[SPEAKER_13]: Meeting of the Medford School Committee. Today is January 29th, 2024. It is 6 p.m. And please be advised that there will be a meeting of the Medford School Committee held at the Howard Alden Memorial Chambers, Medford City Hall, and via remote participation. The meeting can be viewed through Medford Community Media on Comcast and Verizon. Participants can participate in person or remotely by using the following information. The Zoom link and the meeting ID is 936. 8, 9, 2, 6, 8, 0, 2, 2. Member Ruseau, if you could call the roll.
[SPEAKER_14]: Should we start over? I'm here.
[SPEAKER_22]: Member Branley.
[SPEAKER_14]: Present.
[SPEAKER_22]: Member Graham.
[SPEAKER_14]: Here.
[SPEAKER_22]: Member McLaughlin.
[SPEAKER_13]: Here.
[SPEAKER_22]: Member Olapade. Present. Member Raimondo.
[SPEAKER_13]: Present.
[SPEAKER_22]: Member Ruseau, present. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[SPEAKER_13]: Present. 7 present, 0 absent. And I do believe we have Darren Truong, thank you for joining us, our student representative. Nobody else, no other students online, I'm assuming? Oh, Noah, welcome. Come on in. If we can all rise and salute the flag, please.
[SPEAKER_14]: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
[SPEAKER_13]: We have our consent agenda, bills and payrolls, regular school committee meeting minutes from January 8th, 2024, and our student advisory council minutes from November 15th, 2023. Is there a motion for approval? Motion to approve by Member Graham, seconded by? I'll second. Member Reinfeld? Member Bradley? All those in favor?
[SPEAKER_14]: Aye.
[SPEAKER_13]: Those opposed? Minutes carry. I'll get used to everybody's voice. Take me a few weeks. We do not have any reports of subcommittees and we have a number of five reports under superintendents reports. First up is our superintendent giving updates and comments, Dr. Reese Edouard-Vincent.
[SPEAKER_12]: Good evening. After a rainy weekend, we're back for another week of school, the storm that wasn't last night. Thank you to our building and ground staff for diligently monitoring the forecast for snow this weekend. I'm sure that some of us are grateful that this weekend did not bring a major snowstorm in the end, and others truly are disappointed that today was not a snow day. I can reassure all of you that there are many weeks of winter remaining, and that I'm sure there will still be more opportunities for a possible snow day in the coming months. This evening, I'd like to extend a special congratulations to Dr. Vilma Bobo. Congratulations to Dr. Bobo. She is Medford's Coordinator of World Language. She was elected as the 50th President of the Massachusetts Foreign Language Association. Dr. Bobo began her term this month as the 2024 President of MAFLA, M-A-F-L-A, a statewide professional association of world language teachers. MAFLA was founded in 1967 with a mission to empower language educators through advocacy, learning, and support of world-class language instruction. The organization's work is focused on professional development for world language educators and advocacy for language education opportunities for Massachusetts students. The entire Medford School community should be very proud that world language educators throughout our state trust Dr. Brabeau to lead their collective efforts to prepare students for global citizenship. Once again, congratulations, Dr. Brabeau. Also another important highlight that I'd like to share this evening, which is a free opportunity for all of our students, is the crash prevention training for student drivers. Hands-on crash prevention training is available for free to all Medford High School students with a learner's permit or driver's license. In Control Crash Prevention has partnered for years with Medford High School and the Medford Police to offer driver safety and crash prevention training to novice drivers. Graduates have a much lower chance of crashing and qualify for auto insurance discounts, up to 10%. More information is available on our website. I also wanna highlight kindergarten registration. So if you know a caregiver of a child who will be starting kindergarten next year, please let them know they are invited to attend one of our two remaining informational sessions to learn about our kindergarten program here in Medford. They have the opportunity to ask questions directly. On Tuesday, February 27th, that will be a Zoom session. And our next in-person session will be on March, Thursday, March 28th. Both sessions will take place at 6.30 p.m. I also want to thank the 60 plus families who attended our first informational session at Medford High School about a week, last week. Childcare and interpretation services are available at these meetings. I also want to highlight this week, today was day one. DESE, our Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, is in Medford, and they are conducting their triennial special education and civil rights tiered focus monitoring review. It started today, and this special review that DESE is conducting is reviewing all of Medford public schools. DESE visits each public school in Massachusetts every three years to monitor compliance with federal and state special education and civil rights regulations. So all districts are visited, and this is our turn. They're here today, tomorrow, and Wednesday. I want to thank all of our special educators, our special education faculty and staff for their important work in supporting this review. Lastly, I want to bring two key dates for you to keep in mind this year, February 6 will be day 100 of school or 100 day of school barring that there are no snow days. So as of right now February 6 will be a very enjoyable day for many of our youngest learners celebrating day 100. And also mark your calendars February 19 through the 23rd is our February break vacation week so there's no school during that entire week. So, at this evening school committee meeting. We're going to cover a variety of topics, including a presentation from the Curtis Tufts High School, presented by Ms. Laurie Hodgdon, the principal, and also a presentation about the Brooks Elementary School, presented by the principal, Ms. Shannon Demos, There will be an update from our math director, Ms. Faiza Khan, and a discussion on the district's proposed excessive heat protocols. Dr. Cushing will be providing that presentation this evening. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_13]: Thank you, Superintendent Edward-Vincent. We have recommendation to approve travel to Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, with model United Nations. Matthew Brophy, MHS history teacher, and Dr. Nicole Chiesa, director of humanities. Come on down. Welcome.
[SPEAKER_17]: Good evening. We also have Miss Gates here as well, so we welcome her as well. I'm here to we're here tonight to provide you with a little bit of information about how our model UN has the successes that they've had thus far, give you a little bit more information about what they actually do as an after school club, and then to request the out of state field trip. So model United Nations is of after school club under the leadership of these two wonderful teachers Jennifer Gates and Matthew brophy and essentially model un simulates a variety of bodies, including the United Nations General Assembly and committees to students choose an ambassador they engage in various simulations and they really gain a strong understanding of global affairs, the ability to write the ability to present. on these topics. Thus far, our students, our high school students, have attended two conferences, one at Catholic Memorial and one at St. John's Preparatory School. And they've secured numerous awards, including the People's Choice Award, which apparently is extremely coveted, as well as a Best Delegate Award as well. Which Darren got, actually. Awesome. We do have the names of the students, if we could read them briefly, is that okay? And then we wanted to move just to recognize their hard work thus far, and then we'll move to the request. Go ahead, you can read them.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have about 20 or 30 students in the club. These are the ones who've gone to this year's conference, Ari Atwell, Emma Bennu, Cheyenne Chowdhury, Mandy Chow, Ann Dupes, Jack Dodd, Brian Deplassio, Sierra Goodley. Bridget Inman, Sarah Isbell, Sean Johnson, Mohammad Jamaluddin, Evan Russell, Daviana Vega, Sienna Tran, Kira Tramble, Jaden Ville, Maria Zasra, Darren Truong, and Noah Urasco.
[SPEAKER_17]: And so we hope to provide them with certificates towards the end of the year to recognize formally, but we did want to recognize their hard work thus far. I also, it goes without saying, want to thank Ms. Gates and Mr. Brophy for all their hard work really taking this club and doing quite a bit with it this year. So based on their, so thank you. Based on their performances, they would like permission to participate in the Dartmouth College Model United Nations Conference. You do have the packet that outlies all of the details regarding the field trip, regarding the trip, which would be held April 5th to the 7th in Dartmouth, which is in Hanover, New Hampshire. So if you have any questions for us, but we are seeking your approval, for this out-of-state field trip.
[SPEAKER_13]: Member Ruseau.
[SPEAKER_22]: Thank you. It's nice to see the form actually show up before we have to ask for it. I greatly appreciate that. I don't recall exactly the details, but I didn't see the nurse's signature yet. And I know that there's no nurse required, but I think the nurse at least has to sign off that things are good. I'm sure that'll happen.
[SPEAKER_17]: Correct. We were advised that first that we need approval of school committee, then we know who's coming. And then of course, we've already been in contact numerous times with the nurse regarding that.
[SPEAKER_22]: Yes. Thank you. And this is all very exciting and motion to approve.
[SPEAKER_13]: Motion for approval by member Ruseau, seconded by member McLaughlin. All those in favor?
[SPEAKER_14]: Aye.
[SPEAKER_13]: All those opposed? Motion passes. Thank you so much for the presentation. Have fun. Thank you. We have a number three math placement presentation presented by Ms. Faiza Khan, Director of Mathematics. Welcome. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_19]: Thank you for having me here. And yes, today I'm here to give an update on the continued implementation of the integrated math pathways. We will be piloting the integrated mathematics three program at the high school. And I'm also here to talk about pushing the acceleration that happens at the end of the sixth grade to now be happening at the end of the seventh grade. So that's slide one and two that I just mentioned. Once again, there are two purposes to this presentation. First is that the placement exam that usually takes place at the end of sixth grade will now be taking place at the end of the seventh grade. And I'll be going in much details as to why that seems to be a better route for the math department and for the students in Medford. And the second objective is that I'll give you an update on how integration is going. We used to have the traditional pathway. Now we have started going down the path of integrated math instead. And so that leads us to slide three. So the current landscape at the secondary level, which starts at sixth grade, we know that both our schools have two math teachers at each grade level. So that makes a total of 12 mathematics teachers. At the sixth grade level, students learn only six grade math standards. But when we do the acceleration decisions at the end of sixth grade, many factors, we look at many of them, and then one of them is the end of the year placement exam that's conducted right about end of May, beginning of June. Once that exam is done and the teachers have looked at the overall pictures, students are placed in accelerated or the standard sections. Parent wishes are always honored and we recommend as to where the student shall be, but at the end, we always honor the parent wishes and the students are placed in the desired section. Most of the requests come for the student to be in the accelerated or advanced course. There are three sections of grade level math and one section of accelerated advanced math in grades seven and eight. And again, there is no acceleration at the sixth grade level. So all teachers teach the same and students get the same illustrative mathematics curriculum as per DESE standards. The last bullet says that the 7th and 8th grade accelerated slash advanced math sections each cover a year and a half worth of math content. Now that's the content that's given to us by DESE. We follow their math standards being a public school and when we teach students in the two accelerated sections of seventh grade and subsequently in eighth grade, the students can take geometry in their freshman year. We move on to the next slide. And that is slide number five. We discussed the impact of the current math acceleration on student learning at MHS. So Desi calls it the race to calculus. So that's what I will call it. The race to calculus mindset prioritizes quantity. over quality. So what we mean by that is that we have to teach students a year and a half of math standards in seventh grade, which is seventh grade standards plus half of eighth grade standards. And then when students go to eighth grade, they have to learn the rest of the half of eighth grade standards plus all of algebra one. When that happens, performance on the procedural 6th grade math standards has continued to become an integral determining factor for students' ability to learn conceptual math in a fast-paced and rigorous 7th and 8th grade environment. So what happens is that the sixth grade standards are very procedural in mathematics, there's no denying it. So when students are learning a year and a half of seventh slash eighth grade, and then eighth grade slash algebra one, Many times students are not ready for the reasons we have mentioned before and for the main reason that we are testing them on procedural concepts and placing them in the accelerated section. So due to this structure, and then the structure at the high school, several AP calculus and calculus honors students exhibit widening gaps in their mathematical foundations, and it impacts their class assessments and college board exam results. We see on our next slide that the demographic enrollment data at the high school also provides an opportunity to have, you know, for us to be able to provide them equitable access to accelerated courses if we push seventh grade, if we push the acceleration to the end of seventh grade, and if we follow the integrated pathway rather than the traditional pathway. So the next slide is when you look at the demographics from the school year 2022-2023 and school year 2023-2024. We see that we have seen a small shift, but we would like to open it up to more of our students. And how do we do that? And even before how we get to it, we look at how advanced placement calculus AB plays out in colleges for the acceptance. That slide says it all. When a student gets a score of five on the college board exam, number of colleges accepting the five AP scores only are 22, those are the Ivy Leagues, those are the colleges that some students strive to go to, and they get a five and they make it there. And their scores are accepted. And then we see how many colleges accept four or more AP scores, and we go down that list. And then we see that only one college, or rather three colleges accept a score of one only on the college board exam. Next slide takes us into what is the impact of the middle school placement exam on our students' learning, actual learning, not just rushing through and covering the standards so that teaching is not just, its concepts are not just being taught, they're also being learned. So what we are proposing is that the acceleration be pushed by one more year and the placement exam takes place at the end of seventh grade and the students can go into eighth grade math and eighth grade math accelerated. And what that'll do is that that'll give the teachers an opportunity to challenge the students without having to cover all of algebra one. in eighth grade and they will get a solid pre algebra foundation in seventh grade because that's where conceptual understanding and teaching of concepts actually starts is the is in seventh grade. Moving on, here is some input from the middle school teachers. These are our own teachers that they are saying that the best way to go is that students get a solid seventh grade foundation before they go the accelerated path. Moving on to the integrated pathways, because one thing impacts the other, it's like a chain reaction kind of thing. So we have on our slide 12, you see the way DESE, Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, and the Department of Higher Education, how they have proposed the courses, the sequence to go. So they say pre-K through eight, there should be not any acceleration. Acceleration should happen at the high school, either through the traditional pathway or through the integrated path that students can take. That will open up their fourth year to be able to take calculus AP or calculus honors, pre-calculus, quantitative reasoning, and statistics, either standard or AP. And then students, when they go to the post-secondary courses, they have a much more solid foundation. On the next slide, number 13, we see the difference between the traditional pathway, which we used to have and now we are slowly weaning away from, and the integrated pathway. Basically, the end result is the same. It's just that the integrated pathway covers the concepts in an integral way, as in students will learn geometry and algebra in integrated math one and in integrated math two, and to a degree also in integrated math three. Next slide is directly, again, from the pathways. curriculum that Desi has given us, and this is how they have envisioned mathematical rigor to happen, is that it's basically a byproduct of the three pieces that you see around it. So many times we are asked why we have been shifting away from the traditional pathways of teaching algebra, geometry and algebra two as standalone courses and why are we shifting towards integrated one, two and three. The biggest advantage that the teachers are seeing is that they constantly do not have to review right before they teach a concept. It's being interwoven, it's spiraling, and that review kind of happens as part of teaching the previous concept. Another thing that we have noticed is that it's very task-oriented. It has become task-oriented versus just procedural. You master the algorithm and you'll go and move on. Another thing is that students have been developing strong problem solving skills and reasoning skills because they have to make a decision as to if they will use one kind of form to solve the problem or another kind of form. So far, it seems that NCTM has been backing it up. NCTM is the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and they are claiming that they have seen better results in the classroom and district and state when it comes to the assessments. Why do we adjust? Why are we adjusting Medford High School math pathways? It's because we wanna open it up. We wanna open up our highest level courses to a lot more students. And we don't wanna, you know, box students in that if you did not take, if you did not get on the accelerated pathway at the end of sixth grade, which is too early for many students to make a decision that now you are going to be in the standard pathway for the rest of the high school math career. And this is a high school teacher's input on slide 16. And moving on. This is the flowchart that we currently have. When you look at it, you see that there is geometry being honored, being offered at the ninth grade level, and we have algebra two. There was no algebra one that was being offered this year because we are, as I said, we are on our trajectory of adopting integrated math to the fullest. When we go to slide 18, the difference between slide 17, which is what we are currently offering, to slide 18, which we will be offering in this coming year, is that there will be no geometry at the ninth grade level. All students, whether they are coming from the accelerated pathway, accelerated eighth grade, or standard eighth grade will be taking integrated math one honors or CP. And we'll go down that path and the teachers of the honors path will be infusing the standards that are necessary for students to be able to take calculus. AP and calculus honors in their fourth year. What that will also help with is that students will be able to take more computer programming courses eventually. And that is also shown on the next slide, which will be the subsequent year, 25-26 on slide 18. It will give them a selected list of courses to choose from. All of them will be computer science courses and possibly statistics course. We are still in the exploration phase. But again, the mathematics department's goal has always been and we'll stay as to making more courses accessible to most of our students, if not all of our students, to ensure that we keep rigor, that we prepare our students for the rigorous courses, and to ensure that students continue to get courses like personal finance, and consumer math to be able to, you know, be equipped with real life skills. And after slide 19 is 20, which is basically a table form of the flowchart that you saw earlier for the school year 24-25. And then with that, I thank you. And there is an appendix of many slides that I have presented in the past year, years, last two years. I have been coming here in January. So you can take a look at them and I'm happy to answer any questions at this time.
