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[Danielle Balocca]: Hey listeners, this is Danielle. And Shelley. Shelley is a radical Dravidian and racial equity activist.
[Chelli Keshavan]: And Danielle is a community mobilizer and changemaker. And this is the Medford Bites podcast. Every two weeks, we chew on the issues facing Medford and deliver bites of information about the city by lifting the expertise of our guests.
[Danielle Balocca]: Join us in discussion about what you hope for the future of Medford. And as always, tell us where you like to eat. I think you both are being here with me today. If you don't mind just starting out with introduction. So you could say your name, your pronouns and a bit about who you are.
[Sharon Hays]: Okay, I'll go first. Sharon Hayes, she, her, I am a school committee member until the end of December.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I am Melanie McLaughlin. My pronouns are she, her. I am a school committee member running for reelection and I am the mom of three.
[Danielle Balocca]: Thank you both. And I just want to say, so we're recording this the Friday before the election. So best of luck to you, Melanie and Sharon, thank you so much for your service. We're definitely going to miss you, but I'm sure you won't be far away from the action. But first, if we could start with that food question. So if you guys could let me know or let us know what your favorite place to eat is in Medford and what you like to eat there.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well, lately I've been eating a few times at Bocelli's. I have a dear friend from Medford who passed away recently and she always went to Bocelli's and had her daughter's birthday parties at Bocelli's all the time and stuff. So going there has reminded me of her and also of how delicious the food is. It's just, you know, it really is good stuff. So I enjoy going there. And every Friday, our family on a standard basis gets takeout from Amici. So we feel like we really love Mario and the team there. So those are our two tops.
[Sharon Hays]: For me, I guess I have to go with probably the same two that I said when I first interviewed when I was running two years ago. Because through my boys, we've gotten to know the owners of both of these places. So Colleen's Ice Cream, we go there a lot for grilled cheese sandwiches and milkshakes. And Wellington Pizza, because my younger son has become very friendly with Adriano, the owner. So those are our two favorites.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, Shannon, I feel like I've seen you at Colleen's a whole bunch of summer evenings.
[Sharon Hays]: We're there a lot.
[Danielle Balocca]: It's a great Friday tradition sometimes. Yes. Awesome. So I invited you both on here today to talk about something specific, which is a policy that you've made a motion to put before the school committee. I think, as we were talking a little bit before, it sounds like you had your first reading of this. And so it's sort of in process of You can correct me if I'm wrong here, but the sort of in process of being approved, but you know it's a it's called the non discrimination on the basis of gender identity policy. So I was wondering if you could share a little bit about what that policy is and why it's important.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well first I want to say that really member Hays, Sharon Hayes really has put this policy forward more than anyone. Mia Mustone and myself signed on to the motion but Sharon has really done all of the legwork in this and we're really appreciative of that and I will echo your sentiment about how much she is going to be missed on the school committee. But I agree, I don't think she'll be too far from the action. I certainly hope not. So I want to just put it out there that Sharon really put this forward and did a lot of the legwork behind it. And the reason that I support it is because I think that inclusion is really important in our schools, and everybody should feel welcome. Thanks, Melanie.
[Sharon Hays]: Well, I can talk a little bit to the history of how I came to putting forward the policy. Um, when I originally ran for school committee on my platform, I talked about wanting to look at policies and supports for our LGBTQ plus students. Um, and then I had the honor in, uh, let's see, fall of 22. So after I was elected, after I started in January of 22, um, I knew, uh, a student who was on the high school GSA, um, gender and sexuality Alliance. And, um, she, I was talking with her about what kinds of supports they felt they did have and what kinds of things maybe in the GSA they were talking about needing more of. And through that, the GSA actually invited me to go to one of their meetings, which I did. And it was wonderful. High school students are amazing. I, both of my boys are younger, so I don't yet have a high school student and I was just, you know, in awe of how eloquent they were and how outspoken yet understanding of things that take time to happen. But the main concern they ended up talking about was needing better access to gender neutral bathrooms. And so in the process of working with them on that, working with the administration on trying to identify more bathrooms that could be labeled or, you know, transformed, changed into gender neutral bathrooms or greater access for them, I realized, you know, we don't have a policy in place that the students can kind of look to and say, you know, you have this policy that says we need access. Right now, we're not feeling we have the access we really need. At that time, there was one bathroom in specific that had been converted about 10 years ago into a gender-neutral bathroom. But it's in a part of the high school that not everyone accesses because it was in the vocational side. And so again, realizing that they don't, that the students don't necessarily and families don't necessarily have a policy or anything they can look to say, here are the things that you said you would do to support us. There's one area that we're not seeing that support. And can you, let's look at the policy and talk about how you can make sure that's being met. So through that, then we talked about, I think put forward a motion to have the diversity, equity and inclusion subcommittee meet to start talking about the needs of the LGBTQ plus students. And it's been difficult to get meetings scheduled sometimes, just there's a lot of things on the docket. And so at that point, I started looking around at other school systems and seeing that there are some that have this policy, this non-discrimination on the basis of gender identity. And so that's when I started working on actually making a policy that we could put forward. With the understanding that we're still going to have those meetings, they may end up being after I'm gone, the DEI subcommittee, and continuing to talk about what other supports can be put in place. Every policy is a living document in terms of it can constantly be changed, tweaked, added to, made better, so hopefully, you know, once we get this in place, if we get this in place, which I think we're on our way to doing, then the DEI subcommittee can really work on refining it more or looking at other things that are needed to support our students.
