[Paulette Van der Kloot]: All right, everybody, we're here and we've got a lot to do this evening. But hopefully some of the things will become easier as we go on. The first thing is the approval of the minutes of our last meeting on March 5th, 2024. I sent them all to you. So do I hear a motion of approval?
[Eunice Browne]: Motion to approve. I was going to make an amendment, but I see that what I was going to amend, I'm just blind as a bat and didn't see.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And do I have a second?
[Ron Giovino]: Second.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. The minutes are approved. I will say that recording was incredibly helpful because I went back and really went through it. And it was very, very helpful to do that. So the next thing, item number two, is feedback from former school committee member Sharon Guzik. If we could bring that up.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Yeah, Ron, can you give me permission to share my screen, please? Oh, yeah.
[Ron Giovino]: I don't know if I know how to do that, Aubrey.
[Libby Brown]: There's three little buttons.
[Phyllis Morrison]: The three little buttons by the circle by her name, Ron.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Click on that and it says make co-host.
[Ron Giovino]: Make co-host. Yeah.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Once you do that, she can screen share.
[Ron Giovino]: Right. You got it.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, so this was a response to an email I had sent out, and this is from former school committee member Sharon Guzik. And the first question is, what is your ideal term for a school committee term? And she wrote two to three years. The two years follow state and federal elections for representatives. It allows for change of the composition of the board more quickly. However, an alternating longer term would be excellent. This would allow for a turnover of one third or one half of the school committee. I like this option a lot as there is more continuity if the seats do turn over. Also, in my case, I really would have liked to have been on the school committee a year or two longer. It takes a while for change to happen, so if one is advocating for a particular outcome, one may actually be able to accomplish it. Also, it takes a while for idealistic newbies to really understand the constraints one has to work with and how things operate. This way would allow for the learning to happen and then be more effective for the rest of the term. When she asked, would a four-year term have lessened your willingness to run initially, is it too daunting? She said, absolutely not. For awards or at large for the school committee, She says the idea of ward representation sounds good, but in practice may not work very well. One reason school committee and city council members seem to be clustered in certain areas of the city is because there were fewer people that stepped forward to run in other areas. I was the only school committee member with children at the Columbus at the time she was on the school committee. Very few people run from wards one, five, and seven, many reasons for that. These may have changed in some areas with the increased income and subsequent loss of socioeconomic diversity in our city. In the end, I think at-large is still the best option for the time being. Do you favor the mayor being the chair of the school committee? You may remember that I questioned this before I ran for school committee myself. When I was on the committee and saw how things operated, I realized that if the mayor has to participate in meetings, they know what is going on with the school's firsthand, or at least as well as the school committee members themselves. There is no excuse for them to plead ignorance. Also, I think it's easier for the public to know that they have been heard by the mayor rather than sending off an email that an aide screens. Do you favor term limits? In general, I do. The question is how many terms to limit to. I would say 10 to 12 years, five terms if we stick to the two-year terms or three terms if we move to four. There could be an option to run again after a term or two off the committee, maybe two two-year terms or one four-year term. At that point, most people would have moved on. Okay, that's the end of Sharon's feedback. Sharon was a fantastic school committee member, best researcher. She and Beth Fuller were outstanding researchers in getting information to the other school committee members in my little commercial. Okay, the next item would be the document I submitted for the discussion with former Mayor Mike McGlynn and former Mayor Stephanie Muccini-Burke. I'll start reading this as it's being located. I met with former Mayor Mike McGlynn and former Mayor Stephanie Burke separately, but was struck by the similarity in their thoughts, which coincidentally were not that far apart from what I heard when speaking to current Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn. While my questions centered on the school committee, both McGlynn and Burke commented on their openness to change the city council from at-large to ward-based voting. When we spoke specifically about the school committee, both Burke and McGlynn voiced concern about the potential size increase that ward-based voting would bring to the school committee if a member was elected from each ward. Both former mayors expressed hesitation about increasing the size of the school committee, wondering whether more members would increase the difficulty of getting to consensus and noting the increased cost of additional Councilors and school committee members. Both McGlynn and Burke wondered if a combination of ward and at-large members would be the best option for the school committee, which could be achieved by combining the eight wards into four for the purposes of voting for school committee and having two at-large candidates. As in our charter subcommittee meetings on this topic, we spent considerable time exploring the options in our discussion, and both former mayors could see pros and cons to different options, trying to figure out the balance between effectiveness, representation, and the potential cost factor. The biggest takeaway from my discussion was clearly around the role of the mayor. Like Mayor Kern, both heavily favored keeping the mayor as chair of the committee. I asked specifically about the workload. Like Kern, both former mayors reported that the superintendent with a brunt of the work on putting together the agendas and organizing all the agenda items for presentation. While they certainly had discussions with the superintendent on an ongoing basis, neither felt that preparing for the meeting was onerous. Both McGlynn and Burke told me that by being chair, it gave them the opportunity to be at a formal public meeting regularly. And certainly being chair, as opposed to just being a member, made sure they prioritized being at the meeting. Both acknowledged that being on the school committee took up time, but they both felt it was one of the most vital and important roles they played. They noted that if we were going to award based voting system, it would be the mayor who is elected by all and believe that the mayor should retain the role as chair of the committee. Both McGlynn and Burke expressed how much deeper they understood the myriad of issues relating to the running of the school system because of their time as chair of the school committee. As for being just a member of the school committee rather than the chair, they said that the mayor is elected as mayor, not as a school committee member. Being chair really gave them the opportunity to listen to all the school committee members, as it is customary to have the members speak before the mayor speaks on an issue. So submit that for your consideration. Any, any comments or feedback on those?
[Eunice Browne]: Um, one thing that struck me is, well, a few things, um, you know, in all of our discussions about the mayor being the chair of the school committee, um, and the surveys we've received and, you know, input we've received from the community seems to be a general consensus. Um, Well, maybe not a consensus, but a lot of people saying that the mayor should not be the chair of the school committee. But now we've spoken to. 3 mayors and they all really support the idea and want to be the chair. So that's kind of interesting.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yeah. And Paulette and everyone, it just struck me. I'm sure I was aware of it, but I don't know which of the mayors said it, but they said the mayor is elected by everybody. And that is really a critical piece of information that struck me. I know that, but the mayor is a person who is elected by everybody, and each of the school committee members were selected by their wards. So, you know, that's a broader audience for the mayor also to run.