[SPEAKER_05]: Mayor. Member Reinfeld. Thank you so much. So I'm new to school committee, so I haven't seen the presentations other than in passing. So I have a couple of questions and I'll start with the accelerated math. Yes. So my big question here is what is differentiation gonna look like in the seventh grade now that there's going to be a broader range of skills and abilities and comfort with math? And how are teachers going to be supported in meeting those wider needs without the trust?
[SPEAKER_19]: Wonderful, that's a great question. So at least two of our veterans, seventh grade teachers, have been piloting this differentiation already. I have been giving them strategies. We do a lot of observations in the department. So through that, we are able to give good suggestions and ideas of what to do. We also have a few PD courses that we, you know, you know, refer them to. And one of the ways that teachers have been differentiating is, and that I had suggested, and I'm happy to see that it's that they have used it, they've been using it, is having a problem of the week. for the students who can handle a challenge and have it at different levels. So that when students are done, they're not just doing rote worksheet work, and I'll give you another worksheet. Or if that has to happen, then there needs to be level of problems as well. And students use choice work. If you can handle a higher level problem, then there should be that accessible in the classrooms. You know, I know that our teachers are working on it. It's always going to be a work in progress, but at least that's where we have started. Great.
[SPEAKER_05]: And they have the opportunity to do some of the vertical integration talking to the grade below and the grade ahead.
[SPEAKER_19]: Yes. Most of our department meetings, we get some time to do that, but definitely our June meeting and our beginning of the year meeting is all about it, to realign and to look at the pacing guides and to look at what one teacher is doing that's working in one classroom and to bring it to all the teachers. Great.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I have questions about the integrated math, but if any of my colleagues have things on the middle school, I want to make sure we can keep that together.
[SPEAKER_13]: Thank you. I think member. So I saw you late next and then member Graham.
[SPEAKER_22]: Thank you. Um I love all of this as I have since you started down this path three years ago at this point, four years. Um and when I'm looking at the proposed 2526, one thing that's a little confusing to me is that pre calculus does not appear to be a prerequisite to calculus. Um and um I will admit it's been so long since I took pre-calculus or calculus that I, like, is the title pre-calculus actually just a poorly named course?
[SPEAKER_19]: Yes, there are actually many views about it, but what we do notice, and in many conversations, not just with the in-district teachers, but in the other, what's happening around the district, when we talk to them and when we get together at the DESE meetings, what we hear a lot and what we know, I taught pre-calculus here, is that many of it can be infused in all levels. So what we have done on the honors path is that we have taken that pre-calculus and a lot of it is actually a repetition of algebra 2 honors. So we are going to be teaching it as integrated math 3 honors You know, some mixed in and then some of those standards of integrated met three honors can be brought down pushed down to algebra to honors are not as a bridge to I'm sorry integrated met two honors and then subsequently some of those standards. can be pushed down to integrated math one honors. So we have charted this path also, although we will continue to tweak it and look at it every May and June. But that was the that was the idea is that to take out pre calculus and see how our students do with just having those standards, a lot of those standards being part of integrated MAT 3. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_22]: I figured you had figured this out, but I just was curious. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_19]: We're trying. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_14]: Yes. Member Graham.
[SPEAKER_06]: Can you provide us some comparable districts that have fully implemented this? Yes.
[SPEAKER_19]: Waltham is one of them. Cambridge has been working on it. I know Natick was also looking into this pathway. And last year when I attended Desi's big thing on math, there were so many districts who were very interested in this. And I think they are now getting on this, so I'll be happy to get more names, but I do know that we talked to the Waltham department head and she came and did a presentation for our committee and was able to give the way in the pros and the cons both. So that one I know is one who I followed. Arlington was also working on it. Let me see where they are now, but they all kind of started probably a year later, but there was a lot of interest in this pathway just because algebra geometry and algebra standalone was not working out for so many districts.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. And I think, um, I think my middle school question is really about the kids that are like more than ready for the acceleration. Um, I understand that the delay helps lots of kids, but there are kids who are more than ready for the acceleration and It looks like, like my seventh grader right now, if I like did the jump the math around this, these charts, he's, he's an accelerated math this year, which is like a one and a half, one and a half, which he'll do next year. And then in school year 25, 26, he'll take integrated math, which sounds like it will basically be repetition of what he learned in eighth grade. Is that true?
[SPEAKER_19]: Some concepts will be, but a year and a half worth of standards whenever they are taught. Sometimes even to the kids who can really take the challenge, the teacher never gets a chance to go in as much depth as they possibly can. So the integrated math one honors is being taught by a veteran teacher who also teaches AP calculus. So I have been in talks with her and seems like Some students are basically yes, they are there and she is trying her level best to do the differentiation, but this is the first year. Also, I think as it evolves. We will know more ways to differentiate, not just at the seventh grade level, but also at the integrated math one honors level and just this that integrated math one honors has the standards that were infused, that were brought down from integrated math too. And that shall be able to be the new piece of it. Because, yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I think the other thing that I've noticed in my house in terms of like the value of now, both my kids having gone through this, and they're totally different, they're very different students in lots of ways, is it was the first time they had to work. And What that taught them was that they can't just mail it in all the time, which they frankly had been able to do for lots and lots of years. And so it was conditioning for them to make a pretty seamless transition to the high school. Like my ninth grader sort of learned about rigor in a way largely because of this accelerated class. It wasn't as easy for her. She had to figure out how to like work through it. She had to figure out how to advocate for herself and ask for help. And the coursework was more intensive. And I think it is in part why she's made a pretty seamless transition to the high school where the work is more intense. And I just, I love the idea of differentiation and I just also know how very hard it is to execute that in a classroom with 20 different kids who are doing lots of different things. So I love this concept. I just don't want people to hear about it and think their kid is no longer going to be challenged because we're slowing this down. And I think there's lots of parents who went through algebra one and then geometry and then calculus, right? Like they went through that path that hear this and think that's not how I did it. I am supportive of all of this, but I think the district needs to do a really crisp job of communicating to parents like why this is better for their students wherever their student might be in their like learning progression in math. Because I could I could see and I have heard from lots of parents who say like I'm not interested in that I want my kid to be able to like be challenged in math and. sort of the flip side of that is they're not going to be in this model. And I don't think that's necessarily true, but I think the district really has to be clear about how that happens so that parents can rethink about math in a way that they've not had to do. And because this is completely different math sequence than we all grew up with.
[SPEAKER_19]: So, yes, you are 100% right. Communication plays a major role, and that definitely needs to be out. And we are working on it, on parent letter, doing another presentation in April for the parents, or even sooner, but that the goal is to do it at our beginning of April timeline. One thing that I will say is that there are many concepts out there for acceleration. One is to teach more content. And then the other concept of acceleration is really go in depth about the problem and really understand why and be able to apply it. And I feel that we tend to take, most of us tend to take this approach that if we, if my child is learning a lot, then, you know, they are being accelerated. And as a parent also, I can speak to it that, you know, I have four kids, one of them was that way, and the other one needed more depth. So I feel that hopefully our students and our teachers will, you know, be able to get to that level, that's our hope and dream, but we will continue to work towards it. That's the best that we can do is that provide guidance, provide, you know, have high expectations from both parties and provide, you know, clear communication to the parents.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I think if Waltham has completed their implementation and could share with you how it has impacted their students, like across the spectrum in terms of access to calculus and AP class success and all of those things, I think that kind of comparable information would be really helpful because you really are having to retrain a bunch of adults who have only known math one way. And I think being able to show them like, see, here's how it's working and here's why it's better, I think that kind of exemplar would be really important and powerful for families to hear.
[SPEAKER_19]: Sounds good. I'll be in touch to get more ideas on how to, you know, do it so that it's more obvious. I mean, clearly we are doing it, but it's not out there, but happy to discuss. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: And thank you so much for this. I really appreciate it. I had a quick question on slide 19. with the proposed course flow chart for 25-26 school year, it's the errors are pointing to integrated math three or going up towards computer programming and those types of maths and computer science principles and things like that. My question, I guess, is that if a student decides to go that way instead of integrated math three and then decides to continue on in grade 12, are they going to be missing some of the more foundational principles that we may be more used to? And I think that that's, it sounds exciting. I just, I'm a little concerned about, on misunderstanding about how a student will be able to still learn the principles that they would need, I think, to get you on into any other secondary school or any other type of thing post high school.
[SPEAKER_19]: That's a great question. And I didn't realize that maybe the flowchart may be giving that idea. Basically, what I wanted to indicate through is that students should be taking integrated math three and taking a computer programming course with it. So it's not an or, it's an and.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you, Member Redfield. So, Member Graham touched on my questions about education for families. And so a small question is, what kind of support is going to be available for students coming in from other districts who have had who were coming from the traditional path into the integrated?
[SPEAKER_19]: That's again, a wonderful question. And we have to think about that population because it happens every year. So what we do do is that we have a placement exam for students who are coming in from private school. That's one thing. So we'll adjust our placement exam to test them now on both concepts in one test like algebra and geometry so there will be a placement exam for each level, the students who are coming in from other districts. We have had this discussion as a committee and I believe the teachers are ready for it. We will meet them where they're at. They will not be placed any lower just because of that. Of course, when we look at the student's transcript and we see algebra one on it only and now the student is going to go to integrate it to it is what it is, and so that piece will be covered if the student comes to us in June some assignment of some sort or the teachers will be providing some. support of that kind. But then again, this is to, we are working on it. We are working on all of those pieces. It's going to take us time to iron those out, but they are on our mind. We have been thinking about what's the best way to do it. But for now, teachers have given their commitment to ensuring that students will get it. I'm really happy to hear it.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I will say, I love the spiral model of education. I think it's much more effective than the latter. So my next question is around that kind of interdisciplinary perspective. So I know you've had a lot of conversation within the math department and digital learning, and how does this intersect with, say, the science courses, you know, chemistry, physics, where a lot of these concepts are coming into play, and at the vocational school, things like metalwork and carpentry, where that geometry foundation, and as much as I hate to reference standardized tests, academic milestones like the SATs, which lean really hard into the geometry. So how is that being integrated kind of beyond the math department and making sure that those intersections, those alignments are matching up?
[SPEAKER_19]: Right, so right now what we, so currently teachers are, so just a couple of years ago, we ensured that we go back to our older model of having a project every quarter in each course, so the teachers through these projects, they have the, you know, they are into that kind of thing that they have already started taking initiative on making it interdisciplinary. For others that are not, because we are on our way, again, it's a work in progress. Some of us need a little bit more of, okay, they did it and I can do it too kind of thing. Others are like, I'm a daredevil, I'm gonna give it a try anyhow. So we are at different places in the department, and I'm hoping that our daredevils will be able to say, you know, this is working out. That's okay. So that's where we're at.
[SPEAKER_05]: Great. And will they have the opportunity to do that peer-to-peer professional development in this? This is what worked for me. This was my challenge. How can we help each other?
[SPEAKER_19]: Yes, they already are. So in the mathematics department, we have this peer observation and strategy implementation. that you go observe a peer, and then you take down notes, and then you adopt one of their strategies, and you do it. So that can be easily geared toward the projects as well. And I must admit our newer crew, we have three new math teachers this year, and all of them work very nicely in this way that they always collaborate together, even at their own time to come up with such projects to keep student engagement up and that's the goal. Great.
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, thank you so much. Thanks to your work and thank the committee as well. I know it's a lot on top of teaching to be thinking about that at this level.
[SPEAKER_19]: Thank you so much. I'm also very grateful to them. This work wouldn't have happened without them. So I'll be in touch with some of you and thank you for your time. Any questions? Thank you.
[SPEAKER_13]: Thank you. We have number four school update, the Curtis-Tufts High School, presented by Laurie Hodgdon, principal, and Brooks Elementary School, presented by Ms. Shannon Demos, also principal. So we'll start with the Curtis-Tufts, please. Welcome. Good evening. Good evening.
