AI-generated transcript of Medford Charter Study Commmittee - Subcommittee 01-22-24

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So I'm going to call this meeting of the Subcommittee on School Committee Considerations of the Medford Charter Study Committee to order. In attendance right now is Ron Giovino and Eunice Brown and myself, Paulette Van der Kloot, and we're waiting for Aubrey to get in. So the first thing on our agenda tonight is to take a look at the Medford comparable document. This was supplied, Milva gave this to me, and I assume that the Collins Center maybe had supplied this. Ron or Eunice, do you know?

[Eunice Browne]: I have no idea where it came from. I think it probably was Collins. Actually, I think we got it a long time ago if I remember correctly. So that's, you know, real early on.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Right, so when I had spoken to Milv at one point earlier, I expressed some concern about how do we proceed with all of this. And she suggested that we look at the comparable. And so I did. And I'd like to say that there was something incredibly clear that came out. Are you able, Ron, to project that document for us?

[Adam Hurtubise]: Let's see. Can you see it?

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes. And I don't know if you guys had a chance to look it over. I started out by looking at it in terms of population. And Medford has a population of roughly, it said, 58,300 for whatever year this was done in. which I didn't see on it what year it was done in, but I'm assuming it was maybe in the last two years or so. But for comparison's sake, you know, I looked at Peabody with a population of 54, 500. It has seven school committee members in there and voted at large. Waltham has a population of 65,000. We often used to think of Waltham as one of the urban rim communities, and when we were talking about budget concerns for the school committee, Waltham was one of those districts we often were comparing ourselves to in terms of population and populations and issues in our schools. So I looked at that one in particular.

[Eunice Browne]: Can I interrupt you for one second? I just heard from Phyllis. She's waiting to be let in.

[Unidentified]: Okay.

[Eunice Browne]: Did we get Aubrey?

[Adam Hurtubise]: Stop sharing right now so I can get.

[Eunice Browne]: Oh, we got Aubrey. Oh, good.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes. Can you hear us? Hi, Aubrey.

[Eunice Browne]: Good evening. We're glad you're here. Oh, and now we got Phyllis. Gang's all here.

[Maria D'Orsi]: Sorry, I messed up the time and forgot it was even today. I thought it was the whole thing.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes, I apologize. The odd time of 7.15 was because Monday is usually my day that I take my little grandson off for swimming, and I don't get back in time for a 7 o'clock meeting. Of course, as it turned out, unfortunately, I was unable to take him for swimming because some illness has impacted their family. So anyway, but we're here and so thanks everybody for being here. I'll now include that now subcommittee members Aubrey Webb and Phyllis Morrison are in attendance with us this evening. So the first order of business was taking a look at this sheet of Medford comparables, which Milva had given to me. And as you may recall, I came onto this committee later. So I'm not 100% sure where this came from. I assumed it was something that the Collins Center might have provided for the Charter Review Committee. I was curious whether any of you knew for certain. No. Okay. It did give us a look. It's not conclusive by any means. There's only 59 communities on it. It didn't have like some of our neighboring communities like Stoneham, which I would have liked to have looked at, or I didn't see Saugus, which I would have liked to have looked at. But for what it gives us, I was trying to sort of see what pattern there was. And I hope some of you might have some observations. I was just sharing that I started out from population. So I looked at towns that had populations close to us was my initial foray into this. You know, I can't, I can't say that there's something so clear that it. I think what's clear is there's a lot of communities who have two year school committee terms. And many school committee members are voted in at large, even if the city council membership in that community was voted in by ward or district. But there are exceptions. Does anybody have any particular? Were you able to take a look at it? And did you have anything that really stood out to you?

[Eunice Browne]: Yeah.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Eunice?

[Eunice Browne]: A couple of things. I think the reason that Stoneman, Saugus, and some of the others aren't on, if you'll notice that it indicates CEO is the manager or the mayor. And I think some of those communities may have representative town meetings. Right.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: OK. Like Arlington certainly would.

[Eunice Browne]: Yeah. And so forth. So I think that's why some of these are missing. I think this did come from the Collins folks. I do remember that too, Eunice. I do. you know, like a long time ago. I played around with it a little bit today, and I sort of zeroed in on populations that were, if we're at 58, and we don't know quite when this was done, and I can never, I can't find, I don't know that we're at 58,000 in Medford. I think we're at a bit higher in population, but I can't seem to find an accurate accounting.

[Phyllis Morrison]: Well, in 2020, it says, Eunice, we had 58,300. Oh, it does say 2020. Okay. Yeah. I sort of zeroed in on from Woburn at 40,000.

[Eunice Browne]: all the way up to, I think it was Fall River, which was sort of 89 or 90,000 or something like that. And then took a look at what, you know, what both the city council and the school committee did. And it seems to me, the takeaways that I took is that In most cases, in just about every case, the mayor is a member. Of the school committee. But it's sort of, um. somewhat of a split as to whether or not the mayor is the chair. I think we could go either way. It's pretty much mostly all at large representation. I tried to find if there was anyone that had, we have eight wards. How many of them were, eight wards and most places seem to have fewer wards than we do. Um, one thing that occurred to me, I know we're sort of dealing in the here and now, but we're a growing community and we have an awful lot of residential development in the pipeline. Um, either concept or maybe a bit beyond that. I actually sent an e-mail to the Office of Planning today to ask them how many residential developments are in the pipeline and what the occupancy is, because I see us increasing our amount of wards pretty quickly. Um, you know, going as it is, they wanted to do that last election and city council. I think, um, the prior edition voted it down. Um, so I see us adding words pretty quickly. Um, you know, which will make a difference in a lot of ways. Um, but I think we should be focusing on. anybody, comparing ourselves to anybody that's in the probably mid 50s in population, but I think we should be a bit forward thinking and looking at those communities that are, you know, 60 and 70,000 people as well, because I think we're going to get there fairly quickly.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: But they may be growing too, Eunice.

[Eunice Browne]: Well, they may be, but that's their here and now. We've got a ginormous 40D apartment complex that's going up on Mystic Valley Parkway in the not too distant future. We've got another one going up near Cappy's, another one going up in the Fellsway, another bunch of stuff going up in Wellington. And what does that mean for the schools? Does that mean a redistricting for the schools? Does that mean building another elementary? Or creating one out of where, somewhere?

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Well, part of it would be, are those living spaces directed at families too? And I don't know, I have no idea. So I'm not, you raised awfully good points, but I have to say in my mind, I don't know how to predict for all of those things.