[Danielle Balocca]: And so, did the DEI subcommittee exist before you started this, working on this policy?
[Sharon Hays]: It did, yeah. And I don't know, I guess Member McLaughlin could speak more to that because she's been on so much longer than me. I don't know if that was new this term or whether it existed before the current term.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I'm the chair of the DEI Subcommittee, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Subcommittee. It did not exist, if I'm not mistaken, before this term. I think it was created this term. because I don't recall it having a lot of action in the previous term, so I believe it was added this term, but again, I would have to fact check that for sure. I am the chair and member Hays, and is it member Mustone? No, who's the third? Member Ruseau. I'm sorry, member Ruseau, of course. And I think that Constituents don't understand the way that the subcommittees work and I think that it's a really important component of the school committee and people should understand how they work and so. There are subcommittees created based on a number of issues. And the mayor, the chair of the school committee assigns who goes to what committees, just like in a state house or in the federal government, right? You're assigned to different committees. And there's a chair of those committees and two other members, and they meet independently of the school committee. But they can dig deeper into particular issues. And I think that people, in the community who are interested in specific issues. For example, I am the chair of the behavioral health and special education subcommittee as well. And so people that are interested in specific issues can reach out to the chairs of those subcommittees and ask for a subcommittee meeting based on a particular topic that they want to drill down into. In fact, I did that before I was on the school committee I, you know, we asked for a special education subcommittee to be created. It was, and then we asked for meetings so that we could move forward some particular issues around special education before again, I had been elected. Previously, you know, some of the subcommittees are dormant, you know, so it's really making sure that we have active involved subcommittees and chairs, but it's a great way for people in the community to be able to get sort of more individualized attention to a specific topic.
[Danielle Balocca]: That's really helpful to know and I don't think that I knew that's how subcommittees were created and and it's, and I'm hearing sharing you talking about how this is some, you did your research, you met with the GSA, you figured out what was important to them. Can't really think of a better way to create policy there. but that any community member could approach a subcommittee like this. And it also, I think, speaks to how we see school committee meetings. And I don't know that everybody appreciates that this is one meeting every two weeks or whatever, but that a lot of your work is outside of that meeting. And I think that's just something that gets lost in the focus on those meetings and the amount of time that you all are putting into your work and that you have to figure out the schedules of all the subcommittee members to make those things work. So I appreciate all of that work. And I just like to highlight it because I think sometimes we forget about how much we expect of elected officials and how it's not your full-time job that you do a lot of other stuff. So thank you for that. I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit more specifically about what's in the motion.