[Ron Giovino]: My only comment to that is, you know, when the mayor goes to a Little League game, she's still the mayor. When she goes to a school committee, she's full participant. She's the mayor, or he or she's the mayor, I should not use the mayor is the mayor, whether the mayor is setting the agenda and moving. It's it appears that a lot of the interviews with current school committee people, there was a desire to not make the mayor chairperson. As long as the mayor is what I'm sorry,
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: You just heard from Sharon Guzik, who said she before she got on the school committee, she questioned that. But once she was on the school committee, she understood the value of having so.
[Ron Giovino]: I know Jenny Graham is a big proponent of the mayor not being the chairperson.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And I am a big proponent of the mayor being on the school committee. So I just, I think that there is a split as there are on many of these others.
[Ron Giovino]: But there's two different things. One is being part of the school committee and one is being the chairperson of the committee. Those are two different things. The mayor, You know, the mayor being part of the school committee makes sense to me because the mayor's job is to set policy for education, one of the major roles that she has. Plus, she's in charge of the budget. I'm just saying, to me, there seems to be an air of people have a different opinion as to who should run those meetings. The chairperson to me is the person who runs the meeting. Paulette, you run the subcommittee meetings. It doesn't mean you're more powerful than anybody here. If you were the mayor, you would still be the mayor. Those powers don't get lessened just because you're not the chairperson of that. And I just think there's two points of view there. That's all. I'm just trying to make that clear.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: There's definitely two points of view. I'm not denying that in the least. I think there's an optics, OK? And the other piece of it is that both mayors and all three mayors said, yeah, when you're the chair, it makes you show up. You know, that there is and that that is a piece that it becomes a priority. You know, I've talked to school committee members from other communities where the mayor is not the chair. And I mean, and I didn't just talk about that recently. I talked about that over years of going down to the conference that we have and said, how is it not having your mayor on? So I'm not just trying to say that from, from, oh, I'm responding to this moment in time, I'm thinking about it from a historical. But absolutely, Ron, there's two different viewpoints on all of these. Phyllis, you had a point?
[Phyllis Morrison]: Ron, did you say that the mayor sets the agenda? Because I thought the superintendent set the agenda. She controls the meeting.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, she's in charge of the meeting, so I'm sure that Paulette would know better. My understanding was the mayor does set the agenda with the superintendent.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: No. The superintendent puts together the agenda and of course she has discussions with the mayor as well as if other committee members and in fact there's a policy that outlines to make sure that other committee members can get their item of interest on an agenda. So the primary responsibility for doing all that work is the superintendent. Now, if the mayor doesn't like, you know, if something is missing and they've been asking to put it on, obviously the mayor and or school committee members weigh in. And, you know, without any doubt the mayor and the superintendent would talk, but the work, the workload goes to the superintendent and her office staff. So Aubrey has her hand up.
[Maria D'Orsi]: It seems to me that having the mayor as the chair would not change what you just described. I feel like those conversations would still happen to develop the minutes for the meeting and the topics being considered for that day.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So I think right now, we're going to, we don't need to solve this question right this second. I think we should go on to the next item of business, which I think is very important. And we're going to hit this again later on in the meeting. Okay? So the next document, if you would bring it up, is under number three, and that's WRRB brief on changing the Worcester School Committee to district representation. And Milva shared this with me right after our last meeting, and I thought it was very important. So I hopefully the committee members have had a chance to take a look at it. But in short, as in Lowell, which we had mentioned earlier, but the city of Worcester was facing a potential lawsuit and they needed because and there's a list of the organizations on this document who had band together, including the NAACP, individuals, et cetera. and said that the way that the at-large representation did not fairly represent their city. I think that's a summation that I can make to make this brief. And because of that, just like in Lowell, they negotiated a new a way of electing their school committee members. And they did a combination of wards. And then, and I forget the exact, if we can scroll down a little bit on this. I forget the exact of what it was. We had some of the boundaries of the new school committee districts must contain approximately the same number of residents. Okay. Is there another page to this? Yeah, three. It's five pages all together.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah. They talk.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Right. Okay, keep on going, please. Because I don't remember the exact what it was. I believe that it was awards and at large was the final, what they decided on and they changed their,
[Ron Giovino]: Districts and districts.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, sorry, wards.
[Ron Giovino]: And that's my question. My question is, is the district was not as simple as two wards being combined?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: No, I think it was a little more complicated. Can you go to the page? Okay, I thought it was on this. This mentions the low one.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Right.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, where Lowell now has two at large and four districts. I think, if I recall, I think Worcester, oh, here it is, to be determined. So it is in here someplace. But the real point of this document is that there clearly seems to be a move away from at-large voting to ward representation.
[Ron Giovino]: But in the city council, they're the same at large, correct?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: No, I think they changed their city council too.
[Ron Giovino]: Maybe I'm just thinking of the Lowell situation. I think Lowell was just school committee, not city council. Because the question that is, if you change the school community to districts, those districts has to also represent the city council in an election, I think.
[Eunice Browne]: Sure. I mean, here that, you know, from what came out of the consent decree that came that Worcester, you know, crafted was that They didn't have to align they could, but that was the city council should consider whether to change the city council districts to align with the selection of the school committee that decision is with the cities and not. Subject to the consent degree requirements, so it doesn't have to be that said, it doesn't have to be the same. In my view, I think it should be.
[Ron Giovino]: Can I just, let me just throw this in because this is what I get out of this whole thing. I think that through our discussions, we've determined that ward representation is good. That's how I interpret this. I think the concerns are that adding school committee members may be too much at this time. So I thought what a compromise scenario could be is combining wards as we've talked about, but keeping the wards whole so that the city council would have eight wards that they'll be elected from. The school committee would be four dual awards, in other words, one and two, three and four. So I wrote today to the Secretary of State's Election Division to see if that's possible. And I got an email just a little while ago that says it's moved to somebody else to give us a determination. But I think that that kind of answers our concerns that we would have four, Ward do award representatives, and we'd have three to at large positions in the mirror, giving us the seven that we have now, but it also gets all eight wards feeling that they have a representative, even though they're sharing it with each other now, whether that's. whether that's the Secretary of State says that's legal makes sense to me because it leaves the city council still the way we designed it with the ward representation of eight wards and it knocks down the school committee to four ward representative positions. So I wrote to them, you know, they just, it's a citizen's request. They just answer any questions. So it was transferred late this afternoon to the election division. So I'm assuming that they're going to give us some kind of, I asked for guidance as to, is it done? Has it been done? And what's the process to make sure we do it correctly? I think, you know, in my head, it's, you know, you would have wards that touch each other and then, you know, Not one ward in the north, one in the south. You'd want wards that touch each other. Ideally, and I know we have a map somewhere of wards and the schools in the wards, ideally it would be nice if there was a school in each one of the doubled up wards. But I don't know if that's...