[Eunice Browne]: Well, I think some of the development, apartment development and condo development that's gone up in the past, a lot of people had said, oh, it won't attract families. And I've heard anecdotally that the school bus is stopping at these places. So they are indeed attracting families. either as apartments for people who can't afford or don't choose to buy, or condos for people who chose to go that route as well when it's a two or three bedroom. You can put a family in there. Right.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Right. But right now we have before us, we have what exists. And overall, I see a lot of school committees that have seven members. I think I saw more, one of the things, one of the takeaways, I see a lot where the mayor is a member, but not necessarily chair. Right. Are people with an agreement with that?

[Eunice Browne]: Yes.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah.

[Eunice Browne]: Most definitely. I think that some of the feedback that we've gotten from our community has indicated that that's what they prefer, that they may not be chair.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah. I did see a couple that had three-year terms and I didn't have the time to go to their individual town. I'm wondering if they all hold elections in the spring. because that would take away the issue of whether it's a presidential election year or not. And I don't know, just sort of out of curiosity, does anybody think that there would be the will in Medford to change our November elections to springtime elections the way many, many communities have it?

[Phyllis Morrison]: I really have no, I don't even have any idea what people would be thinking about that.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I would say no, that honestly, that people are used to the, but there are communities who have a three year cycle. So that's, it might be worthwhile. When I've talked to people, and I think we're gonna talk about this a little bit more about the term length, so many people have said three years would be perfect. So the question is, is there really any way to look at three years as a realistic option for Medford?

[Eunice Browne]: Why is that tied to a springtime election though? Couldn't it be a three year and a fall election?

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So the thing with the elections is if you did a three-year cycle, somebody would end up having presidential elections. So right now, we get elected on off years. When you have a presidential election, you have the potential for a much bigger turnout than you do for the local election. Right next shift to the other two right if someone's going to vote for the president. They may have no clue whatsoever about local politics. So your vote count may be higher, but whether your constituents are as informed as they are when they're zeroing in on the local election, I just don't know. And it is for that reason that I, in the past, have been said, no, no, you don't want the inequity between some elections being on presidential and some not. Now, we might discard that completely as a concern, but I have heard that over the years. I mean, that's something I've heard for a long time.

[Eunice Browne]: That makes a lot of sense. And also, because we have a university within our confines, it would be interesting to find out if Ward 4 particularly comes out more powerfully in election years when you've got the students who are all old enough to vote and who may be voting in the presidential election because they pay attention to national politics, but they're students. They have no idea what's going on in Medford.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Think of the year that Obama was on the ticket and there were just lines of people to vote, many who had never voted before. Now, as someone of local politics, I'd love to have that many people voting if they're informed about the local elections. And that's the rub. Anyway, what other takeaways do people see from this list of that was before us tonight? Anything else in particular?

[Ron Giovino]: So I have a couple of comments.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Sure, Ron.

[Ron Giovino]: I think first off, you know, elections and when we have elections are not necessarily in purview. Same with same with boards and how many boards we have. I think that the reminder is I think there's a easy mechanism through the Secretary of State's office to apply for, and it doesn't necessarily involve the charter. So that number can change for sure. What I'm looking at in these numbers is I see a lot of two-year term, which I'm in favor of. I also see a lot of all at large versus wards for the school committee, for many of the reasons we've talked about in the past. The other thing to remember, too, is if we go to award system, we increase the size of the school committee, which some of the interviews say that's not a good thing. Some of them say it is a good thing. So that's another piece of this as well. As far as, I'm all for two-year terms, aligning them all together, not staggered, not three. and whatever. So my takeaway from this is basically, you know, I read the superintendent's notes. I've read with a lot of the folks, you know, so I'm in favor of at-large school committee, two-year term. So, those are the things that, that's how I look at it. In terms of those who want to go to a four-year, you know, we can have that debate, but I think we should break it down to then we talk about mayor, chairperson or not chairperson, and then talk about the terms because the terms are also something we're looking at with the length of term and also how long you can have that position. So that's all I got to say for now.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So looking at that, so if the first level of topic is at-large versus ward, From this chart, we would say it looks like a predominance for school committees at large, even if city council is by ward. It's difficult for us to, because our schools are not placed within wards easily, it's not a clear-cut division. So doing something else, Is challenged do other people agree with Ron that they're comfortable with the sticking with the at large.

[Eunice Browne]: I would. I would lean in that direction. I think you brought up a point that I was thinking about as well. I wonder how many of these other communities that have at large have a situation where we don't have the neighborhood schools anymore, and we have four different areas. From my analysis that we'll talk about a little bit later, it's pretty clear that You know, Brooks and Roberts get a whole lot of love. Mr. Tuck and McGlynn, not so much. So, you know, if we continue going the large route. Also in reading over. The questionnaires that you sent out to current and former school committee members, Sharon Hayes brought up an interesting point where if the city council is going to ward representation and the school committee. Stays at large. The notion of running for office is very different for both of them for both of those entities running as we've talked about, you know, a ton running in a ward. you're focusing on just one little area, so your financial outlay is different, your time outlay is different, and so forth, versus going over to school committee and everybody's running at large, and therefore then they're canvassing the entire city with all that that entails. So it's a bit of an inequity in that way.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Sure, and we are going to get to those responses because, you know, and that's which comes first of the chicken and the egg. Should I have done those first? I don't know. Phyllis, what did you want to add?

[Phyllis Morrison]: Yeah, I've given this a lot of thought because I did not know until just recently, of course, I should have known, but I never thought about it, that not all of the wards have schools in them. And I've given this considerable thought as an educator. I know that people try not to be biased or all of that, but I think that if I look at the big picture and I wanna be equitable with all of the schools and the students in the city, I would lean more toward at large as the composition of the school committee. I just think it would make much more sense for me as someone who, is in the schools and works in the schools. I think that if there's a school in my ward, and I'm going to run for that, I'm going to be more attentive to that than the other schools in the area. If each of the wards had a school, that would be different for me. But only half our wards have schools, so I think it would be better for the The school can be as large. And I definitely, I agree with Ron. I do not believe, if that's what you said, I think I would have heard what you said, Ron. I do not believe that the mayor should be the chairperson of that committee. 100% no. The mayor is not an educator. I agree that she should be at the meetings. He or she should be at the meetings and should always know what's going on in the schools. But I don't think the mayor should ever be the chair of the school committee, ever.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: But Phyllis, just for clarification, none of the other members, the chair of the school committee would always be from one of the members.

[Phyllis Morrison]: I understand that.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: They're not necessarily educators either.

[Phyllis Morrison]: I understand that. Your superintendent is there. I know that, Paula, from you, from the last meeting we had and we talked about this. But I still don't think that the mayor should be. And I am going to say this. I understand the people on the school committee are not. They have a different vested interest in the school, a much more intentional, you know, not that the mayor wouldn't have that, but I just don't think it should ever be the mayor.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Right.

