public input at least two consecutive meetings before a vote to approve or deny the request is taken. A gift agreement between the donor and the school committee must be approved simultaneously as the name is voted. The standard agreement must specify the building interior facility or grounds to be named, the duration of the naming period, as well as payment terms. These agreements will be considered for the public record, kept on file by the school committee for access by the public. In order for a building facility grounds to be named that is not accompanied by a financial contribution, the following procedure shall be followed. The school committee shall pass a resolution identifying building facility or school grounds to be named. The school committee shall establish a naming advisory committee pursuant to policy BDF advisory committee to the school committee. The naming advisory committee shall adhere to the charge established in forming the committee, including public participation, timelines, and other criteria. The school committee shall receive recommendations from the naming advisory committee at a regular school committee meeting. The school committee shall by majority vote adopt a name While the school committee is not required to accept the recommendations of the naming advisory committee, it looks forward to supporting those recommendations whenever possible. In order for a classroom or space within a school building to be named, the following procedure shall be followed. A written request is placed in the school committee agenda. The item should specify the intent of the requester and the reasons why this particular name would fit with the space. It should offer appropriate background information on the person or organization in the request. School committee will consider the request and invite public input at two consecutive meetings before a vote to approve or deny the request is taken. School committee may choose to send the request to a naming advisory committee. In order for a community giving program where donors will be invited to give to a project in exchange for physical dedication, the following procedures shall be followed. The program rules and required donation levels will be placed in a regular school committee agenda. The item should describe the program placement of the physical dedications, donor levels, and other rules. The school committee will consider the request and invite public input. The school committee may make a decision at any time, provided that public input was received before the vote of approval or denial. Motion for approval.
[o9F0qYH9Geo_SPEAKER_05]: Mayor.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: I'd like to I don't believe this would count as an amendment and require a second reading, but I'd like to motion that the approval of this policy, should it pass, goes into effect on July 1, 2023, rather than immediately, as is normal.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion for approval of second reading, as amended, this will go into effect July 1, 2023, by Member Ruseau.
[Graham]: Can I, Member Graham, just cite some concern about that. So right now, There really is no policy around naming and I don't want to create a vacuum where everyone decides like we're gonna rush and name everything that we can like name in the schools however we want because the policy doesn't exist until July 1st and nobody can say anything about it and then we've got sort of like a angry mess to unwind. So I'm not in favor of delaying the implementation of that. I think if people want to bring forward a request, the policy has lots of ways to do that. And it should go into effect immediately.
[Lungo-Koehn]: And if I may, from the chair, I've got some people speaking out. I think member Kreatz had mentioned this last meeting, just very concerned about the process that we went through before and just creating more division in the community. But I know member Graham, one of the big things about this is all the work that's being done by you, the committee, Dr. Cushing, a whole host of people on the McGlynn playground, rehabilitation. So we are gonna be looking for donors and I believe that would be prior to July 1st, 2023. So I too think that we should be getting the donors in many different ways for that project. It's gonna be wonderful, but expensive and we'd like to be able to implement this policy to see that happen. I don't know if member Ruseau has this. We'll withdraw his motion, thank you. So motion for approval by member Graham, seconded by member Hays. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Paper passes. New business offered by member Hays, McLaughlin, and Ms. Stone, whereas the Medford School Committee values the thoughts, concerns, ideas, and experiences of the students who attend our schools, be resolved the school committee will seek to encourage student participation in regular school committee meetings through the addition of an agenda item to every regular meeting agenda titled presentations of students with the following description. Presentation of students. Regular meetings of the Medford school committee include this presentation of students agenda item to give any Medford public school student the opportunity to place a presentation before the school committee. Student may only present once at any meeting. These presentations are an opportunity for students to make a presentation to the committee, but are not opportunities for dialogue with the committee. one or more members of the committee wishes to have a conversation about the topic, a member may request that the item be added to the regular school committee meeting, the next regular school committee meeting. The details for submitting a presentation can be found within the policy, pursuant to policy BEDH, public comment and presentations to the public. Any resident in the audience may be given permission to speak once on any agenda item for up to three minutes. The speaker is expected to keep their comments to the item on the agenda. The speaker must begin their comments by providing their full name and full Medford Street address where they reside. A welcoming, inclusive community is both a value of the Medford School Committee and an aspirational goal. We ask for your help in achieving this goal and value your perspective. Motion for approval by Member Hays. Seconded by Member McLaughlin. All those in favor? Mayor. Member Graham. I was,
[Graham]: I just had some questions. I think, generally speaking, what I thought this was trying to do is make sure there's a formal place for students to speak to us, right? Which I love. I feel like this might not, like there's other ways that school committees do this, much more simply than telling students they're gonna come and we're not gonna talk to them and then they, you know, that feels sort of onerous. I think there's lots of other ways school committees are doing that like really regularly, especially with student reps. And of course, students are always part of public participation. So I guess my thought would be to make sure that we all agree that we want to like put a formal place on the agenda for students to speak and then ask the rules policy subcommittee to like work this into the agenda in a like cohesive fashion so that it's part of the policy, it's part of our rules, it's part of all the things because there is a policy change here that has to go through that process. So I think the rules committee, the policy committee could do that if we are clear on what the intent is, which is to be able to hear student voices.