[Sharon Hays]: Sure. So the proposal for this policy, again, it's called non-discrimination on the basis of gender identity. There's some sections under it going into some specific areas of support we want to give or, again, kind of giving students those areas that then go back and talk to administration and say, you know, here's what's in the policy if the policy gets passed. So there's a section about names and pronouns, about the right to students have to request that they be called by a different name or use different pronouns. And that under Massachusetts law, we recognize common law name changes so that an individual doesn't have to have a legal document changing their name in order to ask that the school use a different name or pronoun. There's more to it. Again, I can go back and add more detail at any point to any of these if you want to talk more about them. There's another section about transitions and when a student is transitioning, how the school can create supports around for that student, whether it's through a team of staff working with that student, kind of talking about how do you want this to look at school? How do you want us to talk with people about this transition for you? And also talking about, you know, some issues with how to call, what name and pronouns to use with this student during meetings. with their parents. Then there's another section about restrooms, lockers, and changing facilities. And again, that was the main issue that came up when I met with the GSA, was that idea of having access to either the bathrooms that match their gender identity, which is part of the law now, or if they're not comfortable with that, making sure there are gender neutral bathrooms that are available to them and to any other student who needs them. single stall bathrooms. And I know that one of the changes to high school, I don't know if it was even a change, to be honest, I think they were doing a lot of these things already, but just making it more explicit was a help. You know, having some of the single stall bathrooms that already exist, putting signage up to say that this is a gender neutral bathroom that anyone can use. So that's another heading. Then there's Privacy, confidentiality, and student records, talking about the laws and policies around changing student records. Again, if there's a transition or whether it's a social transition or a medical transition, if there's a name change, gender markers need to be changed, talking about how to go about that. Then there's a specific one about gender markers on student records because there are some very specific laws about how to go about doing that. The original proposal also had a section for physical education classes and intramural and interscholastic athletic activities. And then another one for dress code. There was some discussion at the meeting that we just had on November 1st. That was the first reading of this proposed policy. And there was some discussion around that there were other policies that already included these areas and maybe we didn't need to duplicate those. So at this moment, those two sections have been taken out of this policy because they exist or will exist when will exist in the wellness policy that's being worked on right now. And the dress code really is that we already have really is pretty expansive and non-restrictive. So those are the sections of the policy. And we can talk proposed policy. We can talk more about them. There's certain ones you want to talk about.
[Danielle Balocca]: All right. Thank you. You explained a lot there. And I'm wondering kind of if there is like what you sort of attention you received when talking about this in the school committee or kind of how folks can support this motion if they want to.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well, I think yeah I'm happy to respond to that. I think that. you know, the same ways that we often get information from constituents where they're, you know, via phone calls and emails, the same way that you advocate with your state delegation, your legislators, your federal delegation, you can always write and email us and, you know, let us know thoughts. Certainly, you know, coming to school committee meetings is always great for folks who can't come. We're glad that we have hybrid options, right? So people can do that. Subcommittee meetings are also public and as our committee of the whole of course, this was in a committee of the whole, which is sort of like a subcommittee but it's the entire school committee so it's separate from like a school committee meeting with a full agenda. It's a committee of the whole usually on one topic so we had a committee of the whole. One committee the whole meeting on this specifically and so people can also attend those. I think for the students, it's really important for them to know about this and you know I really appreciate member Hays going, you know, to the GSA and that's a really important part of. our responsibility as elected officials, and I think we need to do more of that, frankly, and that's something that I hope to do more of in this next term should I get reelected. I want to go into the community and find people in the community and specifically around folks who are not able to come to school committee meetings or are not able to access the meetings via Zoom or are not able to access the meetings because of language differences or other differences. I really am to find those people and see how we can engage them as well. And the students are a big part of that. And I think that we've made some progress on getting student involvement. And Member Hays has certainly been a part of that, as have I and some other members on the school committee. But I think we can do more. And I think that when an issue is important to the students, they generally show up. And I expect that there would be students that would be supporting this and I would hope that they would show up if needed.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, there's a lot of layers there. You know, I think we hear a lot of adults and parents giving feedback to the school committee, but figuring out what is it the students that are maybe the most impacted by school policy are feeling.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I also think it's the access issue, right? So it's also like who is able, right? When we're talking about ableism, right? Who is able to come to the table and who is not, right? Like there are people who are not for any number of reasons and it's, you know, maybe they're not out, right? Maybe they're not willing to talk about that, you know, all sorts of things. Maybe they can't advocate. Maybe the language is the barrier. Maybe they're neurodivergent. I mean, there's a million different things. And so thinking about how we represent those populations as well is super important because We have roughly 4,000 students and families in our schools, and everybody needs to be represented, and that's really the important piece.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, I think I talk about this a lot, but we had David Harris on the podcast like two years ago now. And he talked about this idea of like, we use that phrase, like who's invited to the table or who's at the table and that idea of kind of like rethinking that are like, should we throw out that whole idea of the table? And like, how are we getting to those people that aren't able to or feel excluded from the process already? And I really liked that. I think it really changed how I thought about things. But also like, just a shout out to the high school GSA. I've met with some of them and also their faculty advisors. And they do a lot within the school. They told me about their, in the beginning of the year, they do a presentation for all the students. And so I think that it's really powerful. And I think that element that Sharon, you talked about, kind of how staff will be trained and how this will be sort of implemented at that level as well. It sounds really exciting to me. I think those ideas sound really exciting. I hope you get a lot of support.