[Phyllis Morrison]: I'll just leave it at that.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I just need to interrupt. Aubrey, I forgot to ask you at the beginning of the meeting if you would take some notes. So I hope you are.

[Maria D'Orsi]: I could start I was doing on sheet to some counts in case we were interested. Okay, I'm good with at large.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, um, So one of the things that, as I thought about it, and is when we get to the point of the small feedback, what we got, but every person said, I was interested in education. No, I wouldn't run for city council. I was interested in it. And I know, you know, I was passionate about education and the people who I served with. It wasn't like, oh, which one should I run for? It was they were running for school committee because they were concerned about kids in education. And one of the things that I would be concerned about if we went to wards is you'd be trying to drum up people to run who really weren't bringing that drive and passion with them. Now, one of the things I've thought about is it would be easier on a person if they were running at large, but they only had to run every four years. That would make the toll, less on our candidates. And I was great with that until Erica, the other night when we had the feedback session, and Erica Reinfeld, one of our newly elected school committee members said, I don't know if I would have run if I had to commit to four years. She says, I think four years, when I think about it, four years sounds great. But on the other hand, to take that step from, I'm interested in being on the school committee to, I'm going to give up the next four years of my life, just seemed. And so I was really good about, I was at, OK, at large, mayor on the committee, not the chair, and then When I heard that, you know, four years, and I went, oh my gosh, so now I'm strung, you know, having heard that feedback, I'm kind of back to square one on that issue myself. But it's good to hear where you guys are.

[Eunice Browne]: I think somebody else mentioned that in their interview, too.

[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, I think the superintendent mentioned that. I think that they chose to not run. I think that that my guess is that is the way at least that's my knowledge base. But I think it's mostly folks who decided it's too much. It's not enough. So it's going on a different path. Not necessarily. I don't remember a lot of school committee incumbents losing in my life.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I don't want to name them, but I can tell you that there were school committees, some of our very finest school committee members.

[Ron Giovino]: Yes, I know. But what I'm saying is, to me, again, I think we should really split these up so we're talking about one issue at a time, but the two four is a longer commitment. It's a big commitment.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: But, Ron, the place that it doesn't address, and I hate to be devil's advocate, but it doesn't address the concern that was articulated so clearly by the superintendent that how difficult it was for her to have any long-term planning.

[Ron Giovino]: I get that a hundred percent. The issue is that the citizens need, this is my opinion, it's going to go all the way through the city council as well. If you put in, if you elect somebody that is not I'm not convinced, my personal opinion, I'm not convinced on the school committee side that four years is necessarily the right thing to be doing. I think it's something that, and I get it, I get the campaign stuff. Believe me, I've done a thousand interviews. But I think that the issue to me is for that very reason that the superintendent cited, but the mayor has to hire staff. She has to set a lot more policy. It's just a lot of logistics that are involved in there that the school committee doesn't necessarily have. So I'm not in favor of giving a four-year term.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, I'm gonna call on Lisa. Lisa Kingsley, thank you for joining us.

[Lisa Kingsley]: Hi, and I apologize. I was about 10 minutes late. So if I I'm just asking a point of clarification. I'm looking at the agenda and community participation is at the end of 9 points and there are. We're still it looks like on point 1, although I see that we're going over, you know, it's kind of dancing on some of the others. Am I reading that correctly, that as a community member not on the committee, my chance to weigh in on any of this conversation would be at the end, Paulette? I want to make sure.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Lisa, if you had something that addressed this kind of issue, I'd certainly invite you to join in.

[Lisa Kingsley]: Thank you. I appreciate that. And for those that I haven't met, my name is Lisa Kingsley. I'm a former principal of Medford. I was a principal of Curtis Tufts High School. I've been a school administrator for a decade and I'm currently getting my doctorate in educational leadership at at Harvard's program that's had a few people collaborating with Medford over the years. I, just in terms of the word representation conversation, there were two statements that were made by, it doesn't matter who, but the idea that you have to have a school in your district to equitably represent your district. I think that's, I'm not sure if that argument holds. Water given that anyone running for school committee is going to represent the families in their district, you know, that's what you're running is for your constituents, not necessarily for the actual building. And I think that we don't want to lose sight of the fact that Medford is. not necessarily equally diverse. And so if we don't move forward with ward representation, then we continue to have, you know, I think Eunice might have said, Roberts and Brooks get a lot of love. And as a Brooks parent, you know, I'm very aware of that. I'm also chair of the board of the Medford Family Network right now. We have that conversation quite a bit about the voices that we hear and the voices that we don't hear. I just don't want the idea that school committee members would only support a school and not the families in their district to lose sight of some of the issues around equity. The only other thing I wanted to say about the four-year term versus two-year, all the arguments about two years make a lot of sense. But same thing for the mayor needing four years to really hire people, set terms. The pace of change in public education is really, really slow, and that is just how it works. You think of negotiating contracts, making any meaningful change, two years is really quite small. So I'm not necessarily advocating for one or the other, but the same argument that was made about the mayor needing time to move forward with initiatives, that really is universally pretty true in public education as well. And thank you, Paula, for the opportunity to weigh in.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thanks for weighing in, Lisa. I think, Phyllis, you were next.

[Phyllis Morrison]: Yeah, you know, when I was looking over the terms, very few, I can't even, because I can't scroll up and down on this document while I'm on the call, Paulette and everyone, there are a couple I saw that have three-year terms for the school committee. And I know that at our meeting the other night, that was something we talked about too, and that might be something worthwhile. There aren't many, there's only like, there was only a handful. And then they were staggered. What I was interested in, and I was going to ask if you knew more about this, Paula, is some of them say two to four year terms.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: When I saw that, that was the first time. So we can follow up on that and find out from that community how that works.

[Phyllis Morrison]: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I kind of agree that two years is a very short window. Maybe four is too long, and maybe the sweet number is three. But I agree with what the superintendent said. As a school administrator myself, you barely get traction in two years. Barely get traction. And then you get the traction, it's gone. And so you have to start the process again with new people and this and that. So I'm thinking, you know, maybe the idea would be three. Three, if we can find a way to make it work. If that's the thing, we'd have to find a way to work. And I would like to investigate this two to four. I'm wondering if they, I'm trying to figure out how they might do this. This might be a four year. I just can't figure that out. So that's something I want to investigate.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: My plan was, I was going to ask you guys if you're available for a meeting within two weeks. So it wasn't such a long, I know the last time was a long gap. And so that would give me enough time to be able to look into that question about three year, when they do it, and the two and four year community. Yeah, but we'll get to that at the end, but that's that was my, my thought.

[Phyllis Morrison]: We take down my hand.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Aubrey and Eunice, I just want to, I want you to. Ron and Phyllis kind of gave us a summation. Do you have where you're at?