[Hays]: Member Hays. Thanks. Yes, we did talk about sending it to the Rules and Policy Committee three months ago. It hasn't come up yet, so I thought maybe this would be a different route to try to get it formally moved forward. So this was my attempt to do that. I don't know what to say. I think that I've made that attempt to do that in a formal way. We did all vote on it, and it was passed through a motion to send it to a committee that it has not yet been brought up to. So... I don't remember a motion to send it to the... Yes, December 5th, it was motioned to be sent to the Rules and Policy Subcommittee.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay. Member Ruseau?
[Ruseau]: As the chair of that subcommittee, that is correct. I don't remember the specific one, but that is not surprising. We have a very long list of things that have been sent to that subcommittee and we've prioritized bullying and the recess policy. And when we get through with those, we will go on to the other items in the list. I believe we have eight subcommittees and We can certainly send these items to other subcommittees. Every member here is supposed to be writing policy. It is not a rules and policy subcommittee only activity to write policy. It is the job of this committee. So if we would like to take that item and motion to move it to a different subcommittee, I would be thrilled because the list is long. And sometimes the crisis of the day decides what the order of things are going to be. As it is in any subcommittee in every government that exists, the chair looks at the list, consults with members and takes the temperature of the community and says, you know what, the bullying and prevention and intervention policy is more important than changing our policy to have an item on there for student participation. That's just the way it operates. It's not that there's like a desire to not have the thing heard or discussed because that's in the previous year before member Hays was a member of this body. There was a huge effort that I participated in with our student representatives to do a very long list of changes to include far more student participation. And much of that was not deemed even legal, because the state has all kinds of weird rules about student participation. But there is certainly no interest in preventing student participation. I feel a bit like that's the implication.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member McLaughlin, then Member Hays, then we have a resident.
[McLaughlin]: Sure, I was just going to say I'm happy as the chair of the diversity, equity and inclusion subcommittee to take that on and make our proposed policy with my committee members to move the issue forward. I do think it's important, obviously, that our students see themselves on the agenda. It's not just about having the opportunity, which everyone has the opportunity to come up and speak, but seeing themselves on the agenda lets them know that We value them and we think it's important. So I would be happy to take that on as the chair of the DEI with my committee members.
[Hays]: Thank you. Yes, that might be a good way to go about it. I just want to be clear that this was not an attempt to criticize in any way. It was an attempt to move something forward where I knew that there were other things that were of more pressing importance in the subcommittee that it originally was set to. So I apologize if it came across as a criticism. I was really specifically trying not to make it that way. I was just trying to present it in a different way to hopefully move it forward. Thank you.
[McLaughlin]: Thank you, Member Hays. Ms. Branley. Did they turn that on?
[Branley]: Because I didn't think I was going to be able to do it.
[McLaughlin]: I missed you.
[Branley]: Usually it's very good, especially late at night when it's like, come on, there's only one more thing to go. Let's do this. I'm not going to talk long, I promise. So Nicole Branley. So I'm just curious, how are the student reps brought here when they're here? Are they on a certain?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Dr. Cushing works to gain as many student rights as possible.
[Branley]: Yeah, I'm just curious how they're requested to be here. Sometimes they're here, sometimes they're not. Are they?
[Cushing]: So generally speaking, they are here. I think this is actually only the third meeting that they've missed. We have four. Generally speaking, I meet with them the Thursday or the Friday before. I review the agenda with them. I see which one will be able to be here. At the start of the year, I reach out to the principals to be able to select them. They're part of the overall superintendents advisory committee that has about 30 named students, generally speaking attendance in the 15 to 20s with our meetings of a rotation of when students can be there. We're trying to make those meetings during the school day, but really trying to give students, these students to be the opportunity to really be the voice. And we expanded it because in previous years we had had, we had limited participation. It's actually at five right now because Gabby Puccio is back on board with us as well. So it's Gabby, Noah, Dom, Melanie, and Dawn.
[Branley]: Sorry, just trying to remember what their- Yes, thank you for all your hard work trying to- Yeah. I was just curious how they ended up here sometimes and like not, which makes sense, of course, because obviously everybody has other things to do too. So then my only other question is, obviously, in the public participation part can, I mean, I've seen the minors come up before. Students could always present too. So could maybe that part of the agenda be just changed, adjusted to say public, you know, obviously they're part of the public, but so then you don't need a whole other space for them? That makes so much sense. We could do that. It's up to member Hays. I think that's the first time anybody said I've made sense of it.