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Right. I don't necessarily think that works. I think when we talk about our wording in our document, we're going to hear that every person elected to the school committee is responsible for representing every, you know.
[Ron Giovino]: Right. No, I was just thinking that's a bonus if we had that also. Yeah.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: For me, I was kind of thinking of Phyllis, because we were clearly, and Aubrey, I'm not sure where you sat on this, but we were kind of really on the fence. We were kind of like, at the last meeting, I said, okay, I'll go along with Ron, and Phyllis still some level of agreed to go along, but some level of, Discontent. So when I read this, I was like, yeah, that just solves it for me. Because right now, as soon as I read through this document, I said, okay, look at this. It's only a matter of time. It's only a matter of time. There's Lowell, there's Springfield, there's Worcester, we're a city, it's only a matter of time. So therefore... I got the same impression. Yeah, so therefore... We're going to be facing this soon. This was like to me, a gift. But this is so clear, I don't have to think about it anymore. Now, the next question, which we're going to get to, Ron, is exactly what you just outlined is, okay, how are we going to do it? And what we want to do is we want to move on to the next item, number four. I know it feels like we're barreling through this. I know.
[Ron Giovino]: We're just passing by. We haven't knocked anything out yet.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Oh, don't be so grim.
[Ron Giovino]: No, no, no, no. I want to hit these things and get them out of here.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, so let's go to, in the next piece, I do not want to go to the Collins Center. I would like you to bring up the document which I submitted, starting with section 4-1, Composition, Terms of Office. The first one is just composition. There's three different pages relating to this. Okay. Composition. Yeah. No, this is not it.
[Eunice Browne]: You're looking for 4-1, 4-1-A? I'm looking for 4-1. I put them in the drive, in the subcommittee folder.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And this was, I sent all of the documents to you. No, this is 4-1-C. Aubrey, you're getting closer. Yeah, it's coming up. I did send you the links as well. No, this is 4-5.
[Maria D'Orsi]: I have it, I just can't see the top because it has the controls.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Is it possible instead of using this link that you could use the link that I sent you in the- I shall find it in a second. Yeah, no, she's got it up now. It's just this is very tiny. She can make them bigger. Oh, good. There we go. OK, guys, so this is what I did because I find words wordsmithing at a meeting to be extremely difficult, particularly a Zoom meeting. I looked at each of the sections of the Collins from the three different three different towns that were presented. OK, and Using some of their language and some of mine, I then made options for us. Now, the first option that you're gonna see up on number one is what we have. We have already moved off of this, okay? Seven members at large. And we have options A and B, by the way. The mayor shall serve as the seventh member of the school committee by virtue of office and shall have the same powers and duties as the members elected by the voters as school committee members. Or B, the member will serve as the seventh member truly in service chair, okay? So A and B, we're not going to answer it right now, but that's the difference. A and B outlines that question and gives you some language, okay? But what I'm hearing, let's not get caught into the A and B right now, is option one is off the table. Big red X through it. Slash. That'll make one unhappy. Yeah, you don't actually have to take it up. Now, Option two is what Ron just outlined and what I had talked to about with the mayors too, is the Medford School Committee shall consist of seven members who will be elected as follows. For the purpose of the school committee elections, four combined wards will be created from the eight wards of the city. From each combined ward, one candidate will be elected by the voters of that combined ward. In addition, two candidates will be elected at large by the voters of all four combined wards. Sorry. Yeah. Sorry, I can't talk right now. Welcome, Melva. Sorry.
[Phyllis Morrison]: So, Paulette, can I ask a quick question? Yeah. And you probably have already discussed this and I may have forgotten. Are we with, can the city combine more? Is that something that has to be checked out or is that something you're talking about, Ron?
[Ron Giovino]: That's what I sent the letter about.
[Phyllis Morrison]: That's what the letter went for, right? Okay, so I'm clear on this. Okay, thank you.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Hi, Milva. Just noting that Milva has joined us.
[Ron Giovino]: Paulette, can I just ask for a word clarification?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[Ron Giovino]: The wording that you're using here is saying we're combining going, it kind of implies going down to four wards, which we're not doing.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: For the purpose of the school committee election.
[Ron Giovino]: Right, but it's still, it's going to be wards one, two, and wards three, four, and wards five, six, and wards seven and eight. You know what I mean? Sure. It's not going to be a new, it's not going to be, I'm in ward four, I'm in ward one for school committee. You know what I'm saying?
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yeah, there'll still be separate wards, they'll just be combined for the purposes of the election of the school committee members.
[Ron Giovino]: Right, I just wanted to be clear that you will be voting for a representative of wards one and two, not a new ward that's called A.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Right, absolutely. Now, Ron, that kind of detail that you're asking for, I think, would become more clear after we get the response from your outreach today, which is fantastic. I think the purposes of our discussion, what I was trying to do was outline, hey, choice two, a combined choice three, eight wards.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, we may be forced to use choice three, but I understand what you're saying. My goal is to not interfere with the decisions we made on the city council ward rep process.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah. If we do something different, if we stick with ward three, option three, it aligns pretty well with what we've already decided for city council. Correct. Option two, How does that, I'm trying, I'm thinking about it from the perspective of the city elections office. Would that muck them up in any way, make more work for them, more anything? You know, have things be less streamlined and more opportunity for problems and things like that. So, you know, wondering about it. I don't know the answer, but I think it's something.
[Ron Giovino]: Can I just make a suggestion on that? I think that because of our decisions on the city council, we're already forcing the election committee to change the ballots. So when you walk into your Ward 2-2, you're going to see the candidates on a Ward 2-2 ballot. So the election committee is going to have to do new balloting. That's just the process.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: It would be easier if we did three, I think, where we weren't trying to combine wards. I think it would be easier. But, you know, we've had some questions about would we have school committee members from every district and from every ward backup. You know, I think that these are the perhaps two options that we bring to.
[Ron Giovino]: It's going to be based on what we hear from the Secretary of State too.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Right. And we are scheduled to have a meeting on the 11th, Thursday, April 11th is when I would like to have our next meeting so that we have another one before the 18th. So we might have some feedback by then, allowing us to narrow it down. Now, I would again argue, particularly if we go to three, which mirrors the city council decision, that the mayor should be the chair, Because under that, that would be the only person who is elected by the whole as opposed to just a district. So in my personal opinion, I would, again, under number two, I also favor that for the same reason, but under three, it's even more clear. So I don't, I'm not going to, I wasn't gonna push for a decision between A and B tonight, but I've outlined them clearly. And I think we could move on at this point and say, okay, here's option A and option B.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yeah, you know, I just want to state my preference here. And I know we're waiting to hear back from the state. But I particularly prefer number two for the simple reason that because we have not had representation from all wards, and we haven't even had people running from every ward. And I think the combined wards, for me, would be the best way to move forward. That's my humble opinion.