[Eunice Browne]: I think I would, I like the 3 year sweet spot too. I think it would give the superintendent a bit of what. He, or she, she, or he would be looking for with a little bit more longevity and consistency, but it would also give the residents a chance to. redirect if we felt that things were not going the way we would like them to go, and we can do that at the ballot box. I go along with the mayor being on the school committee, absolutely not the chair, though.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. Aubrey, did you have any thoughts you wanted to add?

[Maria D'Orsi]: I'm open to the idea of changing the term, but right now I think I'm leaning towards two. I understand reducing pressure, financial pressure on running a campaign and increasing the amount that you can get done in four years. That makes sense to me. But I'm also hearing the feedback about not wanting to sign up in the first place. And that makes me nervous. Decreased interest at the outset. And I'm looking at the numbers here and almost two thirds of the communities, at least in this spreadsheet have two year terms and I'm wondering logistically or or just why why that is maybe we're missing something there with that big number.

[Unidentified]: yeah.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, I think overall, if I hear a preference that seems to be shared amongst you guys is that not having the mayor, having the mayor on the school committee, but not necessarily the chair of the school committee. I think I heard that that was pretty uniform. I think we're a little bit, I think many people would like three, but there's a practical, you know, I just don't know how it's done. And then, you know, two and four, there's arguments either way. You know, ultimately, I wondered when we go take our findings to the larger committee, if it's what we have to do is list pros and cons, have a pro and con. about each, because I think, you know, we're not, it's not like there's a shining path that just automatically, you know, everybody agrees to. And I don't necessarily know that we should push ourselves to that as much as it would be easier. All right, so let's move on, I think. Does anybody else want to share anything else from taking a look at this data? Okay, so the next thing was feedback from the interview with Superintendent Marisa Edward-Vincent, and I'm just going to sum that up very easily because it was so clear. Her message to us was how difficult it was for any long-term planning when you're continuously worrying about the cycle. And it's not just that you're getting new school committee members and you're training them, it's that the attention of the school committee, and I know that this is true, that when, it's human nature. So there you are, and you get elected, and boy, that first year, January to January, that's great, okay? And then all of a sudden it starts. Who's running? Who's not running? How nervous are they? When are they going to have their campaign kick off? It just becomes a factor. And so the stark reality of it is, is that that two year cycle. you know, is disruptive in terms of work. And, you know, one of the things, and I haven't filled out these questions myself because I don't feel like there's only so much, but, you know, when we talk about term limits, one of the things is that there were many times when I wanted to leave. It was time for me to go. I had a family. I wanted to watch Dancing with the Stars on Monday night, you know? I felt such an obligation because we were in the middle of, we had a negotiation for contract negotiations or whatever. I mean, I can think of any number of different things over the years that really impacted and I said, now's not the time. So, we didn't talk yet about term limits, but I think that's a factor too. On the other hand, certainly, we didn't, on the sheet of comparables, does anybody remember anything about the term limits? Most didn't have term limits, I think. But by the way, myself, I might say that I would be in favor of term limits so that it would be easier for someone to decide to step down having lived it. So anyway, we were gonna go on to feedback from the superintendent. So the superintendent said most clearly to us, If I could change one single thing, it would be to make the term of the school committee members longer, because it's so difficult to begin an initiative and not be able to fully implement it before your, frankly, before your boss is changed. And that to keep the, to be able to know where you were going for a little bit longer would be, so that was her feedback. And she felt strongly about that. Okay. Any questions about that? I think we talked about it the other night. Okay.

[Eunice Browne]: I just mentioned one thing about regards to what she might have been saying about the terms. I think about the fact that we have three new folks on there this year. How long does it take? This is probably a rhetorical question or a question that each of them would have to answer. To actually maybe it takes them almost a full year to get their feet wet and understand what's going on around them. And, you know, I think. Somebody asked at the recent school committee meeting, or maybe it was city council. I can't remember somebody used an acronym and. The 1 of the new folks didn't know what it was and actually, I think it was the mayor who said that she spent the 1st, several months trying to figure out some of that stuff. So I think there's a lot of. getting your feet wet and understanding what's going around and maybe casting your votes certainly and asking questions, but rather than being as vocal and opinionated as some of the, you know, longer serving representatives might be, you're sitting back there and listening and taking it in. I've seen some of the city councilors do that too, where they're relatively quiet for those first six months.

[Unidentified]: They're in a learning curve.

[Eunice Browne]: Yeah. That's the word that I'm trying to come up with. It's a huge learning curve. They get beyond the learning curve after six months or even a year, and now they're campaigning or deciding, do I really want to do this again? And then when they come to the conclusion that they do want to do it again, then they're in full campaign mode. So that would be one thing. And then my other point about the interview with Dr. Edouard-Vincent, has there been any consideration to reach out to former Superintendent Belson and see what he has, what his opinions are?

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: You know, I can. You know, I just, I didn't know. Yeah, I certainly could. Ron?

[Eunice Browne]: I'm guessing you have another point of view.

[Ron Giovino]: Just information. You may know the answer to this, Paulette. How long is the, when the contract is renewed for the superintendent, is it an annual contract?

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: No, it's not an annual contract. It's usually, I would say a three year, sometimes there's another year attached, whatever.

[Ron Giovino]: But she is, it doesn't guarantee she's in that position for three years, does it?

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: That's right, it does.

[Ron Giovino]: It guarantees that she does her job for three years?

[Phyllis Morrison]: The first contract, yeah.

[Ron Giovino]: So when the superintendent gets her contract renewed, She cannot be taken out of that position for three years.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: You would have to negotiate with the superintendent her departure.

[Maria D'Orsi]: Yep. Hey, Ron, you're pretty quiet just saying no.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, yeah, it's hard to hear you.

[Phyllis Morrison]: Yeah.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes, you would have to I mean, she, you know, she has protections, as would other people, right? So, yeah, you would have to negotiate. I mean, sometimes another year is added, or I mean, there's, there's other things which happen. Yep.

[Phyllis Morrison]: But that's pretty standard for all superintendents.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah. If you're going to move to a community, Ron, and take on this job, you want to make sure that you're going to be able to stay there without.

[Ron Giovino]: I 100% understand it. I just didn't know what the answer was. I understand why it does that. But I also, I also, you know, when someone's not doing the job. Whoever it is, from school committee to wherever, I don't think they should be having another two years to do their job. That's not not doing a good job.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Right? The superintendent is evaluated different contract negotiation.

[Ron Giovino]: I agree, but I'm just saying.

[Phyllis Morrison]: If they're not doing their job, they are definitely put on a plan. And if they don't follow through on that, then the three years is not, I mean, it doesn't have to be, I mean, there's stipulations to that three-year term. If the superintendent is not effectively completing the duties of the position, and he or she is given the opportunity to rectify that, and they don't, then there is cause to remove them.