[SPEAKER_04]: How are you? I think it's been a year since I've seen some of you, and some of you are new. I first want to acknowledge My student, teacher, and a parent who's here supporting Curtis-Tufts tonight. Dad's supporting because Anthony Seekman, who's a junior, wanted to be here to support his school and to support me. And Kate Wellard, who teaches math at Curtis-Tufts. This is her first year, but she's been in the district for 10th year, 10th year. So first I wanna say, all of the things that you're talking about, we do every day. So when you apply rigor and you apply relevance and you build good relationships with kids, you're able to differentiate in a way and meet kids where they are. Because rigor is about how you ask the question, how you ask yourself the question as a learner and how the teacher does. And you have to have good relationships and know what students are interested in so you can apply that to their learning. So it just resonated with me when Faisal was talking about math and all the work that they've done as a committee. It's the work that our teachers do every day because the kids they see in front of them are at varying abilities. and need more support than others. And some are like going gangbusters and know exactly what they want to do. They're just traveling at different rates. So I just, I had to just kind of point that out. So since you don't have the slide, if you look at slide two, this is celebrating our students of the month based on attendance and academic achievement. And I want to give props to Anthony. He has the best attendance at Curtis Tufts this year. And as we know, when you go to school, it's about attending and learning and being in every class. And for the most part, that's what he's doing and we can see progress. So as you all know, and I'm on slide three, Curtis Tufts is a therapeutic day school that supports diverse learners. We currently serve 12 students on IEPs with varying disabilities. We have three academic teachers, two Councilors, one paraprofessional, one nurse, and one expressive arts intern that I'll talk more about later in the presentation. We work as a team and we work around our students, the students at the center. I feel very fortunate that I have a team that we work with at the high school in Joan Bowen, Kim Clinton, all of my colleagues there who support and at the high school who support learning at Curtis Tufts. We couldn't do it without them. Obviously, I'm the school director and principal. I also chair all of the IEP meetings and help to write the IEPs. I also want to give a shout out to my colleagues at the Missittuck, the Andrews, and the McGlynn. Suzanne Galussi set it up so that we could have our electives in music, art, PE, and digital literacy. So they come in their busy days and they support our students with enriching their learning. So you can see slide four, you see Anthony and Nikki, students working collaboratively in Kate's class in order to meet learning targets and to achieve success. Maybe they're at different places in terms of math, but she's planning and thinking about how each of the students learn best and where she can target their learning to support them so they move forward. Sometimes I like to say to everyone, you have to move back to move forward and vice versa. On the demographics of Curtis tough high school currently we currently serve 12 students to African American students one multi race to Hispanic and seven white students in varying disability areas of health autism and emotional. There are currently eight referrals from the high school that will be placed either in the spring or next fall. What we like to do is we like to see students who transition from eighth to ninth grade try the high school. Sometimes it doesn't work for them because the learning environment is too large. They travel through each of the different areas. To see if they need to go to Curtis Tufts, they have to work to get there. And I can I can talk a little bit more about that. We just had a student join us today at the end of quarter two. We're very excited to have her to join us. And we're very careful in the middle of the year of making sure that students feel comfortable transitioning. It's really hard in a high school situation to think about leaving all of your friends and what you've known and go to a different learning environment. So we've worked really hard with our students and the faculty to ensure that that kind of transition is seamless. And the other thing is, is when a student is making progress, thinking about a student moving back to the high school. So with that comes success plans, behavior plans, support, sitting down and ensuring that kids have a personalized learning plan in front of them about how they can meet those goals. Important to note that we had two graduates in 2023. I've been in touch with both. One is applying to be unionized or go through the union of pipe fitters, which is very exciting. And another one is looking at community college and thinking about nursing. So in their transition plans, they worked on all of those things. Some go at a slower rate, some at a quicker rate, And we are always open to work with them and support them. They never are not our students, as I speak in a double negative, they're always our students. We have two potential graduates in June. So I'd like to just celebrate. You can't do it without the people around you. And this is slide six. This year, in collaboration with the arts department, we have an expressive arts rotation. A Lesley intern is at Curtis Tufts. She's there for the year. She's there three days a week, working with our students, and I explain it even more so in the slide. We have many students who are interested in dance, And so what we'd like to get is a dance therapy intern for next year. It's been very additive for our students. And I would say that she has been able to work with our students individually and she sees them and their expression in very different ways than we do academically or just sitting down with them in a counseling session. Curtis Tufts, with the help of Melanie McLaughlin. received a grant from the Federation of Special Needs under the statewide mass family and community engagement program, an award of $5,000 last October. And we're working on service learning opportunities in the community. And I had asked our superintendent if I could come back and have our students present. We're looking at STEM learning, We're looking at volunteering at the Miss Attack reading. Anthony wants to do a basketball program with some of our grades three through fifth graders and really giving back in a way that's very enriching. One of the things that we did after my first year was we moved all academic classes to the beginning of the day, which has helped us to support a stronger culture of achievement. Students need to get to school, need to be there, need to be on time. And this allows for many of our juniors and seniors who may have exhausted their credits and want work-study to leave and go get work or do an internship or create a work study program that is in their area of interest. So, working as a team around our students, you know, it really is cooperation, collaboration, and commitment to our kids. I see that across the district, but I have to say that I work with a team of individuals from our custodian, Bobby Hawkins, to our paraprofessional, to all of our teachers to our kids and our parents. No one works harder. And we have a professional learning community that puts students at the forefront of our work. We meet every day, we meet every day after school four times a week. Monday, Wednesdays and Thursdays. It's for 10 to 15 and oftentimes our teachers are left and we're talking and we're saying what should we be doing differently? What are the opportunities for success to support students? Tuesdays are hour long day. We usually have conversations about students, but also planning and what are we doing next? Teachers and learning is at the heart of our work. The creation of plans that support school avoidance and therapeutic needs. We've seen attendance go up. We've seen attendance wane. It depends on the time of year. It depends on where a student is. What we do is we sit down, we come up with a plan. How do we get that student into school and we support them? Personalized learning plans that support student success. What do you want to be when you grow up? What does that look like? What kind of internship do you want to do? What work experience do you need? But we're also into communication that meets them where they're at in terms of their reality. If they're not coming to school, how are they going to hold down a job? The team approach to all thoughtful and purposeful work begins as a team, and we model that for our students. This afternoon, we talked about electives. We met as a team with students there. It was a purposeful and thoughtful conversation where kids knew exactly what they need to do tomorrow, and they were part of the decision making. And I think it's really important that we do our best to work in partnership with our caregivers, that we know that our caregivers are very busy, they have challenges themselves, and the more that we can communicate with them, cooperate with them, and collaborate with them, even when we have conflict, is really, really important, that what we do is what we say we're gonna do, and we move forward. The next slide is about the Expressive Arts Room. I don't need to necessarily read it to you, but really, we took one of the classrooms and we've made it a place where kids can go create music. We have an old piano. We have two keyboards, where one of our music teachers wrote a grant and got us keyboards. They can express themselves visually. One of their lasting impacts is a mural that's going to go in the classroom around the border. But I also think it's looking and expressing oneself in a different way that isn't necessarily sitting down and having that conversation. I think the other thing is too is having Anthony here as being part of, as an authentic audience member is really important. Maybe one day he'll become a school committee member. Maybe one day he'll be advocating for his children. And so I think the more that we can serve our community, and that is why we wrote the grant, the better. But we also know that we have to do skill building and this is something that we need to continue working on. That's what we want for our students. For those of you who are at the graduation, and I appreciate those who are there, I think you saw at its best when our two graduates stood on their chairs and they couldn't stop smiling. They had done something and it was, they had tackled something knowing that maybe It was something that they never thought they could actually do, and their parents were so proud too. So opportunities for improvement, because that's the kind of leader I am, and that's the kind of team I've created, is we need to move daily attendance from 70% to 85% total student attendance. And then we need to drill down, and we need to create those plans, and we gotta figure out how to get them to school and get them to school on time. It's working, it's a lot of conversation, and what they're seeing is they're achieving when they're getting it. You know, the one plus one equals, I'll get good grades. We want to move to project-based units two times a year, you were talking about that, where you intersect content areas, social studies, English, science, and math, so the kids have a question, students have a question, we're answering the question, and we're able to integrate all of their areas of learning. so that they see it differently, and they don't see it as rote work, but they think about how they ask the question, and it also personalizes their learning. It supports the teacher in differentiating. So that is our goal. We also believe in incentive-based learning. What does it mean when this happens? What does it mean when I have straight A's? I feel good about myself. It's a growth mindset. It's not a fixed mindset. We wanna continue to partner with area colleges and universities to provide opportunities for pre-service teachers like our expressive arts intern to be trained at Curtis Tufts. It is a great little laboratory. You can learn so much about yourself as a teacher, a clinician, a principal, when you're working with our students who learn differently. I also want to create, we want to create more work study opportunities and internships for our older students. So on the last page, I just want to thank you. Our goal obviously is to ensure that all students have a safe learning environment that supports them in achieving their academic potential and therapeutic needs. And it really is balanced. Sometimes it's more therapeutic than academic and vice versa. But if you look at our two graduates who graduated last year, it all became equal. And that's when you know you've been successful. We wanna just say thank you. We hope to get more students. I hope to go out with Joan's support to find students in other districts to come into Curtis Tufts and support with revenue. so that we continue this program and that we actually are a place that everyone wants to be outside of Medford. So I wanna thank you and I'm happy to answer any questions.
[SPEAKER_13]: Member McLaughlin.
[SPEAKER_09]: Thank you, thank you Dr. Hutchins for the presentation. I know your commitment to the work and I know the students' commitment to the work as well. I just wanna clarify, just in terms of the grant, this was the community funds grant through the city. And really it was an introduction to a 501c3 as a fiscal sponsor that we were able to connect you with so that that money could go to the Curtis Tufts directly based on some of the work that you wanted to do in the community, which I think is so important as we think about this particular student population. And one of the questions I have is how are we helping our students and our families at the Carter's Tufts feel part of our community, part of the bigger community, because I think that certainly last year we heard a lot around, you know, othering, right? And I think that as we're thinking about equity and inclusivity, I really want us to be thinking about how are we being inclusive of all of our students and helping them to feel like they're part of our community because they very much are a part of our community while respecting, obviously, their individualized needs.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's a great question. That's a dissertation. But in terms of other, I would say our students this year, and I'm speaking for them, and maybe I shouldn't be, feel more recognized than they ever have. And I would say that it's because of they've bought in to what we're trying to do. Now there are some students who haven't and we're still working with them and we're not gonna give up on them. But the more we work with the high school and the more we work with the community, the Kiwanis wants to work with us. They've been very supportive of us in terms of their leadership program. The more that I can build bridges for our students with our students, the more they're gonna be recognized in the community. I do think there's an opportunity to ensure that our students who attend Curtis Tufts feel seen by all of you and continue to feel seen by the high school. I think it's hard because we're so far away. In some ways, that's a really good thing. And in some ways, that's really hard. How do we get them more involved? So it's something we constantly are talking about and improving upon. And I would say that our relationship in terms of how we receive students and how we think about students from high school has changed in really positive ways. So I would say it's a work in progress and we will continue with that mindset.
[SPEAKER_09]: Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I would love to see more. And I guess just more specifically, how are families being engaged as well in the community, in the Curtis Tufts community? One, I guess, just for specifics. And then two, is there transportation available for students to go between the Curtis Tufts and the high school, for example, for science labs or that sort of thing with their teachers?
[SPEAKER_04]: not currently, but if you want to invest in a cheap van, we'd take it. So it's budget time. Yeah. So I, you know, I mean, I think there are opportunities.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah. Yes, they get specialized transportation to get to and from school, but not necessarily between the yes. Right. So if they were in the life of the so yes, thank you, Miss Bowen. I'm sorry, we're talking across the room. So every student, as I'm sure you know, is entitled to the life of the school. And so what I understand Ms. Bowen is saying, for others who may not have heard, was she was saying that students are entitled to extracurricular activities, what have you, and so the transportation would be provided for students that needed that. And during the day, if students, you know, using science labs and things like that, because our students at the Curtis Test are entitled to all of the services, including our swimming pools, our science labs, all of those things, I think I'm going to ask my colleagues to be thinking about how we're making that happen for all of our students, because I think that's really important that they're accessing everything that they can access. So I just want to sort of elaborate on that. I'm going to let another colleague go, and then I have a couple more questions if you don't mind there.
[SPEAKER_13]: Sounds good. Member Ruseau? Yes, thank you.
[SPEAKER_22]: You know, I know that there's a shortage of space for students in and out of district placements. It's a serious shortage. And so I'm excited that you're thinking about becoming a place where we could accept students from other districts. If we have the capacity, it seems morally appropriate, not to mention fiscally a good idea, to use the capacity we have, because there are wait lists everywhere. And all those kids on wait lists are not being served. So thank you for thinking about that.
[SPEAKER_10]: Member Olapare, then Member Branley, then Member McLaughlin.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much for being here. A quick question about the service learning, and I think the partnership programs in the community. As someone who really benefited from service learning when I was in college, and as someone who really appreciates what it's intended for, what is the process, if there is an immediate formal process on how you develop those programming with community groups, or is there a way for community groups to, I think, reach out to the Curtiseps and offer their partnership capabilities?
[SPEAKER_04]: I think it's both. One of the things, that I really want to work on are those relationships in the city. I also think it's time and professional development for our teachers. As you know, service learning is embedded in the learning. So it's not just community service you go and you, you know, you serve your community. It really is about learning. So for example, our history teacher wants to study the city of Method. And really, what does that mean for our senior citizens in terms of doing an oral history project. And then if they tell us their stories, our students can help them with their technology. It's that idea of giving back. That's just one idea. They're thinking about the FALS and STEM, STEAM learning that can be happening. If we have a van during the day, we can take those students and we can commit to kind of looking at our schedule differently and having our volunteer day or afternoon. But these are just, You know, a leader has to be five years ahead, and that's what I'm thinking about. But I appreciate the question. If you have anyone, they can reach out to me.
[SPEAKER_08]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_13]: Member Branley.
[SPEAKER_08]: So thank you so much for being here. I just have a question on, you said there are eight referrals from the high school that we placed in the spring or next fall. So that means eight more students coming in addition to your 12. Am I right when I hear that?
[SPEAKER_04]: It depends on, I don't want to speak individually. There are eight referrals currently, which means they are having conversations at their IEP meetings where they may or may not commit to Curtis Tufts. We want kids to be there who need to be there and who want to be there. And so that's right now, I have eight referrals. And like I said, we accepted one.
[SPEAKER_08]: Staffing.
[SPEAKER_04]: Staffing. We just hired a science teacher, which we're very excited about. And I think we have the resources with that science teacher to have more students.
[SPEAKER_08]: Is the average usually 12 students?
[SPEAKER_04]: It has been last year and this year. Last year it was 15 at a max.
[SPEAKER_08]: Just want to make sure you're supported.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I appreciate that.
[SPEAKER_08]: OK, thank you.
[SPEAKER_09]: Member McLaughlin, thank you. I love the art therapy program. I think that's awesome. And I would love to see more of that. And especially now that we have our new arts building, we have a lot of arts work in the community. I think there is very likely folks if they're out there listening and certainly folks that we can talk to that could be interested in more of the arts learning. I think it's such a great way to do learning and also the community building around the project-based learning. So what I'm hearing you talk a lot about and what I'm getting excited about is the project-based learning, the personalized learning, the differentiated curriculum, the unique learning, you know, unique universal design for learning. I mean, all of these advanced, you know, opportunities to really be able to teach to the individual. And it sounds like you guys are really doing that there, and I'm excited about that. I want to ask about the subject teachers that are there. You said there are three academic teachers.