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I do too. I think just getting back to David Harris and some of the stuff that he's talked about, David's an amazing member of our community and brings so much to the table. Great example of somebody that not only brings stuff to the table, but is creating environments so that it's not just about a table that you have to bring stuff to. I love there's a quote from I think it was Shirley Chisholm I can't remember that you know said bring your own chair right like bring your own folding chair whatever to the table or what have you I can't remember the exact quote of it but you know David's right in terms of, you know, thinking outside of the box about how we're really engaging the community and we talk about it in these phrases like family and community engagement, right? And they sort of become meaningless because they're just phrases that people hear over and over again, right? Family engagement or inclusion or, you know, all of these sort of things that people think they know what they mean, but they're really just become buzzwords that have no meaning because they've been used so much. And so there's sort of empty meaning. And what does that actually look like and so we're talking about an equity is another one right like we talked about equity equity equity right it's like what is equity, have we defined what equity is, and how are we really practicing that right and so you know a few years ago we had. folks that David Harris is familiar with, and we applied for a grant. We did an application through DESE. It wasn't a grant, but it was an application to have a family engagement review of the district. We had a third-party school in Maine come in through DESE to do a review of our district, and they do it with other districts, and we got the application. Only a few throughout the state that were approved for the application to have our family and community engagement reviewed. So school in Maine came in as independent, you know contractors that for free through this, you know, application process to review our family and community engagement and. What they ended up saying was that, and this was only two or three years ago, this was three years ago actually, that Medford really wasn't ready for meaningful family engagement, that we hadn't really made that commitment to meaningful family and community engagement, and that they were willing to stay on another year pro bono to work with us to really help identify how to make that happen and really transcend that engagement to make that happen. And unfortunately, the school committee voted, you know, the, the, it was put out there that there was not because we were still dealing with the pandemic and we were so over committed with all the other things that we were doing, you know, it was voted that at that time we couldn't, we couldn't do that we couldn't commit resources to, you know, really looking at family and community engagement. And honestly, the irony was not lost on me, right, that this outside organization who does this work, you know, nationally, you know, was telling us that we didn't have a commitment to family engagement and here we voted. that we didn't have a priority for family engagement because we had to prioritize so many other things. I honestly think, and I say this in my lit and I really believe it, until we transform that relationship with the community and build the trust that we need to with families and students and the community as a whole so that it's a mutual relationship and it's a back and forth with two-way communication and real trust and expertise in our community and our families and our schools, it's going to be really difficult to transform the system.
[Danielle Balocca]: I didn't know about that, but it's helpful information. Yeah. And so just to get back to this motion, sounds like people can write to you all, just express their support, ask questions. And then it sounds like the next reading will be on November 20th. Is that right?
[Sharon Hays]: Yes, that's correct. There's a regular school committee meeting that night. The second meeting will be that night.
[Danielle Balocca]: All right. Well, yeah, is there anything that we haven't talked about regarding this or anything else that either of you want to like plug or bring up?
[Sharon Hays]: Well, the other thing I'd like to plug, because it does go along with this and goes along with what Melanie was just talking about in terms of engagement of the community, looking at student engagement, I think we have the same issue with student engagement. You know, I think that we really need to hear more from our students directly about what they need, what they see is going well, what they see is not going so well. So we're working right now also on getting going on a law that was in place a few years ago, I think. I don't know actually when it originally came in, but we have a policy that goes with it too for a student advisory committee. And to be fair, this has been, This has been out for a while, and a lot of school systems have not figured out how to make this work yet either. So this isn't just a Medford issue that we haven't really started this yet, but we're working on it. And what that law says and what our policy says is that five students will be elected from the high school, elected by the students, and they will form what is called the Student Advisory Committee, and they will meet every other month with the school committee. so that they can have a direct voice in decision making and letting us know directly what their needs are and what, again, what they see is going well, what they see is more areas of need. And we're working our way into this because it's not, you know, it's very specific law, but making it meeting the letter of the law is going to take a while. Meeting the spirit of the law in terms of trying to make sure we have a group of students and that we are finding a way to have them meet, maybe not with the entire committee yet, but at least with some subgroup of the committee as we work our way into this policy. So we're working on that right now. Hopefully the first meeting will be soon. And I guess the other thing I'd like to just plug, just because it goes along with this too, is I know that the City Council has a couple of proposed commissions that they're working on through subcommittee, because I just went to the meeting maybe last week, and I think this has been spearheaded by Councilor Tseng. They have both a youth commission, again, to try to get the youth voice into what's going on in the city, what their needs are, in areas of improvement and where they need to have more say. Also, I'm trying to think what the exact name of this commission is. It has to do with also gender equity. I'm sorry that I can't remember the exact name of the commission, but they're going through their process and subcommittee of trying to create these commissions too. honestly didn't even know that until I saw it on an agenda and went to the meeting. So it's kind of nice that we're having these parallels between the school level, trying to create some of these policies and groups at the school level. And they're also doing that at the city level. So across the board, I'd say in city government or elected government, we're trying to really work on this issue of getting the voices of our community in.