[Ron Giovino]: I got it.

[Phyllis Morrison]: Thank you.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Sharon, I see that Sharon has joined us. I don't know, Sharon, if you want to say anything, but as you were having, you know, just had a term on the school committee, I was a little curious about what you thought. Obviously, you made a decision not to continue. Would you have run in the first place if it was a four-year term?

[Sharon Hays]: Hi, we're in the middle of dinner, so I'm just gonna leave my camera off. That's okay. But no, I'm happy to talk. I just don't, you don't need to see my kids even. I don't know if I would have run with a four year term, to be honest. My son is shaking his head at me. No, you wouldn't have run. I don't know. I don't know. I think I wrote when you sent me the questions. Three years. I have to agree with everything that I've heard people saying. Three years, if there's a way to make it happen, is really kind of that, like some people said, the sweet spot. I think two years feels really short, and I certainly understand from the superintendent's perspective, that can be very short if people don't get reelected or if they leave. And four years feels like a huge, I do think, I do worry, as someone else said, about limiting the candidate pool. Oh, I can't. You know, if you go to four years, but three years, I think, gives you just that. It also gives you that break between. Getting in, getting kind of getting really into the issues. And then having to campaign again, I mean, that that was a big part of what threw me in terms of going for reelection was like trying to trying to run a campaign again that that can be a big deal. So, I think I think the 3 year really would be ideal. I'm not sure legally how that works, but. And I don't know what anything else I can.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I'm happy to talk the other questions since we're sort of moving on to the. Item number four on the agenda, no, sorry, three, feedback from several school committee members regarding the questions which we sent out, and you were kind enough to reply, Sharon, one of the five. One of the things we talked about was ward representation, and in your reply, you addressed that, and you said, yes, you would like ward representation. So I just wanted, I wanted to ask you a little bit more about that. Why do you feel so strongly about that?

[Sharon Hays]: Yeah, I mean, I think, well, there's a few different reasons. So one, again, I think it was Lisa Kingsley who said earlier that, you know, the idea that families have a person that they know is advocating for, you know, that's what he's right, because school committee members advocate for everyone. But knowing that there's a specific person that if you have an issue who's in your, you know, in your ward, in your area that you can talk to. I think that's a really good thing to have in terms of hopefully getting people more engaged with school committee and really seeing school committee as people they can go and talk to. Because to be honest, I, you know, other than some real hot button issues, there wasn't a lot of, requests from people to talk to me, you know, and I feel like that might be a better way to get more engagement and more community involvement. I also think in terms of running, again, running a campaign, trying to run a campaign that covers the whole city versus, you know, a campaign that would cover a ward, that could make a big difference in terms of people's willingness to run. So those would probably be my two main reasons. But the bigger one to me is kind of that community involvement, that sense of, you know, there's somebody in your ward that can be your immediate contact person about kind of real specific issues to your area, as opposed to having all these at-large people that kind of are trying to oversee, you know, everything. Which, again, it all gets muddy because you're always overseeing everything, but.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, so one of the things with the responses which we got as I read through them is I'd read one and think, boy, that person makes some really good points. And then I'd read another, and that person makes some really good points. And this is the problem with this whole conversation is that, you know, It is hard to come down and say this, you know, Ward represent, Sharon just spoke very nicely about why we should do consider Ward representation for the school committee. And yet prior to that, we were, I think, leaning on at large because we looked at the numbers. So I don't always know how to wrap my head around that is the problem. Does anybody else know? Oh. No, good. Okay. So, right. I mean, that's why I'm thinking about saying, okay, let's, you know, at the next one, we can, I'll have ready a list of pros and cons from the conversation we had today. And that's what we'll take a look at and, and say, you know, there are clear areas where we're not quite sure which way to proceed. And it's frankly a relief when it seems like people actually do have an opinion. I mean, people have lots of opinions and believe in them strongly. If we look at these other feedback that we've got, was there anything that particularly, I know not all of you may have gotten a chance to look them over, but was there anything that actually stood out to you that you wanted to address this evening? No. I'll read from Erica Reinfeld. She says, I am of mixed opinion as to whether this model, which she's referring to, a mix of ward and at large, should be implemented for school committee. My first instinct is no, as I think it behooves the city to have a school committee that is unified in looking across the district rather than in one specific area. and exasperating already pronounced socioeconomic divides across geography. But I'm also conscious of the over-representation of certain neighborhoods, which we'll get to. She, along with everybody else, I mentioned this before, all strongly said, I would not have run for city council. I was interested in education. So the fact that we would have wards that If there was a difference between city councilors running on a ward based and school committee running at large, I think people who would want to run for school committee would run for school committee. We haven't discussed staggered cycles, which is another way that we could implement it. I think staggered cycles might be helpful in some ways, so you're not turning over the whole board at once. On the other hand, never in all my years on the school committee has that really been an issue. I mean, it wasn't this year we had three people go change and that was probably the highest that I remember in quite some time. So Sharon's, Erica's.

[Adam Hurtubise]: I'm not sure who's speaking.

[Eunice Browne]: I don't hear anyone speaking. Oh, I heard something too, but I don't think it was any one of us. I think it might be Phyllis's background.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, it sounded like someone in the background. No one in my house but me. Nicole Branley, also a new member of the school committee. She thought that going to four years had some advantages. She also did not think the mayor had to be the chair of the school committee. As for the size of the committee, she would say stay the same. Jenny Graham also responded and she also thought the size of the committee with six plus one was an optimum number to make the meetings work. And one of the concerns about enlarging the school committee was how efficient do the meetings become now? But if we were to move to at large, I mean, to districts, we would probably be thinking about eight plus one. So a nine member school committee. if we were to make that proposal. That's what I saw in the comparables list. Did anybody else want to bring out anything in particular from the opinions we gathered?

[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, I had some thoughts. Two of my initial thoughts, perhaps you can answer these fairly easily, is we've heard from, you know, A grouping of them, a couple, at least 2 of the new folks and a few of the, you know, returning and a couple of the departing. Has there I know this, these went out before Christmas. So I wonder if some things might have gotten lost in the Christmas crazy. But has there been any other effort to reach out to. some of the ones that we have not gotten a response from yet, the current sitting group, and a couple of the maybe ones that have gone, as well as some of the past members like Cunha de Benedetto, Skerry, Falco, Scarpelli, who may have some real good input, and also a conversation with the mayor About about the school committee specifically, and how her job relates to the school committee and my other question. Before I get into some of my comments is. Are we going to do a listening session with the school committee folks?