[Milva McDonald]: And clearly, sorry, I was gonna say just for reference, I put language from the Worcester charter in the chat. I was also trying to look up Lowell because we know Lowell, Worcester and Springfield are the communities that we know of that do this with their school committee. And this is how they word it, six district members and two members elected at large. I imagine somewhere else in the charter, they might define district, but I don't know.
[Ron Giovino]: The only, Melva, we had touched on that before you came in, but the only concern is that how does that impact, if we're establishing districts, how does that impact the city council side of the vote?
[Milva McDonald]: I don't think it has to. Lowell does this, and they have eight wards, same as we do, and they have four, district, you know, with the combined wards, two at large and the mayor for their school.
[Ron Giovino]: And their districts are also not necessarily in line with wards.
[Milva McDonald]: No, they, what they've done is combined two wards to make those districts.
[Adam Hurtubise]: So that's how they did it.
[Milva McDonald]: And their city council is eight, eight ward members, three at large. They don't, they don't do it for city council. They do it for school committee.
[Unidentified]: Mm.
[Milva McDonald]: And Springfield and Worcester, I can't remember which is which, but one of them does do it for both city council and school committee, but the other one also does it only for school committee and not city council. So I don't think, you know, in this regard, it doesn't have to be the same. Because when people go to the polls, they'll just get the ballot with their candidates on it.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: We just would have to make sure that the right ballots got to the right polls.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, yeah, it's more of a function of teaching the election committee how to create the ballots.
[Eunice Browne]: Well, I think they do that anyway with like this year, we're going to be electing our state reps. So like Donato and Barber.
[Ron Giovino]: Different areas, right?
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah. So, you know, Barber is my rep, so I would get the ballot with her on it. If you're over, you know, maybe Ron in your world, you get Donato on your ballot.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Milva McDonald]: Ron, did I hear that you were going to call the Secretary of State to ask about this?
[Ron Giovino]: I wrote an email to the Secretary of State yesterday, got a response today that's moved over to the election division about this question of how easy it is to create either combining wards and calling them wards one and two, three and four, or creating districts and how does that impact. So I'm waiting to hear. I asked for process and is it, you know, I asked for a lot of questions.
[Milva McDonald]: So I know that when I spoke with the city clerk in Lowell, I was told that in order to do it in Lowell, they hired a consultant. And then I noticed that on that Worcester newsletter, they said that they hired the same consultant Lowell did. So one of the reasons that I was told they needed to hire a consultant was because you have to make sure that your combinations of wards
[Adam Hurtubise]: are in line with the law, right?
[Milva McDonald]: But they also had issues, both Worcester and Lowell were responding to lawsuits. So they also, so I don't know how much of the expertise of the consultant was needed for the combination of the wards or making sure that the representation would be, you know, with the different groups was covered.
[Ron Giovino]: Got it. Okay, so let's just wait and see what the guidance they give us. And I think we, and just to, in the desire to, you know, gain agreement on all these things, I can support the mayor being the chairperson. If everybody else does, let's just check it off as, it seems like there's consensus here that the mayor should be the chairperson. OK, I think I can support that.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: That's that's great. I'm kind of coming around to it. I don't necessarily think we're voting on these. I think that we're agreeing that one is out and two and three with the options are there. I certainly understand the need for potentially detailing the combination of the wards down the line, but I think right now it gives us language that is clear. You guys agree?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Eunice Browne]: Agree.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: We're taking two and three to the full group.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, let's go on to the next page, which is term of office. And on this page, I gave you three options. Term of the office, and you noticed I put 6-8 because it depended on, you know, it built upon the last one. School committee members elected by the voters shall be two years. The next choice is four years. And the third is staggered terms. term of office for the six or eight school committee members elected by the voters shall be four years each beginning on the first business day of January in the year following their November election until the successors are qualified. Terms of office shall be arranged so that half of the six or eight school committee members are elected by annuity. Note, in the case of wards, half the wards and half of at-large members elected biannually, the first time it's put into place, some arrangement would need to be made so that one half of those elected serve for two years and stand for election again, while the remaining half have a four-year term. If eight wards and four-year terms, half of the wards would begin with two-year terms, while the other half would have four-year terms. So that's two just trying to clarify. And when I talked to school committee members from other places that had initiated staggered terms, they said they had worked out some kind of way. So the first time that they initiated it, they came to some agreement on who would serve two years and who would serve four years in order to set the cycle. Now, we haven't talked that much about staggered terms. We certainly have gone back and forth from the two years, four years. I didn't put three years in here because we've said, hey, it's interesting, but we don't know if we want to do it. I don't know if we want to. Certainly, we saw staggered terms mentioned in some writing It means, as Eunice pointed out at the last meeting, if you would, currently two of our current school committee members, two out of six of our current school committee members have served before. But at this point, just two months into the year, four of them are new. So it's a pretty new school committee. So stack of terms might. might work, I definitely think it makes it more confusing. It does not solve the issue that the superintendent had talked to us about, about always having the potential for new. The only thing that it anticipates is if you have your whole board turning over at once, that's the only thing. So, Two years, four years, you're staggered. What are people thinking on this one?
[Eunice Browne]: Definitely not four.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, four is out. Now, if you don't like four, then you're not going to like staggered either.
[Ron Giovino]: No, that is four.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Because that's four. So are we all saying, you know, if we're changing to ward or combination, we are lessening for, if it's all ward, it definitely makes it easier for somebody to run, okay? So it definitely makes it easier for somebody to run in a ward. So because of that, they can just have two-year terms.
[Ron Giovino]: Just my opinion on four years. I know that in the first term, four years, you want to have four years. But it's the second term and third term where you may want to get out in 10, you have to stick till 12. I think that that can become an issue. I think we resolve the ability to have multiple terms because of the fact that we're in wards. the fact that you have a smaller campaign, the people know you, the likelihood should be that a good school committee person should be able to walk right through to the next term. And the same is true if it's not a performing school committee person to the standards, the community can say thanks, but, you know, we're looking up, we're going to look elsewhere. So that's why I like the two.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Well, you know, I keep going back to what the superintendent said. That's what keeps coming up in my mind. What a challenge it is for the superintendent, you know, with people, you know, being initiated the first year and then getting their, you know, getting their footing in the second year, and then they're gone again if they don't run or are reelected. Perhaps four years is too much, and I don't think there's an option for three, so. But I still have that sense of, you know,
[Ron Giovino]: You know, I hear what Phyllis is saying, I absolutely do.