[SPEAKER_04]: What are the... We currently have three academic teachers, one history, one English, and one math, and we've just hired a science teacher. They're also certified as a special educator.
[SPEAKER_09]: Okay. So for top and special educator. And what about like social studies, current events? Is that sort of part of that?
[SPEAKER_04]: He has both history, history endorsement and special ed.
[SPEAKER_09]: Okay. Thank you. And then, um, thank you. And, um, Oh, transition programming. So transition to adulthood, I know that we have, obviously, the whole transition program at the high school. So what does the transition program at Curtis Tufts look like?
[SPEAKER_04]: So each Councilor in the liaison works with a student who's, throughout their career, freshman through senior year, we can certainly improve upon it, asking the question, although it can change with teenagers six and seven times throughout the year. But the goal always is, I wanna graduate first, I wanna have a future that's either in the world of work, military, or thinking about college, and then rolling back and working on that every year with the Councilor. So we have two Councilors currently, and they each have a caseload of six right now. And so they're able to work with students in a very individualized way, and to create opportunities that can support them in what they're thinking about, but also working with parents, as you know, through the IEP process and having those conversations.
[SPEAKER_09]: Great. Thank you. And then last two questions. Are the students, is there any opportunity currently that exists for teaching advocacy skills to the students and families? And then lastly, what kind of MCAS supports do the students get?
[SPEAKER_04]: So I'll take the first question. In terms of teaching advocacy for themselves personally, I think we do that through each class. I think we weave it through whatever we're teaching. And I also think the Councilors do a really good job of supporting that. I think because of our kind of commitment to the team, we're having constant conversations about student needs and how they can advocate for themselves and kind of having that reality therapy where we're sitting down with kids and we're saying, this is what you need to be doing. How can we get there? I think with our parents, I think we do it through the IEP meetings, but certainly, I mean, I have conversations with parents via email, telephone, et cetera. I think we can do it better. I feel like I can do a better job advocating or teaching kind of those skills for our parents. I mean, we would like to do a parent support group. The issue is, is when we've offered it, our parents are working two and three jobs. So it's hard to get them there. So sometimes it's through the telephone, sometimes it's through an email, sometimes it's at the IEP meeting, sometimes it's after the meeting, and we're just talking and it's informal, but I do think there needs to be some sort of formalized process for supporting parents. And so the second question, if you have- MCAS supports. MCAS support. Kate is providing MCAS prep in math because we have several students who need to pass MCAS math, but she also infuses it in the teaching. So with our new science teacher coming on board, we'll also do it for biology. We try to do it as much as possible, but as you know, our students struggle with the MCAS, but I will say they did very well on English, which I'm happy to report, but as much as we can. I also didn't mention credit recovery, those opportunities to recover grades or recover credits, either through online learning or doing an independent study with someone like me or a content area teacher. That really is the goal.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah. Thank you. And so lastly, if the community members that are watching or listening or reading the minutes or anything like that, wanted to contact you to figure out how they might be able to support The Curtis Tufts, how can they do that?
[SPEAKER_04]: They can call me at Curtis Tufts. They can email me. So what's your email? It's lhodgdon at medford.k12.ma.us. And it's H-O-D-G-D-O-N.
[SPEAKER_09]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you. Thank you so much for the presentation. Thank you. Thank you for having me tonight on behalf of our students and teachers.
[SPEAKER_13]: Yes. Thank you for coming. Miss Deimos, welcome. Come on up.
[SPEAKER_23]: Good evening. Good evening. Thank you for having me tonight. I want to just start out by letting you know from the slide one that our four core principles at the Brooks Elementary School is to be kind, to be safe, to be responsible, and to be you. That be you is very important to us. We celebrate the individuals that are before us every day, and we celebrate their strengths every day. Our second slide, I think it's important before we go any further about celebrating what is good at the Brooks, is a great big shout out to the staff that I am surrounded by. and have the pleasure to work with every day. I can't say enough about this staff. It's an honor to work with them and to lead these individuals each and every day. They create a safe learning environment for all students. They instill inclusivity and kindness through modeling lessons and clear and consistent expectations. Students are following those four kind values of being kind, safe, responsible, and you'll see Our class picture from this year does not encompass all the staff there, but that is our most current. Ms. Burke, my assistant principal, is here tonight as support. And a big core part of my leadership is collaboration and teamwork. Everything is sort of a we, so I would invite Ms. Burke up to be part of the team here for the presentation because We do a lot together and it's more of a we than an I. Thank you. Our first slide here is the 2023-2024 school year. You'll see our enrollment as of October 1st is 537 students. I have broken up the demographics for you and our special populations are there for you as well. We have the developmental program for K-2, the language-based programs, and the learning group programs for the district, which is a total of four classrooms. And we have two half-day MEEP preschool programs. The program details you'll find on the next slide that describes what is the MEEP program, the developmental program, language-based, and learning group. I don't feel as though I should take your time to read these. Handouts may look a little bit different. Lisa was printing it for you today. Because when I had hit share to Dr. Cushing, I realized the description wasn't included. So just know Lisa has them for you, and you will be getting them. I wanted to stop. I'm sorry. Am I going too quickly? I wanted to start with, first back to school night, we had a diversity and inclusion night that welcomed back the staff and the students. It was a real big hit. We talked about You Belong because the bees are our, we're the Brooks bees. We had all the students and the families come and decorate the grounds together. We had, the students drawing themselves out in the chalk all around the school, out in the back lower playground so that every student that came could see themselves at the Brooks. and that everyone felt in that inclusion in that community, because that is really what we're all about, that everyone belongs and everyone is recognized. It was a popular event. We had popsicles and it was very well attended. The next slide you'll see is our famous fall fest, where I know a lot of people had, oh, sorry, I went ahead of myself, sorry. That was our first day of school. Bumbles the bee is our mascot. And you'll see Mrs. Hardy, our secretary there, welcoming the students in on that first day. Again, can't stress enough that you belong in our hive rules of being positive, happy, being yourself. When you go down to slide seven, it's all about the academics and rigor. We are right now implementing the inter-reading as the rest of the district is for our new reading program. ECRI, Investigations, FOSS, ST Math, Hill for Literacy. We are privileged to have several of the staff members, including myself as part of active members of the district literacy team, the DLLT. that really does help us when we come back as a PLC together and we're talking and sharing good strategies. We have different grade levels of staff members that can come back and actually just teach the teachers and have that peer-to-peer collaboration during their common planning times. We really take advantage of the wind blocks, what everyone needs, so that we Differentiation is just an eight and built into those daily blocks. And so the students during the wind blocks, they're going out to receive services, they're going to reading specialists, or they're being engaged with their classroom teacher at grade level or above. We focus a lot on the tiered model of instruction and putting in those supports to all students from enrichment to include everybody. We're participating in district-wide early literacy screening right now. It's a busy time for the dibbles and for our reading specialists getting to all 537 kiddos, minus the preschools, actually. We have library this year, special thanks this year. The students are loving having a librarian and as a specialist. I appreciate that as an instructional leader. So thank you all that were involved in getting us that sixth special because now I can have meaningful common planning time with my staff. And it really is driving the instruction to be able to just have their undivided attention once a week and sort of look at our, right now we're looking in tearing apart map data and looking and saying, okay, what is the common thread here? Where can we do better? Where are our strengths? Where are our weaknesses? And that was really hard to schedule before we had that sixth prep. So thank you again for that. It really does help me to help the teachers learn. The full-time librarian has that space in the library that's a maker space that she's doing a lot of the STEM and the STEAM activities with them after they're getting out their library books and things. And then my staff really enjoyed their professional development earlier this year when we had a bullying prevention, professional development for them. I know you've been here a long time today, so I'm trying to go through these fairly quickly, but giving you some details as well, so please slow me down if you think I'm going too quickly. Into reading, I can't say enough about. I love our new program. I love being a part of the district team that is meeting with Hill quite often and being part of these professional developments. I love that the staff has great opportunities to meet with them today. My special ed team, my grade four team and my grade five team during their comment planning time, instead of meeting with me, we're zooming into their professional development. And then tomorrow is the rest of the grade levels. That's an amazing opportunity. They're asking in a small group meaningful questions about activities that are happening in their classrooms and saying, how can I do this better? Is anyone else seeing this happen? Is there something I'm not seeing in this? Because it is voluminous. It is a big program to take in. And this is their first year, you know, and they're really giving it their all. But sometimes it just, to be able to have that contact, you know, that is coming and talking to you and saying, I can't find this. Where can I see it? And she's, oh, go over here to this book. And this, it makes a huge difference. It takes a lot of time and effort off of the staff. I am just very grateful to have that opportunity. The stories within this curriculum are just so much more diverse than they were in the past. The students are able to be reflective of themselves in these stories. They're seeing themselves more often. And I think that's huge. That is a huge plus for us. The differentiation is really interwoven into the lesson planning here. It takes a lot of that away from the teachers because it's already planned out for them and takes that time away from having to do that on their own. I've also included the next two slides. I won't necessarily read them to you, but it's all about the culturally responsive teaching that's embedded into The inter-reading, and I think it's just important to share that and to let you see what this new reading program looks like for the students and for the staff, and all the best practices and good teaching that is actually just readily available at their fingertips. All these activities, differentiation, good teaching practices, it really is at their fingertips. That's our inter-reading. The next slide here I thought was really something we should be celebrating as a fun activity that we had up in the fifth grade. They were zooming into a NASA astronaut. Walked into that classroom and I saw him on the screen and I thought, That's pretty cool. As someone my age and I was thinking, wow, I've never had an opportunity like this. The fifth graders were just in awe. And it's something that sort of I hope they get to do it again. But to me, it was a once in a lifetime. I've never had a chance to talk to an astronaut in space. Our social emotional learning, I really wanna stress the fact of how proud I am that this is really a strength in our school. We do a lot of responsive classroom training for others around the district and I find that we're a great model for that. The responsive classrooms, the zones of regulation, the Michigan model, our grade level morning meetings, Ms. Burke, has done a great job this year with taking some grade level morning meetings on her own. The kids have really loved going down. I love when we do the whole school morning meetings. We had a parent last year write a song with the third graders for the Brooks School. I added in the link there so that you will see it. And the third grade students are teaching the rest of the school, actually the fourth grade students this year, are teaching the rest of the school our Brooke School song so that each morning meeting that we have together up at the gym, we can start by singing the Brooke School song. It just brings us together. And as a community, it just kind of fills your bucket, if you'll say. I really do encourage the students to participate in that. They really do seem to be enjoying it. The ILTs, which are Instructional Leadership Teams, have been going very well at the Brooks. We meet every week, and I have a group of various stakeholders into these meetings, and it really does make a difference when we are looking at different pieces of the school day. So we've done everything from the culture and the climate to what kind of spirit days we should have our data as far as testing goes. We have common planning times. Like I mentioned, the common planning times sometimes have been with Hill for literacy and sometimes with us. And then one time a month, they get to meet on their own as a grade level, and they share the notes with me so that the next week when we meet, I can answer and go over any questions they have as well. So I think that's important too, to empower our teachers and to allow them to have time to plan together which they didn't have in the past. Our school, social, emotional, and our school culture, I pride myself in the fact that open and frequent communication is just how to go. You cannot over-communicate, in my opinion. I send out a morning message that I call The Hive every day, and it has all my resources that I need the students to, I mean, sorry, the staff to have. At the end of the week, I send out a s'mores weekly update to the community, and so that they'll have all the information, just a different platform. The s'mores goes out to the caregivers and to the community, and I use just email for inside the school. We have a grade level morning meetings, we have spirit days. Miss Burke is famous for her staff shout outs. Principal of the day, students like to earn their Brooks Bees and they get to be principal of the day with us one day. I've had a lot of people want to have lunch with me this year. So we've had a lot of lunches with the principal. We earn Brooks Bees and our parents, our families, caregivers, they are all been invited to our coffee with the principals. We're hoping in the spring to do tea. So we'll have an afternoon instead of a morning. So we can try to get, you know, some people have the afternoons free versus the mornings. We'll kind of see what we can do about making it accessible to all. The next is our Great Kindness Challenge. We do this every year. It's near and dear to my heart. It's one of my favorite school culture buildings that we do each year. The students this year, on February 6, they have up until then to show their 100 acts of kindness. And we're going to celebrate those in a grade level school-wide morning meeting. We are very proud of the fact that these students are just really should be commended for their kindness that they are exuding throughout the school day. We have some school events and cultures that we are proud of. The Winter Olympics, I did share on the next couple slides. I would say to you that about halfway through there is a tissue Competition between Mrs. Burke and myself, that is my favorite part of the Winter Olympics. If you're not going to have time to watch the whole thing, I would suggest those first 30 seconds of that. Not that I'm competitive or anything.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm going to be practicing for next year.
[SPEAKER_23]: So we are going to be to all school events that we've done we have had Winter Olympics we've had where your Brooks be gear or your blue and white kindness day halfway day was a fun day we did this year, we did on the 90th day of school, and we did math problems in celebrating your math with the halfway day. We did pajama day and sports day. Our Brooks PTO couldn't be more generous and helpful. They are excellent. They help us with enrichment and planning and field trips and anything we ask them. Some of the examples include trivia night, mystery readers, buses, enrichment, k-mini day, you belong events that we did back to school, the fall fest, open mic nights, which we have one on Friday, Anyone want to come and have some karaoke time, you're welcome to join us. Food drives, Election Day bake sales, book fairs. The next page there, you'll see the fun that we had at the Fall Fest. That is always a big hit. We have a lot of alumni come back, and we have a lot of community members stop by and join us. It's a great day. And like I said, I did enter in those winter Olympics, the next couple of slides. They really are. This year, the third grade staff has been planning this for years and having the assistant principal and principal come down and compete against each other for the third grade. Well, this year, the third grade teachers planned it for the entire school. And then instead of having just the assistant principal and principal participating in this throughout, we did a few, three or four of the activities, and then they invited the teachers to volunteer to come up. And that I think really kind of engaged the students and they were excited to see their teachers up there and rolling down the Oreos in their mouths and see if they could get it in. And it was just very, very kind of the third grade teachers to do that for us.
[SPEAKER_07]: And I'd like to say also the students were included in between different competitions. There was a trivia question for each grade level. So it really was inclusive of administration, staff, and the students. It was extremely well run, very well run.