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So we had talked about doing a listening session with the school committee folks. I did not bring it further because the new people were starting and it's January. And I know that the new people just went to the charting the course, which is the Massachusetts Association of School Committee members runs this. It's a whole day event. It took place on Sunday. And our three new committee members, I'm very happy to say, all attended. There's a lot of demands when you're starting out. You know, I wanted to ask the committee when I got down to that last thing is, OK, what do you think about that? I know, you know, it's do we try when we see these responses? One of the things we see is where one person says this, one person says that when it's sometimes I. If I talk to 15 people, maybe it'll become clearer. I don't know. But it depends on the will of the committee, whether you want to try and do a listening for and whether it should be a Zoom meeting or whether it should be an in-person meeting. I think we might get better attendance if it's on Zoom. Yeah, sometimes people like to see each other. But certainly during the winter, it's easier. In terms of reaching out further, I did think about, I thought maybe our, you know, we asked a lot of complicated questions. And if we could zero in on very simple questions, what do you favor, two year, three year, four year? What do you, that that would be the next email that I could put out, just very simple, questions to go out rather than such. I mean, we got some lovely in-depth responses, but it was a lot to ask before Christmas. So I have thought about that, if that's the will of the committee, to send out another and perhaps a wider. We did all the committee members who were current and who were previous. who were running at that point, and these are the ones we got. So should we send out another one? Should we do some much more targeted questions? Would that be useful for you to hear?

[Eunice Browne]: I'd like to see the same questionnaire go out to some of the people that didn't respond to us and see if we get anything from them. Okay.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Well, I certainly can do that.

[Eunice Browne]: Maybe, you know, maybe it just got lost in the holiday rush.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. So I'll just send it out again and say, do you have any, any more? And I can certainly add a few previous members if you would, you would like. Okay.

[Ron Giovino]: Just a suggestion Paulette, I mean, I'm all in favor of the short question as well. If we're, if we're communicating with the school committee, there's no reason why we couldn't ask. Do they want the mayor to be chairperson? Do they think that it should be at large? I mean, those are simple. Yes. No, just so we have. If they just give us that, at least we have some documentation and. Personally. We've, you know, some school committee members and some city councils have responded to this process. Some haven't. I think everybody's had an opportunity and knows how to get in touch with this organization if they want. There's surveys, there's all kinds of communications they can give. You know, I'm ready to move. You know, I'm ready to move on with, you know, if they want to join us, we're here, we're listening. That's what we do, we listen. But, you know,

[Phyllis Morrison]: Well, the other thing I think we're on to is that if we send out the short questions, they may get answered.

[Ron Giovino]: Great. That's what I think.

[Phyllis Morrison]: I mean, I think that we may we may get a bigger response.

[Ron Giovino]: And you know what, if you get along, if some of those questionnaires that some of the members sent us cried out for a follow up question to say, so are you in favor or not? Definitely. So, just I'm in favor of the short question, at least added to the long question, but that's what I want to say.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. I'll work on it. As for interviewing the mayor, we certainly could interview the mayor. Who would like to go with me if I can set it up? Phyllis, when are you available?

[Phyllis Morrison]: I'm available at any time after 4 o'clock any day. And sometimes I have days off. Most of the time I'm in the classroom, though, again, because not being in administration, I don't like to miss my class. Yeah. But I do have some days that I could be earlier too.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: OK. Maybe we could talk and find a time, maybe if she can do it in the next week or so. Anybody else want to join us? No? OK.

[Maria D'Orsi]: I can be a second if Phyllis isn't able to.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: OK.

[Phyllis Morrison]: I will call her. The other thing, Paulette, is maybe on a Wednesday, because we could get there, you know, you know, I could be there 334 and that would be great.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: That that's a that's a definite Wednesday are particularly good for Phyllis. They are usually OK for me, but not next Wednesday, the 31st, so. OK.

[Phyllis Morrison]: All right, so we'll- And I'm open to other dates too, but that would be good because they're there later in the evening that day.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Oh, that's right. Right. She's there later in the evening. That's good. Okay. So Eunice, now I'm going to throw it over to you. What wards do current and past school committee members live in? Oh, yay.

[Eunice Browne]: Okay. Let me see if I can share my screen. Aubrey, did you get a chance to do any of the pie chats or anything?

[Maria D'Orsi]: No, I'm so sorry. I thought our meeting was tomorrow.

[Eunice Browne]: No worries. I've kind of got things, and I can let me see if I can share my screen. Let me see if I can figure out how to do this.

[Phyllis Morrison]: Did Paula give you co-hosting privileges? Oh, no, she didn't. Ron is doing the hosting.

[Eunice Browne]: OK. Thank you, Ron. And now I completely, I get too many things open here.

[Phyllis Morrison]: And we can't see you anymore.

[Eunice Browne]: I know you're too low on the screen. Because I've got too many things open and I can't figure out where you went.

[Unidentified]: Oh boy.

[Eunice Browne]: Okay, here we are share screen. So, maybe. Files, I think if I go to the Google drive. Oh, um. 1, maybe you can go to the Google drive and share the, um. School committee stuff. Can you find that in the school committee members 05 to 2023?

[Unidentified]: I think he's looking for it.

[Eunice Browne]: I think what I can tell you before, while he is looking for that, is that The Ward 5 has had, my data went from 2005 to 2023. So that's, what, 10 election cycles, I guess? Five, seven, nine, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 10 elections. During that period of time, Ward 5, which is the voting location of the Missituk School for Ward 5 Precincts 1 and 2, along with the neighborhood school being the Missituk School, has had zero candidates in that entire time. So Ward 5 has not been represented at all. Ward seven, which votes at either the McGlynn tower, the mystic Valley towers or the McGlynn school with their school being the McGlynn school in those 10 election cycles has had only one candidate who has even run for office and was not elected. So they've had virtually no, um, representation either. Um, Ward 1 has had four candidates who have run for office, with only two being elected. Ward 2, which votes 2-1 and 2-2 at the Roberts School, and their local school is the Roberts School, has had eight unique candidates who have run for office, with four of them getting elected. So Ward 2 has had a good deal of representation. Ward 3, which votes at either the American Legion or the Temple, and the schools are either the Roberts or the Brooks School, have had nine candidates who have run for office and have had five who have gotten themselves elected. Ward four, which is a walk-in court or Tufts and represents the Mississippi school area. has had five candidates who have run for office and three who've gotten elected. I mentioned the aforementioned Ward 5, which is zero. Ward 6, which votes at either the West Medford Fire Station or the Brooks, and the schools that that area, represents doesn't seem like quite the right word, but their area schools are either the Brooks or skirts over to the Mississaugas, has had eight candidates run through that time with three being winners. Ward 7, as I mentioned before, has had only one candidate running, none elected. and Ward 8, which votes at either the Senior Center or the South Medford Fire Station, and it touches on three different schools, the Mississippi, the Roberts, or the McGlynn, depending upon where people live, have had four candidates with three of them being winners. So it looks like wards, 2, 3, and 6 have had the most representation in the city. So that's the Roberts School voting area, the American Legion and the Temple voting area, and the West Medford Fire and the Brooks voting area.