[Phyllis Morrison]: The problem that, you know, the superintendent is having with this, you know, I mean, I think it's a real issue. Can we solve it? I'm not sure. I personally would have liked three years. That's not an option.
[Ron Giovino]: But I do think, though, that the fact that we're in ward scenarios gives the school committee person a better chance to renew every two years. So I think that kind of answers the superintendent's concern. What's that?
[Phyllis Morrison]: If they want, that's the issue.
[Ron Giovino]: I mean, that's the case. That's the case anyways. I mean, if you can't get them to
[Phyllis Morrison]: I think the point I'm trying to make is I just wish it was a longer term overall, perhaps four years, like you're saying, when you know, after you're in two terms that you get into 12, that's a lot. I'm just thinking about the efficiency of working with the superintendent and people not having to come up. And you're making the assumption and I'm making the assumption that if someone runs and is elected and is in there for two years, then they're going to want to run and be reelected again. And that's not always the case. If we have people who want to stay, that's perfect. But there's excessive turnover. Like, look, even this year, unfortunately, someone had to resign for an issue. Those things happen, you know? I'm just saying, you know, I just, for me, it's not an alternative. I would have preferred the three years.
[Ron Giovino]: Sure. I think everybody, everybody, I'm just saying, though, Phyllis, is that if I'm in a four-year term and I don't want to do it after two years, I'm still in the same boat. It doesn't really, you can't make them stay another two years.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Well, at least you know prestiges and practices and... No, no, no.
[Ron Giovino]: I'm just saying if somebody doesn't want to be on the school committee, the length of term is not going to dictate, you know, you don't have to stay.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: By the way, there is one other option, which since we put out the combined ward possibility, and that is that the people who are elected from the four combined wards would be elected for two years, but the two candidates who are at large be elected for four. So just to complicate the soup a little bit. That's a tough one. Just to throw another noodle in the pot there, Paula. I know, because why not?
[Eunice Browne]: My thought is, like Phyllis, I keep going back to what the superintendent said as well, and I completely understand her point. I'm also of the mind that, you know, After two years, prove yourself, or at least give us an indication of what you're going to do. And I'd like the opportunity to move you along if you're not up to my standards. But on the other hand, well, given what the super said, I wish we could get Or I wonder how other supers in other communities feel. You've only had 2 supers in what? 30 years. You know, so that's her opinion. Do we know what.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: You know, Bell's opinion was- I can tell you what Roy's opinion is that he did not find it perhaps as onerous just because many of the same school committee members were elected time after time. After time, after time. So it wasn't, watch it. It wasn't as, you know, we always had change on the committee. but not as much change as has occurred this year.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, there's definitely been more turnover in the past few years.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And maybe that might settle out again. We'll see. It might settle out again, yeah.
[Eunice Browne]: This might be just her opinion, and another super that rolls along in a few years might feel entirely differently. Right. Ron?
[Ron Giovino]: I just have two points. First is the desire to go to ward representation will answer a lot of the superintendent's concerns. It will keep a fresh face in there that is based on local representatives being voted on, those are the folks that really have the say. So they'll have the power to extend or they'll have the power to end. So I think that will answer itself. The second point I have to make is that I just don't know the legality of having school committee people with different lengths of terms. I don't know the legality of that.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I know that it happens. I've certainly talked to school committees that have whatever. But look, maybe that's complicating it too much. I mean, perspective of a candidate, two years is too short. From a perspective of a voter, two years gives us the opportunity to oversee, you know, to have change and- And three is not an option. Or control. From the perspective of the superintendent, it's not so great. But who are we trying to- who are we trying to do this charter for? It's not just for the superintendent, no matter how much I might- For all citizens. It's for the citizens.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So from a citizen viewpoint,
[Ron Giovino]: Remember, the city council, then the mayor puts their approval on whatever we provide. They're taken care of. It's the voters, it's the citizens who don't need a voice. That's who we are.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Would we like to throw out staggered terms? Does that just sound just one level more, Paul will be sad, but how many of these do we bring forward?
[Phyllis Morrison]: It sounds like- I think that for the simplicity and for consistency, I find myself because of the limited, they're not limited options, that's not what I mean, because of the two choices in front of me. I would probably say that the most effective, or the people in the wards, like someone just said, the superintendent's one person, it would probably be best not to have staggered terms and to do it for two years.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: That's where I'm leaning right now. Quiet, Ms. Aubrey, what do you think?
[Libby Brown]: Come on, Aubrey.
[Maria D'Orsi]: I've been a two-year fan for most of my time on this subcommittee.
[Ron Giovino]: So you're saying you've changed your mind?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Two. No, she's still there.
[Libby Brown]: Two. Two. She's two. She's the two-year camp.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. So I think we have a general consensus. I think we all would like three, and that's a side paper. Right. I think that staggered terms is interesting but complicated. I think I hear a consensus around two. I think you do. Okay. So could we put a check next to that one? We can put a flag on that. Yep.
[Phyllis Morrison]: While we're at it, I think I pretty well hear a consensus that we all are in agreement, at least tentatively, I think, that the mayor should chair the school committee.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Phyllis, did you just freeze? Oh, I don't know. Everybody just froze for a second on mine.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Okay. What I was saying was, I think that you have some consensus here also on the fact that the mayor should chair the school committee.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. Aubrey's head shaking. Eunice?
[Eunice Browne]: I don't know.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. We're still a little unclear. But perhaps moving towards that. Yeah.
[Phyllis Morrison]: I was highly opposed to it originally, but.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Well, you know, the way that I see it is since I've moved to wards or combined wards over to Ron's camp, and he's now graciously moved over to my camp.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, remember, remember, we're going to have to we're going to offer both these to the committee of the whole.
[Adam Hurtubise]: So that's right.
[Ron Giovino]: Both and both in play. We make a recommendation that says what we want, but.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yeah, let's see. The tipping point for me on this was that I now know definitively that the superintendent does set the agenda, the map that controls the meeting. And that, to me, is really what made my mind change on that. I agree.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Could we go on to number 41C, eligibility? 41C. And I actually, I have a word wrong in this, but at large eligibility. So we're not talking about at large for warden eligibility.