[SPEAKER_23]: So the next slide, you're gonna see the halfway day. That was the 90th day. They had math centers. That was all about the 90th day of school. Then we had community outreach and involvement. We are always excited to have the mystery reader. So thank you all that came in and helped to celebrate read-a-thon with us and read to the students. Each year, our students around Veterans Day write letters to thank them for the service for the country. And so it was really impressive this year to see the number of letters that went out and to read the content of those heartfelt letters. And I thought that it was deserving of a shout out here tonight of celebrating the kindness that they exuded towards those veterans. We have some student leadership opportunities at the Brooks. Our CCSR is up and running with Mr. Coates and Ms. Rose. They are in the middle of finalizing their projects and will be carrying them out this spring. We have fifth grade student council and we have kindergarten buddies in which the fifth grade go and they read to the kindergarten once a week, or they do any kind of projects or centers. And they also do help with some bus buddies as well. And this year, because we have five kindergarten, we also have a fourth grade class that's helping as well with the kindergarten buddies. We have a new rock wall, thanks to some PTO funding from our fall fest and all the fundraising that we had. The students are so excited. They really are. I have a couple of pictures on here with the gym teacher helping the students up on that. And I will have to say, I was really a little bit nervous about, you know, people keeping it, So nobody was getting hurt, but it's amazing. Mr. Sacco has it up and running, and the protocol is set, and the kids just love it, and I just love to see them getting all their energy out and enjoying it. We're going to end the year strong with a specialist showcase in May, our trivia night. We're going to have a fundraiser at the Ford Tavern. We're right now pushing out new Brooks merchandise. One of our PTO members has created new merchandise and is going to send them out. We have a kindergarten meet and greet coming up, moving on ceremony, field day, field trips, kindergarten end of the year celebration, ice cream socials, enrichment programs, and our concerts. But I just want to thank you, school committee, mayor, superintendent, central administration, and the whole community for allowing me to share this information with you. It truly is a pleasure working for the Medford Public Schools. And I will take any questions you have at this time.
[SPEAKER_13]: Thank you, Ms. Simos. Thank you, Ms. Burke. Member McLaughlin?
[SPEAKER_09]: Sure, thank you. This is really comprehensive and exciting as a former Bricks parent three times over. Yes, I can attest to all the fun that happens at the school. I'm wondering about your I know you said you're at 537. What is space looking like for you guys?
[SPEAKER_23]: It's tight. Yeah, it's tight. We don't have any extra classrooms. Right. So you know, we had 110 that we we had one classroom that we used to use for like our lunch with the principal and any type of meetings, overflow, there aren't any classes like that anymore. You know, strings and bands are in the PTO room now because there's no space for them. We had such a high number of students sign up for it that we just couldn't fit them in one area.
[SPEAKER_09]: So you're really at your max capacity right now.
[SPEAKER_23]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah. Thank you. And then for the Program details, I know you didn't get to that slide, it was added on to our handout.
[SPEAKER_23]: That was my fault, I didn't realize it wasn't in the packet when we got shared, I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_09]: I think it's great, and it's really helpful information. Would you mind sharing that too? Did you already share that?
[SPEAKER_23]: We had gone through it quickly. Oh, I'm sorry, I guess I missed it.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. So can I ask a question about that? Sure. So for the developmental program, what grades are those?
[SPEAKER_23]: K to two.
[SPEAKER_09]: K to two, okay. And how many students do you know generally?
[SPEAKER_23]: Right now, there's three of them in there.
[SPEAKER_09]: Three?
[SPEAKER_23]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_09]: And one teacher?
[SPEAKER_23]: One teacher.
[SPEAKER_09]: And any power?
[SPEAKER_23]: There is a shared power.
[SPEAKER_09]: One teacher and a shared power, okay, thank you. And then for the language-based, what grades are those?
[SPEAKER_23]: So language-based, we have two fifth grades this year that have a power and a teacher in each classroom. And then we have a classroom that has grades who three and four or just three and four with the teacher and a parent there. Okay. Yeah. Three and four. Sorry.
[SPEAKER_09]: So three language based classrooms, two or two or fourth and fifth grade, no two or fifth grade. And one is, um, two fifth grade. Yep. And one, three, four, one, three, four. Yeah.
[SPEAKER_23]: A developmental.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yes. And then, uh, the learning learning group. So what grade is learning group?
[SPEAKER_23]: Um, that one has two, three and four, two, three and four.
[SPEAKER_09]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_13]: Thank you. Thank you, we have our student rep that would like to speak, Darren.
[SPEAKER_20]: Hello, I just had a quick question. Sure. I was just wondering if I could get some more details regarding the student council at the Brooks Elementary School. Regarding the roles, the number of students, and contact information.
[SPEAKER_23]: Oh, sure. So our fifth grade is who is involved in our student council. Mr. Allen, M-A-L-L-E-N, at medford.k12.ma.us, and Nicole Sulo, N-S-U-L-L-O, at Medford. They're the two fifth grade teachers that would be your contacts for it. They run this program during lunch and recess time, and the students are coming up with different ways to improve the Brooks School. After they vet different ideas through the school, they come and they sit with Mrs. Burke and myself, and we have conversations about how they would like to see us better the school in the school day. They will also put voting boxes or questions or surveys out. so that they're making sure that all the students are represented when they come to see us. So that's actually really a good quality of what they're doing for us. And we welcome that because the student voice really is important to us. And this is that first line of it. I would say right now, I'd have to get back to you with an exact number, but they typically have three to four that are, from each class, so that would give you right around like 15 to 20 students that are meeting with them. But if you want to reach out to me at the Brooks, S-D-M-O-S, D-E-M-O-S, I'm more than happy to get you that information.
[SPEAKER_20]: All right, thank you.
[SPEAKER_23]: Very well, very, very welcome.
[SPEAKER_13]: Thank you. Thank you so much for the presentation. We have- Oh, sorry. And also, I have another one. Member Olapare, then Member McLaughlin. Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much for being here.
[SPEAKER_23]: No, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: A quick question. So when it comes to the 537 students, it's a two part question. Do we have an idea of the teacher educational professional in the classroom to student ratio at this time, as well as do we feel like we're being supported with the amount of education professionals in the schools in total.
[SPEAKER_23]: So, the number of teach. I'm sorry it wasn't the number of teachers to students ratio, is that what you said?
[SPEAKER_02]: Teachers, paras, aides, however you want to quantify the educational thresholds in the classroom.
[SPEAKER_23]: Yeah, so not every classroom has an aide. It just, it depends on, right now it's whatever our learning, we have the five sub-separate classrooms, and those sub-separate classrooms will have a para within them, and then the kindergarten will also have a kindergarten aide in those, so I have those five. Our classes run anywhere from about 17 to 20 with the teacher in front of them. Sorry, was there a second part to that?
[SPEAKER_02]: The other one would be partly like, do we feel like we're being supported in the school with the amount of professionals that are in the building right now? Are we feeling we're struggling to have the coverage we need and things like that?
[SPEAKER_23]: Well, I'll tell you, if I had a wish list, I would wish for a substitute bank so that we could, you know, fill those classrooms and, you know, not, you know, poor Mrs. Burke is running here, there, and everywhere, you know, oh, I'm gonna be this parent today, I'm gonna be that, you know, just so that we make sure that we're meeting the individual needs of each student, because it's what we're here for and what we're, it's important. Everything else can get done after three o'clock, right? But, If I might just sneak another piece of that in about being supportive is that I would love to see bus monitors in Medford. The amount of time out of the day that we are policing the videos on the bus, I would love to be able to turn into instructional leadership. It's just, it's a lot. And you know, these bus drivers have 77 students out of 79 seats or 80 seats. they're full of capacity. And so it's a lot to ask to keep your eye on the road, keep these, you know, and by the way, there's 77 behind you that I also need you to manage. So I am yet in my former district when I was sitting in the seats that you are, we had come up with a plan on how to fill those roles that I'd be more than happy to share with you. But I don't want to take your time tonight. You have a lot on your agenda. But I just wanted to, as I have this opportunity, just sort of seize it since you asked a question.
[SPEAKER_07]: I'd like to share that in my few months at the Brooks, as Shannon has said, I've spent quite a bit of time digesting and viewing bus tape for minor infractions to major infractions. But what's really notable is I've had at least four students over the last month ask me if we can procure bus monitors. They didn't use the word procure, but Mrs. Burke, can we get bus monitors? And today I had a student in my office, I was asking some questions about the bus and he said, do you think we could get someone to ride the bus for say a week? And then maybe I could just let you know after that week how things are going every day. And we're talking about a second grader. This is what the second grader wants to do. So I think it's just something that the students also are recognizing. Some of the complaints are small, but they're important. It's just so loud. And that's really unavoidable when you have that many students on a bus. I do think that the students themselves are now recognizing that, and I think that that's notable.
[SPEAKER_13]: Thank you. Thank you. Member McLaughlin?
[SPEAKER_09]: Thank you. I was just going to say I wanted to thank my colleague for that question, because I think it's really important to know what people need and appreciate your candor. and let us know what those things are. And I had a question about the reading specialist and whether you have any Orton-Gillingham trained specialists at the school.
[SPEAKER_23]: Yes, we do. And we have right now Landmark working with our special ed teachers who are training. They're going through a program with the Landmark teachers as well. So we'll have even more.
[SPEAKER_09]: OK. So do you have one now or two for the Orton-Gillingham got accredited.
[SPEAKER_23]: Can I get back to you on that?
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_23]: And I'd love to hear more. I'm thinking in my brain, and I can come up with two or three that I want I want to say are already accredited. Yeah, Joan will come up. I'm sorry. They will send I was thinking, Oh, gee, I'm sorry. This is why I wanted to get back to you.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah. And I want to hear more about the landmark program. So thank you.
[SPEAKER_18]: Yes, so we have two. Teachers who are Wilson trained right now and two teachers who are in the process of completing their Orton Gillingham. They'll be done at the end of this school year, so they will be able to start using implementing the program next year.
[SPEAKER_09]: OK, thank you and so the Wilson. Does that balance literacy?
[SPEAKER_18]: Yes, yeah, thank you.
[SPEAKER_13]: Thank you. Member Ruseau.
[SPEAKER_22]: I just have one clarifying question about the bus monitors. In the district that you're referring to, did you have your own busing or did you have a vendor?
[SPEAKER_23]: We had a vendor.
[SPEAKER_22]: You did have a vendor, excellent. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_09]: Mary, I also say just, you know, special shout out to the bus drivers with 77 kids behind them. I mean, the image is just really harrowing.
[SPEAKER_23]: No disrespect to them by any means. It's just a matter of it's a cumbersome job to do both monitor and drive. And so, like I said, I was just seizing the moment, sharing my thoughts and my hopes and dreams. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_13]: Thank you so much. Thanks so much. And our last presentation by Dr. Peter Cushing, Assistant Superintendent of Enrichment Innovation Operations, and Ms. Avery Hines, Director of Health Services on the excessive heat protocol. Dr. Cushing.
[SPEAKER_22]: Is there any chance we could get some excessive heat in here?
[SPEAKER_21]: I've got a coat on and I'm freezing to death. I'm wearing my... 67.
[SPEAKER_13]: Oh, that is?
[SPEAKER_03]: One second. Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the school committee. Thank you very much. My co-presenter, unfortunately, is not able to be here with us tonight as it's that time of year with things moving around. But I do want to thank Avery for her really partnership in delivering this to you. I think I sent it out to you about two weeks ago, so you had enough time to read and come up with any questions. So I'll run through it for the general public. So we're considering using inclement weather protocols in the event of excessive heat. So excessive heat, this is very different than a snow emergency, which is primarily about the safety of getting people to and from school. And this is considering what the heat might be. So these are the definitions of excessive heat. So heat index of 102 degrees for more than three hours per day for two consecutive days, or heat index between 90 degrees and 100 degrees for three consecutive days or more, or a heat index of more than 105 degrees for any period of time.
[SPEAKER_22]: And do you want questions now or at the end?
[SPEAKER_13]: Dr. Cushing, at the end, is that helpful? Sure, at the end would be great. If you don't mind. Thank you. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_03]: So the Metropolitan Public Schools recognizes that students are often safest and most secure when in the schoolhouse. Caregivers have jobs to report to, as we were considering, and students potentially being left home alone. And also, among a great many other things, many students receive two meals daily, in addition to nursing, counseling, care, in addition to the academics they get from our wonderful educators. Here's the grid put out by the National Weather Service that shows the heat index and relative humidity. So why are we using heat index instead of just temperature? So this is heat index is your real field temperature. And the body has a significantly harder time cooling itself as the heat index gets higher. So we've created an excessive heat operations team in the protocol. Superintendent, myself, Director of Health Services, Facilities Director, Director of Athletics, Communications Director, Board of Health Director for the City of Medford, and our District Physician. So we came up with several steps, several levels for heat control steps. So caution, scheduled rest and hydration breaks, during outdoor playtime, scheduled recess prior to lunch, move outdoor activities to shaded areas or inside. Athletics will follow the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association, MIAA heat protocol, and then family notification of proper care during excessive heat that will work with our communications director and the director of health services, Avery, for the families and students to access. Extreme caution has all of the elements of the caution section, but adding no outdoor activities, encourage hydration, encourage the wearing of light clothing, the use of fans and air conditioning, and the athletics protocol will be implemented on a sport by sport, sport by sport, case by case, sorry for that error, with consideration of time of day and activity involved. Danger is all elements of caution and extreme caution sections above, and a determination of early release or school closure, if necessary. Once again, taking into consideration students are generally speaking best within the schoolhouse, as mentioned earlier. And then extreme danger, all elements of the caution, extreme caution and danger sections above. School closed for academic and extra activities. However, consultation with the Board of Health and Office of the Mayor concerning facility use as cooling centers, and then meal preparation for students in need for families to pick up meals. So to still provide those services as necessary, especially from those buildings in our district that have cooling in kitchens. And then communication, I can read that all to you, but we will have prepared messages ready to go, as mentioned earlier, with our communications director. And then we have some equipment considerations that do have a budgetary impact, but purchasing shade structures, purchasing some misting devices, the shade structures can see a reduction about 15 degrees. in perceived temperature. Misting devices can reduce air temperature up to 30 degrees in various dry environments, increase the number of water coolers available to students, and increase number of drinking water. maintain on hand a supply of 10,000 waters, where we have about 5,000 students and staff in the district. That would be two per day, and we'd be looking to restock as necessary, but have an initial on-hand capacity of 10,000 waters specifically designated for this. Air conditioning is being reviewed. It's an extensive project partnering with the city and repaired to operational readiness in all locations and fans purchased for Medford High School classrooms to make sure we have air movement and we're exploring other options as necessary. And that is, as requested, the excessive heat protocol. I'm happy to hear any questions, suggestions, comments, or other things.