[Danielle Balocca]: It seems like doing that in a proactive way too. I know we heard from the mayor a few times about how when we had that, you know, the instance of violence in the high school last year that students came to city hall to sort of express their concerns and their thoughts about it and sort of in being proactive about like learning about that as it's, you know, maybe before it's happening or as things are building up for students and other constituents through those other commissions. It sounds really helpful.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, yes. And I guess I would like to add a couple of things to, you know, one is that who knows better what's going on in our schools than our teachers and our students, right? And we need to be able, and our staff, and we need to be able to hear from them because, you know, we might hear from our own children that are in our schools bits and pieces, but certainly not everything. And so those, you know, people that are living it, that are boots on the ground, what have you, really sort of getting them to interact with the policymakers is super important so that we can understand what is going on, so that we can improve things. And I think that, you know, folks think that or assume that the school committee knows everything that's going on and we're all eyes and all seeing we don't like that's the whole point, we need to be able to be informed and that sort of one of the ways that we're informed. Additionally, we've heard in the past like, oh, we never see people in the building or school committee members don't come to the classrooms or tour the building or whatever. We have to be invited. We can't walk around randomly and pop in people's classes and observe and just check out what's going on. We have to be invited. We are often invited and we encourage that. Invite your school committee members to come see what's going on. you know, we meet for folks with cough for coffee, they're often open office hours to come and talk. I mean, I think it's really important. The other thing I wanted to mention is that, you know, non-discrimination as a whole is super important, right, in our district. And so we also passed a non-discrimination clause that is supposed to go out to every individual on every document that goes outside of our school or anything that engages in our school. From athletics to afterschool, to enrichment, to PTO, to anything, there is supposed to be included a non-discrimination statement that says Medford does not discriminate based on these things, gender, ability, race, all of this above. If you need accommodations to be able to access any of these things, here's the process, here's the contact, here's whatever, because we didn't have a statement on accommodations either. And people didn't know that, first of all, that they're entitled to accommodations to access anything that is the life of the school as a public school student or staff member, or how to get them. And so that nondiscrimination statement was super important. part of the issue is, is that actually happening? And we don't know if that's actually happening if people don't tell us, right? So people should be seeing on all documentation that comes out of the school where you have to sign up for something, a non-discrimination statement that tells you how to get accommodations if you need them.
[Danielle Balocca]: Wonderful. Yeah, I did not know that. And that's really helpful to know both that there's an effort to be explicit about non-discrimination and that there's a way to work, you know, to get accommodations or to ask for accommodations if you need them. It's great news. Well, news to me, other people may have known it. Well, thank you both.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Just how much we're going to miss Sharon Hayes. And we expect fully that you're, again, we know that you're, you know, a very involved community member and activist, and we are so appreciative of your service.
[Danielle Balocca]: Thank you. And what an impact you've made in two years. Thank you so much for everything.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Danielle. Amen to that. All right.
[Danielle Balocca]: Well, thank you both. Bye. Thanks.
[Sharon Hays]: Have a great day.
[Danielle Balocca]: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. The Medford Bites podcast is produced and moderated by Danielle Balacca and Shelly Keshaman. Music is made by Hendrik Irenese. We'd love to hear what you think about the podcast. You can reach out to us by email at medfordpod at gmail.com, or you can rate and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts. Thanks so much for listening. Guys, what's the name of the podcast? Never Bites. Never Bites. Good job.
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