[Adam Hurtubise]: That's number two.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, I'm going to paragraph two. A school committee candidate shall at the time of election be a Medford voter and shall have resided in the ward they wish to represent as calculated from the previous year to submitting nomination papers for the office of school committee. Now, I don't know if that's very clear. What I'm trying to say is, in my opinion, I was saying that you have to be a voter, a Medford voter. And if you are representing a ward, you had to live in that ward for a year. And I had to define a year from when. I put it a year from the time a person submits their nomination papers. So I'm Paulette Van der Kloot and I live in Ward 6. I want to run for school committee. I have to demonstrate in some way that I lived in Ward 6 one year previous to my submitting of nomination papers.
[Ron Giovino]: Is that rule also for living in Medford one year?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Well, if you live in the ward, you'd live in Medford.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, but if you lived in Medford, you wouldn't necessarily live in the ward.
[Libby Brown]: Yeah, but you have to live in the ward.
[Ron Giovino]: You're saying living in the ward for a year.
[Libby Brown]: Yes. If they are representing the ward.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, I know. Yeah, I guess I don't. I guess I don't want to restrict the voters in that ward. If somebody comes in and makes an impact in a ward that has zero representation and nobody really is excited about becoming a school committee person, isn't it up to the voters of that ward to decide whether that person is going to represent them or not? I'm not crazy about the one year rule. I guess that's what I'm saying.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Part of the platform that people run on is where they live. Saying I'm from here becomes part of my platform.
[Ron Giovino]: Well, just the simple fact that the ward votes for you and you live in that ward, I don't know if it necessarily means do you become a better citizen after one year than you did in the first four months. That's all I'm saying. To me, it's just that one year requirement just doesn't seem...
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: In the Worcester paper, which I, that we went through earlier, there was a one-year requirement living in the ward. So that was part of what I put in.
[Ron Giovino]: I guess I just don't want... So let's say that Paulette Vandeclude is in Ward 3 and her family decides to move to Ward 4. She cannot be part of the school committee anymore? If she's a 20-year school committee person that lived in Ward 3 and her family decides to move to Ward 4, even all the experience she has in the school committee, she cannot run for a year in Ward 4.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: That's an interesting question. I would say that if you're doing ward representation, isn't the idea of ward representation that you are- Who decides who the best ward representation is?
[Ron Giovino]: It's the voter.
[Eunice Browne]: Well, I'm looking at this a couple of different ways. I'm looking at, let's look at our current processes for running for office where You know, traditionally candidates of, you know, nomination papers come available, you know, for argument's sake, let's call it June 1st. So. You know, June 2nd, somebody I want to go in and pull papers to run for school committee. is regarding the residency requirement. I've lived in Ward 4 all my life and I'm running in Ward 4. That's fine. What if I'm a brand new resident to Medford and I moved in? Maybe I'd been a school committee member in, I don't know, Melrose. Melrose, where I used to live. But now my family's moved to Medford, and I moved in. So I kind of understand school committees. And I've got kids I've just enrolled in the system or whatever. And I moved in in March and settled in my house in Ward 4. Does that mean that I can't pull papers? in June, but on the flip side, going to what you guys were just saying, what if I've been renting in Ward 1 for the past five years and finally was able to buy a house in Ward 4? I've been a Medford resident for maybe 10 years. I've been renting in Medford for 10 years, and now I've finally been able to buy a house in Ward 4, or maybe I've got a better apartment over in Ward 4 than I did in Ward 1, and I'm still renting.
[Libby Brown]: I'm just putting scenarios. Anybody grow up in New York?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: No, so I might be the only one. So I'm thinking, you know, one of the things that we've seen certain presidential candidates do is all of a sudden they move to a different state because they have a better chance of being elected in that state. So, and people slide around, which, you know, again, I remember Hillary Clinton did it in New York, and there was an outro. And I guess that when I see ward representation, I expect that the person to have some familiarity with the ward that they're representing. I don't want them necessarily just sliding around. This may be my preference. I don't hear that people are with me on this. I don't, you know, that's fine. I think you've raised some really interesting scenarios.
[Ron Giovino]: Do you think that they should be a Medford citizen for a year, Paula?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I personally do.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah. I would lean towards that piece from not being a complete outsider. But to me, the ward thing is the responsibility of the voters.
[Phyllis Morrison]: We have at large. I thought the purpose, and I could be absolutely wrong. My understanding is that we want ward representation so that people in that ward And you've said it several times, and other people have said it, because they know that person in the ward, that there would not be that much cost for campaigning. They're close to the people in that ward. To me, it only makes sense if we're going to go to this two years. And I can't imagine why now, all of a sudden, I would want to now say that, OK, well, I want someone from my ward to represent me. But now it doesn't matter to me. I have all at large then.
[Ron Giovino]: I hear you, Phyllis. My only point is it's not for us to say that. It's for the people in the ward to say that. Let's say your sister lives in Ward 4, and you moved in from Melrose, and people love you. They think you're great. You've got great ideas. You're on the Parents Teachers Association. But you've only been in the city nine months. Even though I want you, I can't vote for you because of the one-year rule. It just seems very arbitrary to me. The whole goal of the ward representation is to make it simplistic so you know you have a representative. If you don't want to take advantage of that, I hear what you're saying. If you don't want to take advantage, then shame on the voters, but give them the right to do it.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Well, I think that as an educator and as a parent who long ago had children in schools, I mean, if someone wants to be on the school committee, I think they should have at least a year's familiarity with the city or the ward. I think they should get to know how things are here or things like that. I'm totally in favor of one year, and I believe they should live in the ward. And that's my stand on that.
[Ron Giovino]: I agree with you, living in Medford for a year and understanding, I agree. But I'm not understanding why somebody, you have to live in that ward, because it's the people in that ward who are picking you. So you assume that. How long does it take for people to like a representative? Is it six months, nine months? Well, we've been forcing it to be a year plus. Arbitrarily, I just don't that that's the part. I don't I understand. I don't want to somebody from Worcester to come in here and run for school committee when they haven't been here six two months however, I I think that The once you're eligible by being a medford citizen for a year, that's a restriction I can support The ward thing is up. This is the whole point. It's up to the people of the ward and if you don't have a I mean, we talk a lot about the fact that maybe there won't be somebody running in a given ward. So now we're saying the person who's running, if they're only here nine months, they can't run. So I would not want to put them on the ward.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Well, the other thing, too, is I hope we can run, and I hope we get the go ahead for this option, is I hope we can do the combining of the wards. And I think that, you know, yeah, I agree.