[SPEAKER_13]: Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Cushing. Member Ruseau, then Member Graham, then Member Branley. Thank you. And then Member McLaughlin.
[SPEAKER_22]: On the first page, the heat index, the definition for excessive heat, we may want to take a look at that. It's 101 degrees. It's not considered excessive heat according to the protocol. There's missing data in that what's excessive heat. And then, you know, there's in the first item there, it's like for three hours for two consecutive days. But then in the other two, it's there's no like amount of time required, like in the third option there, if it's 105 for one minute at noon and one day, that's considered a excessive, like we should just tighten that up so that it actually makes sense for all of the scenarios that would happen. Right now there's some gaps, but we don't need to rehash those right now.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm happy to work with Avery on those because she definitely had the specific information. pertaining to those, but I think, honestly, when the heat index is more than 105 for any period of time, it's that the overall heat environment is going to be so detrimental.
[SPEAKER_22]: The 105 does seem sort of the, I mean, 105's crazy times, but 101 is also kind of weird that it's missing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yep, can definitely work with her on that.
[SPEAKER_22]: And then, oh, I printed it. Where are my notes? is there's there's a couple of references essentially to the MIA heat protocol and without seeing it I just want to I'm not going to put down the MIAA, but every single year we see a news story of athletics that lets or forces kids to participate in sports until they die. So I want to know what that MIAA heat protocol looks like. Is it more conservative, less conservative than our heat protocol? If it's less conservative, that I think we need a conversation around that because the science around what's healthy and all that other stuff isn't different for students that happen to be participating in sports. And we see that every single year in this country where it's like, you gotta play your football in a well, you know, and with coaches and other places, not here necessarily, but coaches that don't let you take water breaks really some pretty egregious stuff that I'm not suggesting we have here, but whenever I hear about another protocol that is not mentioned, I'm nervous that it's not aligned with ours. And if it's not aligned with ours, we need a real conversation around
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I appreciate that. And member Ruseau just also, one of the critical things with football and lacrosse, and if there are other sports that wear helmets outside, it's really making sure that you remove the helmet so that heat can escape the body as opposed to being trapped in. So that's one of the modifications that we would expect our coaches to make. And lacrosse, as we look into late May and June as our climate shifts.
[SPEAKER_22]: Great, thank you. And then there's a reference to our policy EBCD emergency closings. I took a look at that and read it. It looked fine. I just think that, did you all take a look at it or just reference it?
[SPEAKER_03]: but we definitely took a look at it. I'll be honest, we did this back in October and November. So my exact recollections of how deep we looked at it, but we definitely did.
[SPEAKER_22]: Yeah, it's not the longest policy, but it's pretty good. I do like a couple of the other things that aren't relevant, so I won't make us stay here all night long, but thank you. I appreciate you getting this going.
[SPEAKER_06]: Thank you. Member Graham? Thank you. A couple of questions. I think the intent of this was not that when it gets hot, we'll consider doing things, but instead that we will do things. So I think the lead off sentence needs to change so it doesn't sound like we're going to maybe do it if we sort of feel like it, instead of saying this is actually what you can expect from us when these things happen. I also think like, as I read it, I got a little bit sort of spun around across the document because I feel like the heat index is super clear and the table, like the set of bullets around caution, extreme caution, danger, and extreme danger is like the right framework. What got muddy for me is like, we'll do this if these other set of things exist. And I think as I was thinking about it, if it's too hot on one day, we should do these things based on what we're saying we're going to do if we're in caution. And it shouldn't have to rise to the level of it being many days, but instead, if it hits caution, then we should do the caution things. And if it hits extreme caution, we should do the extreme caution things. So I feel like those three bullets are just throwing me off because I don't see it as, it feels like that sort of creates like a little bit of a game of like, well, we didn't know it was going to be this way for two consecutive days. And I don't think that was the intent, but I feel like it caused, like it caused me to sort of read the document a couple times and be like, how does this How does this map where I think it just added some confusion that doesn't need to be there? Because if we're going to do caution things when it's caution, then that's super crystal clear.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I'm definitely happy to change it. However, the committee sees fit with any suggestions. The only one we could find was in was from Arizona. as kind of a guidepost and what we were trying to figure out was those triggering events to establish the caution, extreme caution, danger, extreme danger, to try to identify those like triggering moments for when we would implement this as opposed to just implementing it.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, and I think in a sort of related comment, To me, there needs to be a set of things we'll do in a building that has air conditioning and a set of things that we'll do in a building that does not. And I, so I think like your bullets around caution, extreme caution, like probably in my mind become a table of like, here's what's happening at our elementary schools, at our middle schools, where like where we have working air conditioning. And it would include things like three days before we expect this heat to come, we're going to execute a checklist that makes sure all of our systems are in operating order, or five days before, whatever the right timeline is. But just to say that we see it coming, and we're going to be on top of it as best we can, because I feel like we weren't back in the fall. We knew the heat was coming, and still we weren't quite ready for it. So I think part of this is about some trigger for us to say, we're going to go get ready for this thing that we think is coming so that we can actually be ready. And if we have concerns about an air conditioning compressor, we know it three days in advance to do something alternative rather than it just not turning on on the really hot day and then having no backup plan. So to me, what do we reasonably expect with working air conditioning? And what will we do in those schools? And then the other on the flip side, what are we going to do in the high school where there is no air conditioning? And is it appropriate to sort of say, if we have an air conditioning issue in a building, they're going to revert to like the high school plan because they essentially then don't have air conditioning. So that to me, that was sort of what I was thinking about as I was reading through this is like that piece needs to be like a little bit more fleshed out and clear so that it's, evident to people reading it that there are different plans because there has to be like, you know, what we're going to do at the Brooks with working air conditioning, it just doesn't, it's not going to work at the high school for a whole variety of reasons, you know, and, you know, someday we'll get to fix that. But in the meantime, we still have hot days and kids that are in teachers that are in buildings that are excessively hot. So I think that does sort of when we start talking about like canceling school, like I think that makes it a little bit more complicated because maybe like the answer is you can't, you don't cancel school for almost everybody, but you have to cancel school for the high school because it's oppressive and there's no air conditioning. So that's what I want to see in terms of like that piece to be a little bit more fleshed out so that people can visualize like, what does this look like when it happens? we everyone can know that we here's what we're doing to get prepared when these things happen. Here's what makes us get prepared. And then you know that there's a reasonable expectation that we have time to react when it happens. And then I think the other question that I had is what is the cost of the items on the list so that we can react to those needs and I don't know if you have those costs or how we get those costs, but that was the other thing I was wanting to see is what you know, what does it, what will it cost to get these things completed?
[SPEAKER_03]: So we, in partnership with the city, have started pricing out, especially the air conditioning repairs, preventative maintenance contracts are on the table. The misting devices would be more of a rental from United Rentals or Taylor Rental. I wouldn't really see that being an investment. for the district to make, given the limited deployment that they would see, and the difficulty at times to hook them up to water. Purchasing shade structures, we've looked into that. There's purchasing the shade structure, then the weights to make sure that they're secure in case there's wind. Oftentimes on these hot days, there may be high winds as well, as we've started to notice with just the ground level turbulence. Again, took a deep dive on this and educated myself. So making sure that those shade structures do not become projectiles. Also, just as an aside, in continuing the design of the McGlynn playground, one of the things that we were just on a call today was making sure that there's shade over the climber, various things along those lines. And as we move forward, with other renovations. So we can definitely get more hard numbers on those. And we have priced out, we've started to price out the various air conditioning repairs.
[SPEAKER_06]: Because I, and I think first, we have to like know what those things will cost. And then we have to procure them in some way. And then to me, they move out of this, like, this is equipment that we need. And they move into this is how we will deploy this equipment in our like set of caution, extreme caution et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So that people can really reasonably understand what it looks like when these things are in motion and we can communicate about them in advance. So I think those were my big major questions is just to see a little bit of tightening up of that triggering event. What are we going to do? I think in Arizona, it's probably reasonable that everybody has air conditioning in Arizona. You don't exist there without air conditioning. that is like on top of, on top of, you know, that, but we're not in that position here. Like we don't have air conditioning at the high school and it's oppressively hot.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we do have it in some locations, right.
[SPEAKER_06]: Not in most places in the high school that students and teachers are in.
[SPEAKER_03]: Correct.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yep. So those are some of the changes I would like to see to this document before we consider it final. And then I think the other question is, you know, again, the cost, but also like what has to change about how our maintenance staff operates in order to make sure all these systems stay functioning.
[SPEAKER_13]: Thank you. Member Branley and then Member McLaughlin. Okay, hello.
[SPEAKER_08]: So I think mine pretty much piggybacks off of what Member Graham had to say. On the first page, I'm just curious, these $102,005 This is outside, correct? Yes. So my concern with that being our level spot there, are we checking what's inside? Because I'm guessing the temperature inside is going to be much hotter. temperature outside.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it goes to Memogram's point of each building might be individual and making sure that we're able to accurately check certain spaces, yes.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yes, because that makes me nervous, especially up at the high school. And then is there a way to link that MIA heat protocol with our protocol when the time comes so that somebody can just click on it and then we're there? And then Thank you. And then, yes. So my most questions were on the equipment needs, like when, how we paying for it. Rentals great. Is it going to be across the district if we have a rental for a misting who's who's walking through the Mr. Is it like a vegetable mister? Like this is what I kept picturing. I'm like, are we just gonna walk through with our clothes on? Like, what is this? Is it outside?
[SPEAKER_03]: Generally speaking, yes. Yes? I'm like, what's happening? If you search cool zone, that's one brand name, but it's essentially something you'd see on the sideline of athletic competitions that are fans and it would- I'm a football fan.
[SPEAKER_08]: I see that. I get it. I'm with you. Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it doesn't, it wouldn't necessarily soak a person. It would just provide an opportunity. Yeah, just a little crate.
[SPEAKER_08]: And then at the high school, obviously, I'm guessing one of the larger concerns overall for all the schools. I don't know exactly how many schools have air conditioning and who doesn't. I don't know, are we supposed to talk about that? I mean, I'm assuming that that can be public knowledge, right? I mean, I'm assuming they all have it, but is it all functioning?
[SPEAKER_13]: We want me to speak to it.
[SPEAKER_08]: Okay, right because I feel like that's, that's a good question.
[SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, we're working on this I've grabbed hold of, like, I think the new council school committee has answers on some of the things I'm working on with the administration and the school department security cameras door locks and heat and air conditionings next so we had a senior work off tax work off. air conditioning professional come in and evaluate all of our air conditioners. We need a great deal of work at the middle schools as well.
[SPEAKER_08]: Middle schools and high school.
[SPEAKER_11]: Middle schools and high school for the most part, but I'm talking millions and millions.
[SPEAKER_13]: So this is important that we do have the excessive heat protocol because it's not going to be something we're going to be able to fix by the spring. It's going to take a group effort. It might even take regional collaboration with the MAPC based on the federal dollars that are coming down. So we are definitely working on it. Dr. Cushing, superintendents, as well as John McLaughlin have been in meetings with the city team, because it's going to take a big group effort. And I've asked for I have asked for like do can we support it can the electrical support air conditioners, their standalone air conditioners at the window units can be that you know the windows don't accommodate window units. So I know Dr. Cushing and Mr. McLaughlin are trying to assess that. because I would hope that we would be able to spend some money to get something, especially in the upper classrooms of our middle schools and high school, especially.
[SPEAKER_06]: Mayor, we also got a report about what was functional and not functional, like in the fall. Can you send it to the new committee members?
[SPEAKER_03]: I can also work to update it over the next week. That would be great. But then we're also looking at if, again, United Rentals, it would be one, but we're pricing out what it might look like to provide supplemental to one of our facilities that's most in need.
[SPEAKER_08]: I just, I was here during that meeting as an audience member. I remember the conversation about the compressors and how depressed I was on the other side of the rail to hear some of the answers, sadly. So, yeah, I was just curious, you know, if we're doing an assessment at the high school or at the middle school, fans, air conditioning, you know, standalone units, whatever, is that going to be at least those things in place before the heat comes and we're not saying, oh, it's a hot day, like we didn't expect it to be hot in June? I just want us to be proactive.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're working diligently. We are. We're working diligently to if we were to add air conditioning to certain spaces of the high school, it requires, first of all, the electrical, which we do, we do have that. But it requires the wiring to each individual room, the glass cuts to the windows, the brackets on the outside. So it's a it's a substantial amount of lead time and work to do that.
[SPEAKER_13]: Okay, thank you. Thank you. Member McLaughlin, then Member Ruseau.
[SPEAKER_09]: Thank you. I appreciate my colleagues asking about differentiation between the buildings. I'd like to ask about differentiation for students. So there are students obviously that are in our schools that are going to be much more vulnerable. You know, I'm thinking of students with significant disabilities, CP, what have you, that are going to be really, really vulnerable to the heat index as well, and maybe at you know, buildings where there is or is not air conditioning and, you know, incorporated in the plan, I would like that included in terms of what are we doing with our significantly disabled population for the heat index, that there's cooling rooms, that there's gonna be cooling rooms there for students. So for example, years ago, there was a lot of overheating and I remember community members were actually bringing independent cooling systems to the schools for students to be able to use. There were some rooms that were enclosed rooms. There was the, one of the rooms that they created that was a sort of like a sensory room that was like a relaxation area that they created cooling spaces. So I would like to really incorporate how we're differentiating some of the emergency planning for, you know, our kindergarteners obviously who don't regulate or may not be able to talk about when they're you know, really overheated and other students that populations that really need to be considered.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm happy to look at that with Avery. We did also discuss that the nurses in the buildings are usually very in tune with the students needing those. And I think at the time, I'm happy to go back to it, happy to put a section in, but that the nurses are the ones who are really in tune and knowing those students' needs.
[SPEAKER_09]: I would agree in some of the cases. I don't know that that's all. And so also there's individual health care plans that families can help create and that school educators know about. So individual health care plans can be addendums to IEPs, 504s, even individual, without a 504, an IEP can create an individualized health care plan. And so that should be something that families can know about and can be considered as part of this as well, because I think it's really critical. Because some of the nursing staff may or may not know some of the students, depending on their conditions. And I'm thinking particularly of a student maybe that doesn't communicate with words, but is getting overheated. And it's not typically in the nurse's office. Could be, you know, someone that has a real issue and we're not really thinking about how we're being proactive in that. So I'd really like that to be included in maybe in collaboration with Ms. Bowen and her team would be great.
[SPEAKER_10]: Absolutely. Thank you. Member Ruseau.