[Maria D'Orsi]: If you click on sheet 3, Ron, I put together just a quick pie chart and bar chart.

[Eunice Browne]: Oh, thanks. Yeah, I do still scratch in my head.

[Maria D'Orsi]: And these are I only included those who had a guess for elected in these ones.

[Eunice Browne]: So, obviously, the Brooks and the Roberts have a whole lot of representation.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I guess the only thing, Eunice, is that when you just said the Brooks and the Roberts have had a whole lot of representation. So in the area of the Mississaugas, the geographical ward five, what did you say it was, five one?

[Eunice Browne]: Uh, let's see, they vote at the miss attack. Uh, 5, 1 and 5 to both vote at the miss attack. And the school that's in that local area is the miss attack. And they have had 0 candidates in 10 election cycles.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: From that particular set of streets, but remember. the school district is much larger than that.

[Eunice Browne]: Well, if you go back to Sheet 1, Ron, sorry to

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Because the school district also includes people like Aaron DiBenedetto and Sharon Guzik and other people whose children, Paul Rousseau, he's not in those few streets, but he's in the Mississippi district.

[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, correct. Both Aaron and Paul, and Sharon Guzik, all three are in Ward 4. They vote in Ward 4, either Precinct 1 or Precinct 2. Aaron and Paul would both be Precinct 2, which is the same as mine, and their children would also go to Missitech.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Right, so what I'm saying is, it's a little bit of a misnomer to say, well, they've had no representation. Yes, in the few geographical streets that make up that ward, that is correct. But in terms of them going to a school event and seeing school committee members whose children attend the Missituk, there certainly have been. That may not matter to you in terms of what lenses you're looking at this, but I just want to be very clear. I also want to mention that in terms of the. You know, once a student gets to middle school and high school, of course, they're all in, you know, our schools are not spread out. So then every committee member would be focused on those students. Lisa, I see you've got your hand up.

[Lisa Kingsley]: Thank you, Paulette. I have a very specific interest and then a more broad one, but I guess the more broad interest first, I hear what you're saying with the point you just clarified regarding like Aaron's, for instance, children going to the Missituk. And that's true, but that doesn't negate the fact that I know you said what lens you're looking at. It doesn't negate the fact that anyone that lives in Ward 5, which let's also name that that includes quite a bit of assisted housing, right, is not being represented. And it's less to me about the elementary school and more about the neighborhood, whether or not there's a voice. And I also want to point out that the Curtis Tufts is in Ward 5, there has not been anyone in the neighborhood that the Curtis Tufts is in ever running for school committee. And again, I will limit what I'm saying, but I believe that that shows, not that I don't believe in Paulette, I know that people have long cared about the Curtis, I'm not in any way, shape or form, implying that people haven't paid attention. And I do think that a very specific lens to the neighborhood would have benefited that school over the past decade. Somebody that was attuned to everything about that neighborhood, including the Curtis itself. So just don't want to forget that when we talk about school locations.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah. Okay, anybody else? Eunice, great job. Thank you for adding all of that. Did you want to add anything else?

[Eunice Browne]: You know, I think that sort of covers it. I think what sort of surprised me as I was going looking at this is that there are some wards, like for instance, Ward 6, which votes at the West Medford Fire or at the Brooks. Again, their area school is both the Brooks and the Missitech. Largely, the Brooks area, I think if you were to look at a map, A good portion of Ward 8 is in the West Medford-ish estates area. It appears to be a smaller section where their kids would go to the Missituk. There was another one that was like that too. where it was only a small piece of the map. A larger piece of the map went to sort of the more, as people seem to say, the more affluent school versus the school that's not. So that was a little bit eye-opening about where our schools are placed and where the representation seems to have come from, if that makes sense. But it's clear that people that are running and succeeding are coming from some of the same wards, particularly of late. Ward 1, which had four candidates, which is the Andrews voting location and the Firefighters Club, Uh, for candidates and, um. In all of those years, and Amory Cunha was 1 of those candidates who served multiple multiple terms. But obviously, as we've seen this time around, and I think it was pointed out in some of the responses that we got, is it four out of our seven sitting school committee members are coming from, I don't know if it's Ward 2 or Ward 3, but we've got four out of seven coming from the West Medford area. So, you know, it's certainly an interesting data point.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah. So when we looked at the comparables, Ron, you made a very strong case and said, you know, it's very clear preference for at large. And now we get to this. Does this change your decision at all?

[Ron Giovino]: To be honest, it doesn't, and the reason it doesn't is because some of the points that have been made in terms of, listen, I am all for representation of the entire community. The issue to me is that it's unique to the city council. This argument is a lot different than the school argument for the purpose of all the stuff at the high school is not necessarily City Council is geographic as well as needs of that community. I don't think you have that in the breakdown of the schools. And listen, I understand. I think part of this should be a parents' council. I think there should be a parents council that is involved in every school system. Every school, I mean, I think that that should be part of the charter. This all to me comes down to lack of representation in terms of participation of the community and not necessarily can be fixed by making sure there's 1 representative from each ward. The other side of that too is that means we go to 9 or 11 school committee members who, and we've heard from some of the school committee members now, that may be not as functional as the seven right now. So to answer your question, Paulette, it doesn't change my mind. I still think that's the same.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, Ron, just to be clear, schools do have parent councils. Schools have internal groups of parents in different ways and, you know, where parents are active members. I mean, from a parent council to whatever.

[Ron Giovino]: I didn't mean to say that. I meant to say that a parent's council that's fully representative of each neighborhood. I don't think we have that.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. Lisa?