[Ron Giovino]: I agree with you. I agree 100% and it's not going to be easy. And in that regard. To you, Paul, as the chairperson. You're not in now, and if we're combining 2 words together. it kind of would like throw away, why do we need to, why do you need a year in one of the other wards?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I'm fine with changing this to living in Medford for a year. I'm okay with that.
[Ron Giovino]: I wonder if there's a Massachusetts law that demands that. I don't know.
[Eunice Browne]: I mean, if we're up to me, the residency requirements for all of our elected officials would be several years. not just, you know, a year at all.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I think it's harder to put it for more than a year. Yeah. Looked at other stuff. I mean, I would say that for a city council member, I would also think they should live in Medford for a year. And I don't know whether that language is stipulated. Yeah, I don't know.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Is there also language that says that in order to run for a ward, I have to live in that ward?
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, yeah, there is language because it says that if you leave that ward, you vacate your office.
[Maria D'Orsi]: So I think that's... So it's Medford for a year and a current resident when I file papers of the ward. Those are the two requirements.
[Ron Giovino]: And at any point when you leave that ward, at that moment, you vacate your office.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, so a current resident makes sense.
[Eunice Browne]: I thought that there was something in or we were. It was either in some of the other charters that we've looked at, maybe Melvin can help me out here, or maybe it's over in the legislative. what the legislative group did, Article 2, that if they vacated from, let's say I'm in Ward 4 and I've got three months or six months left in my term, and I move to Ward 3, and Ward 3 already has its representative, but I'm nearing the end of my term, I stay as, the ward representative for ward, wherever I just said I started out, ward four or whatever, that, you know, there wouldn't be a reason to vacate so close to the end of a term.
[Milva McDonald]: Milford, do you agree with that? I don't, but that does sound, I mean, we would have to check it, but that does sound.
[Ron Giovino]: I thought in some of the literature that Paul had sent out, that it instantly happens that when you leave the ward, you vacate your office.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So that's what was in the other towns.
[Ron Giovino]: Other towns, yes. But I guess I'm assuming that that's also, you know, that document that you linked with the Massachusetts School Committee group that has all the charters in there. I believe it was in there as well in terms of that. And that kind of was a, you know, sometimes Medford was used in that, sometimes it's not. I mean, it's just obviously general laws. So we would need to check general laws on that. But I'm pretty, I thought I read that it's an instant vacation.
[Phyllis Morrison]: I read that somewhere too, Ron. I did read that somewhere.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I did. Right. Everything that I had read in the different options of the towns that we had received in the Collins Center comparison document said that, which is why I included it. So I'm fine with Ron's, you know, I guess the question is when we say that they're Medford voter, I had said from the year of submitting nomination papers, because as opposed to the election, because I don't want someone- When's the deadline for submitting papers, Paula? So for the election, it is you pick up your papers in June, sometime in June, sometime in July, you have you submit them and they're certified.
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, it's usually around mid July 15th, 20th of July. Right.
[Ron Giovino]: So would it be a year back from that?
[Eunice Browne]: Or when are you thinking after submitting a nomination papers or you know, when the nomination papers, the debt from the day the nomination papers became available, maybe are certified or do when the papers are due, you must have had a year in the city.
[Ron Giovino]: And you must be a registered voter in the city. Yep. Six or one half dozen. I don't think we're gonna
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: We just need to define it. Okay. I think we have like 17 minutes left or something. Let's go on to 4-2.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Okay.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: We're making a lot of progress tonight. A lot of progress. This is a great meeting. Organization, chair, vice chair, and clerk. Now, notice they call it clerk, but in Medford, it's customarily been called secretary. And we have specific duties for our secretary, which does differ among school committees across Massachusetts. So let me give you a little. So in number one, the mayor shall serve as the chair of the school committee. Immediately prior to the first regular committee meeting, this is very standard language, or as soon as practical after school committee members elect have been qualified following each regular city election, the school committee members shall choose from amongst themselves a vice chair and secretary who will serve for one year. The position should rotate amongst members with no member serving more than one consecutive year in the role for which they have been selected for by their peers. Okay, so we've already kind of leaning towards that. The next paragraph said if the mayor is not automatically chair and then spells out. So the thing that I added, which is it was practiced for years and years and years that vice chair would rotate. And then some people got kind of greedy. And so with their friends, they kind of determined that they shouldn't rotate. The reason I wanted and put it in the charter is is that school committee members, if you would, are there six voted equally. And the chair, I believe, strongly should rotate, as I do with the secretary. Now, the vice chair. the vice chair, the vice chair and the secretary. I believe that those should rotate amongst the members. And, you know, so that's why I put it in.
[Ron Giovino]: Just a question, Paula, because you were the secretary for most of your career there. Is there an issue with, you know, you've mentioned the workload and paying the bills, and is it something that you feel is something that people will want to rotate or they want to just get one person who does it well to continue.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: No, I think that, so over the years, so in the initial years, when I first was on the school committee, so after, let's say I'd been on the school committee for three or four years, people didn't, it used to involve hours and hours of time. It would take a full school day. You'd go up in the morning and you'd spend there for hours and people didn't wanna do it. And so that's how I did it over and over. In the last years, there's been much more, Kathy Kreatz did it one year. Mia did it one year. Paul Rousseau did it. There's been more changeover. There is a stipend attached to it. It's not much. There's also a stipend for the vice chair. The stipend for the secretary is more because it's acknowledged that it's more work. And there are school committees that don't have the secretary signing off the bills, but they form a subcommittee. And then the bills are brought to the subcommittee for an approval of three members. That's something we could recommend or talk to the school committee about. That's not how we're set up now. really their internal workings. How much we want to get into it, I don't know. If we're talking about how it's set up now, I think that we should just say the school committee shall rotate. So Paul could do it one year, and then Aaron's going to do it one year, and then Paul can do it again, and then Erica is going to do it. So it doesn't mean that Paul can never do it again. It's just he can't do it two consecutive years.
[Ron Giovino]: I'm fine with it. Is that written in their operational handbook that they have?
[Milva McDonald]: I don't think that. I think that's new. That would be new, right?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So the school committee just in the charter, they did not define that in the we're going to get to four or five, which has it. It talks about the role of the secretary. It does not say the the position should rotate amongst members.
[Adam Hurtubise]: OK.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I have added that. Ron, you had asked me at one point, did I have anything I wanted to get in here? And there's one of those things that I think that it makes it more fair. I think it makes it more equitable. I think it gives people different opportunities.