[SPEAKER_22]: Thank you. I just looked up the average length of heat waves. We're up to about four days now. The only time you will not be able to replace your 10,000 water bottles is during a heat wave. So we don't need 10,000 on hand, we need 40,000 on hand. And God, I have no idea where you're going to put 40,000 bottles of water. We'll pretend that there's no environmental impact to that for the moment. But if you have 10,000, then you have to cancel school the next three days of the heat wave, because you have no water. So, you know, if that's part of the plan to have water bottles on hand, which I think might be worth talking about because, I mean, we're not assuming there's not gonna be water in the school functionally. If the water doesn't work in the schools, I assume we have to cancel anyways, because you can't flush the toilets. So, you know, that 10,000, that two bottles of water per person per day, if that's something that we really wanna stick with, we have to get a lot more water if there's really a strong rationale behind that. And I don't know the conversations that went into why, but, you know.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's making sure that those students who don't come to school with a water bottle and other, like, that we'll be able to put these in our walk-in coolers, bring them down to temperature and at least give people something that will allow them that temperature relief, as well as hydration.
[SPEAKER_22]: No, yeah, I mean, I okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I do agree on the on the environmental impact.
[SPEAKER_22]: Yeah, I mean, yeah, there is that but also like, you know, we don't want to have day to be like, well, we used up our water supply. So now we our plan is that we have to now cancel school because we don't have water. So, and then the other thing was, You were mentioning, you know, the misting devices and the things that you would presumably set up rental agreements with. I assume when we do those rental agreements, we're going to make sure that those rental agreements include something that sort of gives us, you know, I assume that they don't have 100 of these things at every rental place. And when there's a heat wave coming, other people are going to be looking for them too. So like, we need to make sure that our rental agreement isn't just that this is going to be our price, but that we'll get first dibs on them. Because, again, having plans for things that then are not going to actually be available is not a spot anybody wants to be in. And then for the fans, you know, not that I want to spend a million dollars on fans. But if the backup plan for the outside schools or the elementary and the middle schools is to use fans if the air conditioning isn't working. Well, then we need to have purchased enough fans for the entire high school. And then at least one of those other schools, if we assume one of them is possibly gonna go offline from air conditioning, it's a lot of fans. And I just, some, I mean, aside from the costs, like there's the storage, there's the distribution, there's the, build a new high school, we're probably not going to have the kind of massive amounts of space laying around to store stuff. So, I mean, some of these things are perfectly logical, but they're also in the actual implementation things that I'm wondering how they'll really work out.
[SPEAKER_03]: The fans are really only contemplated for the high school because the mission is to make sure that we have our air conditioning functioning and that we have preventative maintenance contracts in place that when something happens, we're able to appropriately service our facilities so that we're able to maintain the proper temperature coming out of the vent.
[SPEAKER_22]: If I may, I don't for a second doubt the intent of anyone on this particular point, but I would say that it is unlikely in the next two years for that to be a reality. I mean, the millions of dollars that have to be spent to make that a reality, not to mention then the procurement, then the actual doing the work, that's not happening this summer. So, you know, we will have a heat wave this year. There's like a 0% chance we're not gonna have a heat wave. Um, it's maybe 0% is not the right amount. But, um, so I'm just worried because, you know, we started the last school year in a bad spot. And frankly, I mean, for the new members, you haven't quite experienced it yet. But most of us are pretty sick and tired of the same conversations about the fact that we had all summer long, and we didn't notice that the air conditioning was broken at an elementary school. I'm really tired of that. So while I understand we want to buy enough fans just for the high school, I want to buy enough fans to at least have one of the other schools not have functional air conditioning because I fully believe that's what's going to happen in the next couple of years. I'd like to be wrong.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'd really like to be wrong. I do also want to say that it may have already launched already. Brenda Pike from the Office of Sustainability, Economic Development, anything else I'm forgetting, was working with me and Fiona Maxwell to put out an RFQ as part of that RFQ, RFP, I always forget, my apologies, but is to, we added to it to make sure that the three, in designing the upgrades necessary for the Andrews and the McGlynn, it's an OPM design RFQ was to also make sure that the three other elementary schools outside of the McGlynn and the Andrews complex were also up to full operational readiness realizing that you know those systems are you know they're in much better situation from work that was done in 2019 but what all systems are, all systems have a lifespan, I should say.
[SPEAKER_22]: Right. And I just want also sort of a clarifying question. So, I mean, I believe Medford does not usually do delayed start because of the number of days of actual education we provide is the minimum the state allows for other districts to have like 184, that pay their teachers for 189 days like Cambridge. If they do that, it's a different conversation. So we don't do delayed starts, but if we need to close an elementary school, we close the district, is that correct?
[SPEAKER_03]: It closing one school poses just a challenge logistically when later in the year you're running buses for an additional day as just one example. All right. And providing services for that one additional day can be costly for districts to be off cycle. It's not impossible. It's it is not impossible. It's just good. Um, you know, what does it look like in the dollars and cents literally of just as one example, you're running buses for one additional day.
[SPEAKER_22]: Okay, since it's not, it doesn't sound like it's a desi thing. It's just a financial thing. Then I'm not gonna be all worried about that. But okay, thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_13]: Thank you, Dr Cushing. Thank you, Mayor. Yes. Member Reinfeld.
[SPEAKER_05]: Hi, Dr. Cushing. So most of my questions were addressed particularly around the triggering of, you know, is this predicted heat for three days or is this actual because after three days it's already been excessive heat. I almost can't believe I'm asking this and this is to Member Ruseau's point about conversations we keep having over and over. Encouraging hydration bathroom policies. Is there something built in there? I know this has been controversial across the district about access to bathrooms, but when we're encouraging hydration, this is going to impact that. Is there something we need to be considering on that front?
[SPEAKER_15]: At the high school, you mean?
[SPEAKER_05]: At the high school. And I haven't heard problems at other schools, but I do know frequency of students using the bathroom. I've heard it disruptive. I mean, I know it's disruptive. Anyone trying to leave the house with a child knows it's disruptive, but just what that looks like in the policy. And then my other point is the acknowledgement of the services that school provide, but also perhaps an acknowledgement that many home environments are also unsafe in excessive heat.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, and I mean that is the other thing too is even though some air conditioning in the district may not be the greatest, it's still cooler than in many locations. It's cooler than it is in a child's home many times and it that I think I actually wrote we wrote that Avery and I wrote that in there as one of the things to consider when you know, making sure the kids are.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I see it. I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no, it's fine. And I think it's just a really good point is to really mention, is to mention that is that, again, the schoolhouse for a plethora of reasons, okay, is oftentimes the safest place for students to be on those days. And your bathroom point is well taken. and we're working right now. The city council gave us some money several years ago. We're actually working to address some of our issues with the high school bathrooms. While not complete renovations, we'll hopefully in the coming weeks and months, really be able to provide a better experience for our students in those bathrooms.
[SPEAKER_06]: Member Graham. Can I just ask that we look at an updated version of this with some of the cost information and an extra vision by beginning of March?
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_06]: Whenever you're ready, but by the beginning of March? Yeah. Cool. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll aim to have it early again.
[SPEAKER_13]: Thank you for having it early. That was fantastic. Thank you, thank you. We do not have any presentations or continued business, but we do have new business under number 82024-2 offered by member Graham, member Rousseau, and Mayor Lungo-Koehn, myself. Whereas Medford High School has been accepted into the eligibility phase of the Massachusetts School Building Authority Capital Project Pipeline, and whereas the Medford School Committee seeks to accelerate the time spent in the eligibility phase wherever possible, and whereas the building committee will require a substantial amount of information that only the superintendent's team can provide once it is established, we resolved the school committee requests the superintendent to begin working to collect the data necessary to complete key deliverables and the MSBA's eligibility process, including educational profile questionnaire, chapter 74 viability, and maintenance and capital planning questionnaire. We had further resolved that an initial draft of the information required to complete these documents is created no later than March 31st, 2024. Submitted on January 24th, 2024 for tonight's agenda. Is there a motion for approval?
[SPEAKER_06]: Can I just say something first? So when I looked at these three deliverables, there's lots and lots of information that, you know, the building committee is going to need to receive and think about when we start to sort of finalize, There's just a lot of blocking and tackling that's gonna have to happen before the building committee can meaningfully engage with that. So the educational profile includes things like, what is the current configuration of your classrooms? How many are there? How many science labs are there? What is your teaching method? What is your class size in each of these classrooms? And on and on and on about the space that we use and the way that we educate kids. The vocational profile is even more detailed than that. So it wants to know our current programs, our current capacity, our desired capacity, any new programs that we're trying to create space for and like information that backs up our desire for capacity. So we would have to show, like if we were saying we want this program to be able to double in size, we would have to show evidence of demand that that is a reasonable thing to be asking for, as well as competitive, like data from the marketplace saying that there is demand in the marketplace for students with these skills coming out and where else we might educate students about these things. There's a lot of variables going on in the vocational space that have to be collected and then in the maintenance plan. A couple of important things. It's a 20 variable system. So there's 20 factors that they're going to evaluate us on in our maintenance plan. Depending on our answers and our practices, we can receive up to two additional incentive points, which essentially means two percentage points of reimbursement over and above what they will set us at as a district based on all the other factors that they usually use. an increasing number of ways that districts can up their reimbursement rate if they do certain things, if they, in this case, commit to maintaining buildings, et cetera. And there's some other places where that becomes important along the way in terms of decisions that the building committee will make. But the building committee is going to need a lot of advanced work from the administrative team in order to be able to start and get off to the races as quickly as possible. My goal for this, and as I talked to the mayor and to member Rousseau was just to say, we all agree that we want you all to start doing this work to collect this data so that when we form the committee, there's actually just a pile of data waiting for them to start to work through. And then I did put a resolution on for our next meeting to talk about the creation of the building committee. So we can have that conversation next week. sort of as a preview, but hoping that we can pass this tonight so the superintendent's team can get to work.
[SPEAKER_10]: Thank you, Member Graham. Member McLaughlin, then Member Ruseau.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, thank you. I think this is helpful. I think it would be really good to have a committee of the whole to talk about the process. I think this motion makes sense, but I'm not sure that everybody on the committee is as well versed on MSBA and what their requirements are and what the eligibility phase is versus which the acceptance phases versus what the questions are that we need to have answers. Like I think we need to have a committee of the whole or some other explanation of exactly what the process is and what is going to be asked through the phases so that as we're considering a building committee, we have some knowledge of what is actually gonna be asked and so that the public does as well. And I know that there's another phase after and whether we get accepted, but yeah.
[SPEAKER_13]: Just on that before I turn the mic to Member Ruseau, I know that we, we were offered the ability to meet with the MSBA while they were given these updates. And there are great documents that maybe the superintendent could provide us, send to this entire committee so that everybody can take a look first. And if, in my opinion, if a meeting is needed after that, then so be it. But if it suffices my colleagues, then maybe just the two or three pages, two or three page document that kind of outlines Um, all the, all the phases that we'll have to go through and details the first phase, which is what member Graham kind of gave a brief description on, but it's very, the documentation is very helpful.
[SPEAKER_09]: It's a good read. Thank you. I appreciate that. I think the public might also want to know and be involved. So I'd love to take a look at the document and just make sure. Um, yeah, give that some thought about whether I want to bring that back up again, because I want to see, you know, but I do think that the public would like to know as well. And especially around like, what are some of the questions that they're going to be asking and what have you, because there's a lot to be done. Thank you. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_13]: We can make sure that's on our website too. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_10]: Member Ruseau?
[SPEAKER_22]: Thank you. And in that vein, the questions they're going to be asking are probably multiple thousands of questions. We will have to dig through many years of literal paper risk of payments for how much we paid electricity and each building and it will have to be per building. I mean, the amount of work that the administration is going to have to do, maybe an issue that will have to actually address separately like I mean, to dig through file cabinets and figure out where they are in City Hall now because we send them over to City Hall. You know, it's going to be a Herculean effort to answer some pretty basic questions that, through nobody's fault, are not, you know, we didn't process the paperwork in the many, many years with an intent to ever be asked about it. And so, and since we don't have computerized systems for all this stuff, it's going to be a major undertaking. And that's just the simple, because we have to answer like, what are our utility costs in each building? the different kinds of utilities. And I signed the warrants and, you know, I just see, you know, National Grid, five different pages and somebody's gonna have to look through each one to find out what's the address oh that's the McGlynn school and Oh, that's actually the high school. It's, I don't envy the people that have to start doing this work, but it definitely, we have a deadline and it has to start because it can't finish until it does. So thank you for putting this on and thank you to the administration for a big chunk of work ahead.
[SPEAKER_13]: Yes. Motion to approve. Motion to approve by member McLaughlin, member Graham, seconded by member McLaughlin. All those in favor. Aye. Aye. All those opposed. Motion passes. We have 2024-3 offered by Member McLaughlin. Just looking at the air conditioning. The temperature keeps going down. Motion for annual school committee agenda, whereas the Mass Association for School Committees recommends best practice for scheduling and agenda setting for school committee efficiency, whereas communication, planning, and transparency is in the best interest of the community whereas Medford Public Schools has an identified strategic plan and clear goals, whereas there has historically been an identified pre-schedule to the meetings primarily only known to the chair and superintendent. The result of the Medford School Committee working together through the chair and superintendent create an annual school committee agenda annually in August with agenda items identified and correlated to relevant goals to be published by September 5th of the same school year. We further resolved an ad hoc ad hoc items to the school committee agenda be added the Wednesday prior to the upcoming school committee meeting as required by public notice and email to school committee members. Submitted by Member McLaughlin, January 24th, 2024. Member McLaughlin.
[SPEAKER_09]: Thank you. I'm not sure what happened with the formatting, but I sent this in a Word doc and it's all over the place. So sorry about that for the reading. It wasn't like that in the Word doc. Essentially, this is from the MASC conference that I went to earlier in the year in November. And one of the presentations that our representative and another representative from the MSC was doing was around having these annual agendas prepared in advance, knowing that most school districts have a schedule of agenda. And we know that other things will be added to the agenda, but there's a cycle. And having now been on my third term, you know, started, you know, I can see the pattern and I can see the cycle but For community members that don't know what the cycle is, for school committee members who are newer that don't understand what the cycle is, I think it's advantageous to have that sort of planned out in advance and attached to our goals, specifically as we're talking about the superintendent goals, and so folks can see what we're actually doing in moving those items forward.
[SPEAKER_10]: Mayor? Thank you. Member Graham, then Member Ruseau.