[Hays]: Member Hays. Well, I'd like you to go. I think I would like you to go, since this is something that we brought up during school committee, I would like you to go to the subcommittee and we can discuss it there.
[McLaughlin]: Motion to move the topic to the DEI subcommittee.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member, by Member McLaughlin, seconded by Member Hays. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion is approved. Selection of school committee, three representatives for the Desi district review focus group during the first week of April, 2023 offered by Dr. Edouard-Vincent.
[Edouard-Vincent]: So good evening. In preparation for our district review, DESE would like us to have, DESE would like to have at least two or three members that would participate and be part of the review. It's scheduled to take place that first week of April. So we don't have all of the specific information, but I just wanted to put it out there to all. of the members and find out if there was any interest, or if your work schedule would permit you to be available to be part of the DSEE review. And if there's a member McLaughlin, you're interested? I would like to know what the time commitment is, but I need to leave now. It's probably one hour, Dr. Cushing, do you know? One hour, two hour? 90 minutes. 90 minutes, a 90 minute commitment. Okay.
[Lungo-Koehn]: During the work week day?
[Edouard-Vincent]: During the school day, yes. So that's member McLaughlin, anyone else?
[Lungo-Koehn]: I'm happy to do it if you don't, unless a committee member wants, would be too. Yeah, yeah.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Okay, so we'll have Mayor McLaughlin, Member Graham, and Mayor just in case as a backup. Thank you so much.
[Mustone]: Thank you. Mayor. Member Mustone. I might've missed it for old business, but last week the student rep Noah had brought up about the locked bathrooms. And I don't remember if there was gonna be a follow-up about the schedule of the bathrooms, locked bathrooms, or just to respond to Noah's inquiry about when they're locked or when they're unlocked.
[Edouard-Vincent]: I can have another presentation. I can have a update on bathrooms at our next meeting.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, great.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: And on that point, I think it's good to make sure just that the students know which ones, and I know we have our ones near the cafeterias back online. So that's important to me, making sure the students know which are open when. So I'd be happy just to get that information by email that it went out to students rather than a presentation, but I don't know what the student wants. Yeah. I think that would be an email to students with the schedule and which bathrooms would be great. Yeah. Okay. We could, if I could just see it, I'd be good without a presentation. Okay.
[Ruseau]: Myself member Ruseau. I know we get told this stuff, but some things don't stick in my brain. Like how many bathrooms there are per floor and how many are open and when, um, because sometimes when we get assertions that there's only two bathrooms open at any moment, any, at any moment in time in the high school, If you tell me there's only two bathrooms open, I'm going to have a lot to say. Because kids are still not having anything to drink in the morning or eating in the morning. It used to be because they weren't really thrilled with what they would find when they went in the bathrooms. A crowd of kids. and they wouldn't necessarily feel safe. Now it's because they're worried they won't be able to find a bathroom. I mean, there was just in our daily email that this is being brought up in other places, not just Massachusetts, where kids should have a right to be able to go to the bathroom without missing out on substantial portions of their education. And if there's a line of kids and they're spending five, 10, 15 minutes of a class waiting to go to the bathroom, we are depriving them of their education so that we can have closed bathrooms. And that's, it's being actually the article I'll send to you superintendent is really is from a civil rights perspective. Like we were, these kids have a right to an education. And if they happen to have had a good old fashioned American breakfast, they're screwed. you know, so that I just want to make sure we get that level of detail in the email. Cause I think, um, you don't want six or seven additional emails after you send yours.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yep. Thank you. That sounds great. Thank you. Um, no reports requested. We have number 10 condolences. The Medford school committee expresses its sincere condolences to the family of former city Councilor, Robert L Maloney, senior father of athletic director, Bob Maloney, Councilor Maloney served the city for over 25 years, as well as being an active member of the Medford Kiwanis Club, the Irish American Club, and the Medford Elks Club. The Medford School Committee expresses its sincere condolences to the family of Rosetta DeVita, aunt of city councilor and former school committee member, George Scarpelli, and Lisa Charay, a teacher at the Roberts Elementary School. And the Medford School Committee expresses its sincere condolences to the family of Paul Howard, owner of Jim's Market in North Medford and a former Providence College D1 basketball player, United States Army veteran and longtime supporter of the Medford community. Often, Mr. Howard could be found playing basketball with the kids at Carr Park well into his 50s. During the blizzard of 78, Mr. Howard made sure the elderly residents around Jim's Market had food items until they could get to the supermarket. If we all may rise for a moment of silence, please. Thank you. Our next regularly scheduled meeting is March 20, 2023, here at the Alden Chambers, as well as on Zoom. Have a wonderful rest of the week, everybody. Motion to adjourn by Member McLaughlin.
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