[Lisa Kingsley]: Thank you. Um, I just would like to point out that if we rely on volunteer things like a parents council, then we are continuing to perpetuate the parents that have the time versus a school committee which is a paid position I know that's contentious right now how much they get paid, but we're saying that we're going to pay you know I. I live in three to work for the current school committee members live. One reason I've decided not to run for school committee is because my neighborhood is represented. One of the other things that I'd like to point out is right now the mayor is chair school committee members might be afraid that meetings won't be efficient with. six or more than six members plus one. I would argue that only looking at our current school committee's opinions is pretty limiting because they only know the data set that they know. So looking more broadly at how other school committee meetings are structured, if you watch school committee meetings in many of our surrounding towns in which the mayor is not the chair. As someone said earlier, I think, Ron, it was you, the mayor has so much going on. This is not ever going to be something she is able to tightly facilitate the way that we need someone to in order to make the meetings efficient. So I think it's a bit of a straw man argument to say, well, because right now things aren't efficient. Well, we're talking about changing multiple variables. And only relying on the experience of those that have lived it in Medford and Medford alone doesn't open us up to what could be potentially there. And I think that ward representation as an equity issue is really, really important. And that the different neighborhoods of Medford need to have somebody advocating strongly for their neighborhood, the needs of their families. and the neighborhood. And again, this is something we're talking about all the time at the Medford Family Network, and how do we support the different neighborhoods from kids zero to five before they enter the school districts.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you, Lisa. Okay, I think we need to move on. The next one is very short. Again, Eunice, thank you for your work, and Aubrey, thank you for the assistance in the pie chart. I appreciate it very much. I also had sent out an email, which I had previewed to you, to school committees across the state. and to the MASC mailing list? Well, the only one who responded to me was Glenn Kuchar, who's the head of the MASC. And one of the questions we had asked was, do you think that if you award representation, the elected person would favor the school in the particular ward. And his answer was, well, yeah, but just the way some school committee member who has a child in a particular school might favor. And I know that's something that all the school committee members I worked with really tried to, you know, we were really pretty equitable here. But that was his answer. So our response was not great. And he explained to me that what I used to know, which was a very vibrant listserv had fallen apart during COVID. And they had had certain members kind of overtake it and it's trying to be rebuilt. So unfortunately, our ability to get a lot of outside, I have to target very specific questions, I think. And I think we hit some of those that I will try for the communities who've got the three-year cycle and the community who has the two and four. So I'll try and target people in that and get some responses. So anyway, that wasn't too successful. I'm sorry to report.

[Ron Giovino]: Paula, can I just make 1 quick point? Sure. I mean, we've had some great input from the community tonight, and I just want to remind folks that on Thursday, we have our public meeting at city hall. These are the points that need to be made. So the committee can hear what you want is we're making our way through the final lap here to our presentation in the fall. Now's the time to start talking about these things. So I've been, it's been very interesting to hear and much appreciated to hear all the comments.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, I agree. All right, the next order of business is, I had been, early on, several of you had requested that we discuss community participation at school committee meetings. And I've done a little bit of research on this and- Well, can I just interject for one minute?

[Eunice Browne]: I'm sorry to interrupt you. I think it was one other, Agenda item prior to the community participation. Item, and we're bumping up on quarter and quarter and 9 when we said we'd end I'm wondering if we. Table those 2. To our next meeting, I'm particularly interested in the community participation discussion and would like to have a generous discussion about that as well as certainly the other listening sessions to, I think, deserve a good bit of time. So I'm wondering if. You know, it might be more prudent to put those to our next meeting in 2 weeks.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Um, so you make motion to put those on our next meeting. That's fine. I do. I'm going to just add one thing, though. I am not 100% sure that the discussion regarding community participation at school committee really is part of the charter. Um, and I've, I know I, I, I did some, some research to look at. Okay. And, um, maybe Eunice, you and I can discuss that, but whether it's really part of the charter, um, you know, I'm not sure we will, um, So I've got to leave that as the, we can discuss that question at the next committee meeting, if that's okay with everybody, okay? So we can share your opinion, but I have serious reservations, and I've done some other research too, and Eunice, I'll spend some time with you and talk about that, okay? So Eunice made a motion that items number six and seven be put off to the next meeting. All in favor? I'll second it. Oh, thank you very much, Phyllis. All in favor? Yeah. Aye. OK, great. Now, I am going forth and responsibilities. I've said throughout this that there were several things I would do, which was particularly in terms of reach out. The one thing I just haven't come to really clearly is whether we should try to do a listening session again. I feel like I'd rather send out emails and get responses from that as our next step. I'd like to look at the calendar. I said I'd like to have a meeting in two weeks. Today's the 22nd.

[Eunice Browne]: So I did put together a calendar. I don't know if people were able to see it. I think Aubrey, you bounced back to me and said you couldn't. I put it on it's on the Google should be via Google. And I don't understand why people are not seeing it.

[Ron Giovino]: I was unable to open it.

[Eunice Browne]: I don't know enough about that stuff.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So look, two weeks brings us to the week with Valentine's in the middle. I think we've already got a meeting on the 15th. We added a second one that week. The Tuesday following the 20th, it's a three-day weekend, so Monday is out, but the 20th, I won't have my grandchild, so I could do a Tuesday night. Is the 20th? One that people could do or the 21st Wednesday.

[Ron Giovino]: 21st is okay. The 20th is I'm not available.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay.

[Phyllis Morrison]: I may be away, but I could probably zoom in.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. Is the 13th much better? February, Tuesday, February 13th.

[Phyllis Morrison]: It is for me.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Fine for me. Ron, what about you? That's okay, but now that would mean that that week we have 13th and 15th. Eunice, do you see anything else on that? I'm just looking here.

[Eunice Browne]: I think it's okay for me. Personally, I don't know why this calendar doesn't seem to work for you guys. Let me see what's on the charter calendar. Going in January, February 13th, just city council meetings.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: How about the 21st, just so I know, that school vacation week, I think?

[Eunice Browne]: Um, yeah, I mean, just your regular city council stuff, which, you know, as I said, I'm, you know, I like to watch, but this is more important. So, um, for, for me personally, I can do the 13th, um, or the 20th.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: All right. So let's try for Tuesday, the 13th, um, um, as our next date. And if that doesn't work, the fallback is going to be the 21st. Okay, Wednesday, the 21st Wednesday, the 21st, but I'll try and set it up to the 13th. At what time 7.

[Eunice Browne]: Okay, and do we have. Any of us have action items.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Do any of you have action items? I don't think so. I think we've put it in my court right now. Right? I think everything that we said, basically the reach out, I'll probably put an email together again in the next day and I'll Do you guys need to read it first? Do you want to do that process again? I really enjoyed reading them ahead of time. Okay. So I will do that and I'll send it to you for your approval. The other action item is that Phyllis and I will set up, and the question is whether we'll be able to set up with a meeting. Well, maybe we will be able to. We'll talk to the mayor about whether February 7th is a potential for her.

[Phyllis Morrison]: Yeah.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. All right. Is there any other, uh, would anybody else like to make a comment or see you're on again? Any, any, anybody else like to add some feedback?

[Ron Giovino]: Do you want to open it up for public participation?

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes.

[Ron Giovino]: Raise the hand, I guess.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Uh, I don't see it. Nope.

[Ron Giovino]: There are no hands raised at this time.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, so seeing none, I would say that I think we're through our meeting at 8.48. Do you have a motion to adjourn? Great. Second? Second. All in favor? Aye.

[Unidentified]: Thanks, everybody.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And thanks for all your input. Bye-bye.