[SPEAKER_06]: HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator): Um, we do have a committee of the whole on Wednesday from five to six. And the goal of that meeting is exactly that. For now, through the end of June, so that we can sit down as a group and say, okay, here are all the planned reports. and agree that, yes, we want to receive those reports. And if we have questions that we want to be answered in those reports, what are they? So that the superintendent can better anticipate what we're asking for. Or maybe we will see something and say, you know what? We don't need that report. Can you just put it in our packet? So the goal of Wednesday night's meeting is to do exactly that, but just for the time between now and June. And my suggestion is we try that out before we decide what we like or what we don't like about that planning process so that it's not just like it's not just a sort of a one-way flow of communication but maybe at the beginning of next year we do the same thing for like a for a different like period of time maybe we do for the whole year but I think it's important for us to weigh in not just not just have the superintendent tell us what she plans to do because if she plans to present a presentation And we all sit here and say, we actually don't feel like we need that presentation. The time of the team could be better spent doing something else. So I want us to really think about, what do we need to hear about at the podium versus, is there something that just needs to go in our packet? And how do we create space so that we have a reasonable number of things on the agenda at any given time? And there's space for the unexpected and all those other things. I think my suggestion would be that we table this until after Wednesday's meeting, and to give that some time to work and see how we like it before we decide what we're going to do going forward.
[SPEAKER_13]: May I? Is that a motion? It's just a suggestion. Member Ruseau and then Member McLaughlin.
[SPEAKER_22]: I just want to thank you. The second part of the motion is that the The Wednesday thing, I like that, but that's actually our policy. We already passed that, that Wednesday is the members are supposed to submit things by Wednesday. The part about it I like that we don't have now, though, is that when we submit it by Wednesday before a meeting, that it then just goes out to all the members right away. And I don't have any problem with that except for the fact that the the chair can decide that it's not going on the agenda. That's obviously part of the policy as well. Either it's not going on the agenda this coming Monday, or it's not going on, you know, because it's too much already on the agenda, or maybe they're an interest in a conversation about whether it should be on the agenda. So I definitely like this idea that we know sooner because sometimes I think that like something will happen and like I'll submit something and then you submit something and you submit something we're all submitting something and like if the first person that submitted it if it went to everybody then the rest of us would be like yeah that's probably what I was going to write anyways and be done with it. So I think the city council does this themselves, like when something gets added to the agenda, I believe it's sent out to the rest of the council. Mayor, do you remember back in the day if that's the case?
[SPEAKER_13]: What was the question?
[SPEAKER_22]: I'm sorry. When a councillor, I mean, I realize the rules have probably changed, but when a councillor submits something to the clerk to be put on the agenda, does it immediately just go to all the councillors so they know?
[SPEAKER_11]: No, we would we would find find out the same way you'd find out for the school committee agenda when you get it in your packet.
[SPEAKER_22]: Okay. So it certainly seems like something to talk about because like they think there's pros and cons like the scenario I just described where we all are going to end up submitting the same thing. And actually when you look at city council agendas, they will frequently be three or four people who have submitted the same thing.
[SPEAKER_13]: just open meeting log violations if you're talking about agenda items amongst the group.
[SPEAKER_22]: Yeah I mean I was thinking like blind CC or something but um so anyways that that's the part of that I kind of like think would be interesting but the other part the other stuff about like the planning on a calendar I do I do agree with member Graham that um we can play an account of right now, I think we would have a need for like a seven year long year, because there's just the list of things in our presentations that we have on our policy that we're supposed to get, which is far greater than the number of meetings we will ever have in a year, is sort of part of the problem. So we gotta go through that list, which I think we're doing on Wednesday and say, all right, we've got these things, we said we wanted to hear about them, but which ones do we mean we wanna have PowerPoint for and which ones that we just want to have like a report in our packet that we can read. And if any of us has interest, can we can write our own agenda items for another meeting? And we didn't do that when we created that list. And that was, I think, no, I mean, it was just, it was a first step. I don't think we thought about it necessarily. So that's just my thought.
[SPEAKER_13]: If I may from the chair, I can definitely support something like we're doing Wednesday be created in August so that we can discuss it in September for the entire year as far as presentations and reports that we feel might be something we're interested in in the year. But I think getting every all seven of us getting different resolutions may create a huge headache not necessarily for me but for our superintendent because if One person doesn't like a resolution and they're going to try to get it removed. I can't imagine what the superintendent would have to go through from Wednesday to Thursday deciding on what will go on the agenda. But that's just I just want to throw my two cents in on those two as I try to comprehend them. Member McLaughlin. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_09]: And I thank my colleagues for their thoughtfulness. I just to be really clear. There's a couple of things that I wanted out of this. And I think some of what's happening on Wednesday is some of that. So I think that's good. First, I just wanted to say that the August meeting was intended to be for the committee, not for the superintendent, to create an agenda for the year. It was to be a collective practice, as the MASC recommended, where we're collaborating together on what the year's schedule would be like. And really it's, you know, part of the reason of wanting to do this is both in getting organized and being transparent to the community about, you know, what will happen over the course of the year in terms of the regular meetings, and also obviously the ad hoc add-ons and the process. And to Member Ruseau's point about, you know, the items being emailed to the rest of the committee, that's really just when they go out to be posted. It's not when, you know, not before, it's finalized. When it's going to be posted and you're sending it to City Hall, send it to the committee members as well, in my opinion, because then it's helpful for us to sort of just know in advance and prepare even sooner than just our Friday packet or if we're away or we don't have a hard copy of the packet or whatever, we're getting an email of it being sent out to each other as well. And so I appreciate and I am willing to withdraw the motion for to see how things go on the Committee of the Whole on Wednesday. But with the clarity for my colleagues around what the purpose of this is, is to work collaboratively on this, not just for reports, but for other cycles of the agenda, because we also have various presentations, you know, group and organizations that come forward so that, and then also more specifically that they're tied to our goals, to the superintendent's goals specifically. So if we're talking about an item, you know, if we're talking about equity being our goal, then I would like to see on our agenda, you know, in a, in a, you know, in a table next to the, to whatever the agenda item is, how does that relate to our goals that we're talking about so that we're actually addressing? So it may be more than one goal. So it's safe. and equity goal, and it's, you know, a family and community engagement goal or whatever, that we're just putting sort of, even if it's acronyms with a code next to it or whatever, it's our E goal, it's our FCE goal or whatever, and we're really sort of tracking for the superintendent when she's getting ready to do her presentation at the end of the year on the work that's been done, but also to the community so that they can see what goals we're actually working on and to ourselves so we can be tracking, you know, what our actions really are. Thanks.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you. Member Reinfeld. I don't know if this is a point of information. I think our policy is that we don't meet in August unless there's an emergency. So I don't know if there are implications there in terms of a policy. So I think my question is, I would really like to know the schedule. It sounds like there are school updates in September. I know budget season is June. I'd love to see budget conversations happen earlier. And so are we looking at mapping out what a typical year looks like or what a specific year looks like here. Member McLaughlin. And then my other question was just how does this intersect with the meeting we're having in two days? So I would certainly favor it. looking at this after I've kind of seen what a report cycle, what that looks like. Right, because the reports and the presentations.
[SPEAKER_16]: Yeah, so
[SPEAKER_13]: Yep, and I think it has to do, too, with the fact that the administration is going to have a whole lot on their plate, especially with this first phase. So what can we put on our website and just read on our own? What do we want to see on a Monday night? What isn't on there that we want to see, and what do we want to take off? Point of information, Member McLaughlin, then Member Graham.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, just a clarification on what we will do on Wednesday night. It will certainly be about our list of reports, but it's also about what the superintendent plans her reports to look like between now and June. So that if she says, I'm going to come before you and talk about MCAS, and we're like, we don't want another presentation about MCAS, we can agree on that up front instead of, having somebody spend lots and lots of time preparing a report and then going from there. So it's, to me, what I'm trying to do and why I requested this committee of the whole is to map it all out so that we can see, like, what does the superintendent plan to bring to us and do we agree with it? How do we make sure we're getting the reports that we always said we wanted and maybe sometimes get it and sometimes don't? and what does getting that report look like? And we'll also talk about the budget cycle so that it starts much, much sooner than June and some plan dates from the CFO about how we might progress through that so that we can all plan accordingly and we're making sure that we're not sort of pushing lots and lots of stuff at the administration when we're asking them to do all of this other work for MSBA. I see Wednesday as an opportunity to look at what will these meetings look like from the top to the bottom for the rest of the year until June.
[SPEAKER_13]: And I think there's a motion to table, withdraw. Motion to withdraw.
[SPEAKER_12]: question. A while back, the committee chose the dates.
[SPEAKER_15]: So it was a week that I was in it. It was a week that I was in it. It was a week that I was in it. It was a week that I was in it. It was a week that I was in it. It was a week that I was in it. It was a week that I was in it. It was a week that I was in it. It was a week that I was in it. It was a week that I was in it. It was a week that I was in it. It was a week that I was in it. It was a week that I was in it. It was a week that I was in it. It was a week that I was in it. It was a week that I was in it. It was a week that I was in it. It was a week that I was in it.
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm sorry, I'm out of the loop on this. I don't know anything about this. I don't recall.
[SPEAKER_05]: The email was sent on January 19th from Lisa requesting, I got an email on January 19th requesting the Committee of the Whole for January 31st at 5 p.m. Specific to this? And then I got the calendar specific to this to discuss requested reports for the remainder of the year to be held on January 31st. And then I got the calendar invitation on January 22nd.
[SPEAKER_09]: Thank you. So reports for the remainder of the year was the school committee? Yes. Okay. So that I, it was a little bit different to me than schedule for the remainder of the year. So thank you.
[SPEAKER_13]: So motion to adjourn. Motion to withdraw. By member Laughlin, seconded by? Second. Member Graham, all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? 2024-3 has been withdrawn. Okay, I think I get one more comment.
[SPEAKER_07]: Reports. Motion to waive the reading.
[SPEAKER_13]: Motion to waive the reading by Member Graham. This is offered by Member Graham and Russo on substitute K. Motion to waive the report by Member Graham. Seconded. Member Reinfeld, all those in favor?
[SPEAKER_16]: Aye.
[SPEAKER_13]: All those opposed? So we'll, does anybody want to give a brief synopsis of the two present that are proposing?
[SPEAKER_06]: Member Graham. Yeah, so I think what I'm trying to What the question I'm trying to answer when I requested this report is sort of to be able to size and understand our substitute shortage issue. So that's been the subject of a lot of discussion across the community. It always is. There's lots of reasons why we might have substitute shortage, not the least of which is everyone has a substitute shortage. It also is probably because of our pay. and a whole host of other things. But I think in order to really think about what do we do about it, instead of just say, yes, we have this problem and we're going to talk about it every year as a problem, is really to understand what really is the problem? What is the need? So how do we establish what does our district need from a substitute coverage perspective? And what do we have? so that we can compare what do we need versus what do we have. And then start to look at how are other districts around us compensating substitutes, et cetera, so that we can start to chart a better course forward when it comes to substitute coverage. So I tried to be really specific in terms of the questions I wanted to answer through this report and the kind of data that I think we need really to have a full picture of the the actual problem or the issue as it were. So that's what that's why it is so long. It's just was my attempt to say if we're going to do a report let's be comprehensive and let's have all the let's get bring all of the factors into one place so that we can have a cohesive discussion.
[SPEAKER_13]: Thank you Member Graham. Is there a motion for approval?
[SPEAKER_05]: Can we can I I'm not sure if this is an amendment to it but I have some things that I think would also like to see in this? Member Reinfeld, yes. Yeah, so I would like to see an assessment of how many or how much time full-time and part-time staff are spending covering when we don't have subs. You know, we just heard about an assistant principal who's coming in to do things. I've heard of co-teachers being pulled into another classroom. So I would really like to understand what services are not being provided or what work isn't getting done when we are cobbling together a substitute situation. And the goal of, and I don't know if that's one of the key questions in the beginning, but the goal on that is to, I really appreciate the specificity of what is the need, what is the cost, what's it going to cost us? This to me is, what's it going to cost us if we don't fix the problem? So I'd like to see that. And then I don't have a great sense of what our history as a district is in terms of long-term subs and building subs. And I think that has fallen in and out of existence as people have and have not become available over the years. I know I had a student whose teacher, we had two maternity leaves in the same year and one of them had a long-term sub and the other had a cobbled together situation. And then our building, an elementary school had a building sub and then they didn't and so understanding what that looked like when those things were in place and when they haven't been, or even just what dates.
[SPEAKER_06]: Those amendments are fine. We wanna add those two things. So coverages and long-term subs. Member Ruseau?
[SPEAKER_22]: Maybe we could get a little more precise on the language. I have to write it down.
[SPEAKER_13]: Say, do you need me to write that up or do you?
[SPEAKER_22]: I have to write it since it has to be read so we can vote it.
[SPEAKER_13]: One at a time. Member Ruseau has the floor.
[SPEAKER_22]: So I just need to, I followed everything that was said, but there was a lot of... I don't have exact phrasing and I knew you were going to pin me on this, but I don't have it. I just need the data elements. And anybody can throw them out there. I'm too tired to make it up.
[SPEAKER_13]: Okay, so motion on the floor by Member Graham as amended by Member Reinfeld and seconded by... Second. Member McLaughlin, roll call vote please.
[SPEAKER_22]: Member Branley. Yes. Member Graham.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_22]: Member McLaughlin.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_22]: Member Olapade. Yes. Member Reinfeld.
[SPEAKER_13]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_22]: Members say yes, Mayor Longo.
[SPEAKER_13]: Yes, 70 affirmative, zero negative. Motion passes as amended. That will be due on or around April 8th, 2024. Condolences. We have the members of the Medford School Committee express their sincerest condolences to the family of James Jack McDevitt, who taught business education, government, and law over the course of his 37 years of teaching at Medford High School. In 1986, Mr. McDevitt was instrumental in working with the Medford Cooperative Bank to establish a branch of the bank at the high school. The members of the Medford School Committee express their sincere condolences to the family of Mary Ellen Parks, sister of Larry Parks, custodian at Medford High School. Members of the Medford School Committee express their sincerest condolences to the family of Yvonne J. Richard, father-in-law of Maureen Richard, administrative assistant at the McGlynn School and grandfather of Megan and David Richard, physical education teachers at the Medford Public Schools. Members of the Medford School Committee express their sincerest condolences to the family of George Crook, father of Chef Matthew Crook of the Bistro, and loving husband of 54 years to Elaine Crook. The members of the Medford School Committee express their sincerest condolences to the family of Elizabeth Betsy Schroer, a colleague and librarian with Medford Public Schools, wife of Gary Klein, and mother of Rachel, Lydia, and Josh Klein, all Medford Public School graduates or students. If we all may rise for a moment of silence. Our next regular meeting is next Monday, February 5th, 2024, here in the Alden Memorial Chambers, as well as by Zoom. Motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn by Member McLaughlin, seconded by Member Graham. All