[Ron Giovino]: That's why you're the chairperson of this committee. You have the best experience. So I support what you're saying.
[Eunice Browne]: Okay, let's move on definitely agree with the rotating to have a question. It says should rotate with no member serving more than 1 consecutive year in the role for which they've been selected. So. If I understand this correctly. If I am the secretary. This year from January 1st, 2024. To. December 30th, 2024, I could do it again for calendar year 2025, correct? 2026, right? If I'm doing it now in 2024.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, then you can do it again in 2026 and maybe your vice chair in between.
[Eunice Browne]: Is it a term or a year? A year.
[Ron Giovino]: So Paula, Eunice brings up a really good point. Should we be looking at fiscal year where you're processing bills in a given fiscal year against a fiscal budget?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: No.
[Ron Giovino]: As opposed to a calendar year.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: It should be a calendar year because the school committee members take their seats in January.
[Ron Giovino]: Okay. I just didn't know if transferring, you're going to transfer halfway through your fiscal bookings.
[Milva McDonald]: You could lose your secretary because of an election that way, right?
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just asking. I don't have an opinion.
[Eunice Browne]: So is the secretary now. And he will be the secretary for. According to the rules that we're putting into place, he's the secretary through December 31st, 2024. Yes, January 1st, 2025. he's in the 2nd year of his term, but could he be the secretary for calendar year 2025? Nope.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: He could, perhaps his peers would elect him to be vice chair, okay, and that's fine, okay, but he cannot serve in the same role consecutively for two years.
[Ron Giovino]: If we change, yeah, I think that that's.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And my feeling, by the way, is based on, I always thought it was wrong, even though I did it because nobody else would do it, it was absolutely wrong that I was the secretary for multiple years running. Because who was checking to make sure that I wasn't in cahoots, you know? Too much power.
[Phyllis Morrison]: The truth always comes out, Paulette. Too much power.
[Ron Giovino]: That's where all the water went, right? That's where all the bottled water went.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yeah, that's it right there. We have it. And this is on record, right, Ron? This is on record, right, Ron?
[Ron Giovino]: It's on the record.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: That's why you do it. You're right.
[Ron Giovino]: It's a great point.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Absolutely. Absolutely. So anyway, let's move on. Powers and duties. Thank you all.
[Eunice Browne]: So can we just go back one second? If Paul serves four more terms, could he be secretary again?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Every other year.
[Eunice Browne]: Every other year. Okay.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: You can't micromanage it so much, but you can put this in. Okay, powers and duties with the collaboration of the superintendent of schools. The chair shall prepare the agenda for committee school committee meetings. The chair shall preside at all regular meetings of the school committee, regulate its proceedings and decide all questions of order. The chair shall appoint all members of the school committee to the various subcommittees of the school committee after seeking their individual input regarding interest and availability. And I should tell you that clause I added, that is generally how it happened. And I think that there's a good reason for making sure it stays in. The chair will have the same powers to vote upon measures coming before the school committee as any other member of the school committee. The school committee chair shall perform such other duties consistent with the office as may be provided by charter, by ordinance, or by other vote of the school committee. I put that in italics just to note. I picked that language up directly from the other things in the call center. The vice chair shall provide, in the absence of the chair, secretary or clerk, the secretary has the responsibility to record the votes taken at regular school committee meetings. In addition, the secretary is responsible for overseeing and approving the bills of the school department, which is outlined more clearly in the next document, although it's probably- Just a quick question, Paulette.
[Ron Giovino]: Are you the sole, as the clerk slash secretary, the sole approver of these bills?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes, but well, no, not, so the superintendent approves the bills. So you've got the finance office putting it together. You have the superintendent signing off on it.
[Ron Giovino]: And the superintendent- Three approvals to get it done?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah.
[Ron Giovino]: Got it, okay.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: The school committee member goes last. Okay. Got it.
[Ron Giovino]: Is there a dollar amount involved in approving bills, Paula?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Every bill, I approved bills for pizza. I approved bills for, you know, huge, huge things for the tops of the schools, for air conditioning.
[Ron Giovino]: Okay, so there's no over $25,000, you need an extra layer of approvals.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So the difference is that when I started out, you had to sign with your signature, the problem when you had a long name, every single bill. Now they come together in batches. So it doesn't take as long.
[Ron Giovino]: Okay.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And that's since I left, they could even have updated it since then, I have to ask Paul, which I will do.
[Ron Giovino]: Okay.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Is all of that sort of fairly?
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, it's all good.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: All right, let's move on to school committee powers and duties. And I just want to do a time check. We're at 825. Okay. When I read the Collins Center, what they did for the powers and duties in those different ones, it was clear to me that nobody really had been on the school committee. Because frankly, they were, they were very brief, you know, and I thought that it was not very overarching. This is a much clearer, this document was put together, and it was put together quite a long time ago, with the help of the MASC, but I mean years ago. Lina DiGianto Masso and I first sat I had run on making sure that we had a policy handbook that could be posted. And so the policy handbook began way back when Lena was still on the committee. And it has since been updated. And MASC, our Massachusetts Association of School Committee members, came in, we went through policy after policy. I know it was done again. And this is, you know, school committee powers and duties. I think it's a good document. I think that there's wording that might need to be changed. I think it's a very clear document. Aubrey, could you scroll down a little bit? Make it a little bit larger. Oh, right now where it says a voting majority of the school committee shall exercise the following powers and perform the following duties. And no individual member is empowered to act unless by vote of the school committee. If you go down to the second one, elect a superintendent, assistant superintendent of schools, business manager, director of special education and nurses. One of the reasons why I'm saying that this page is so much more accurate than what the Collins Center is, is because there's this very funny thing. It's spelled out very clearly in the law what the school committee, who they should elect. And nurses was in that category. the Director of Special Education. These are the ones. Now, I did not go back to verify that all of these are up to date since usually the MASC updates these periodically. So I just want to pointing that out. of saying, if you look back into that other Collins document, it does not spill out these other responsibilities. If you could go down a little bit more.
[Milva McDonald]: Can you just clarify, when you say Collins document, do you mean the generic modern charter?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, the one where it had three different communities represented.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah. So that's technically not language from the Collins Center. It's language from those charters.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: OK. Well, if someone put it together,
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, they gave us the generic frame and then I put in the language from each of the charters just so we can see it.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, okay. I thought they did it. I didn't realize you did all that work, Milda. Oh, my God. Okay. So anyway, the so yeah, that that's the document. If you go back to the second. Okay, the secretary, let's see, it's one, two, three, four, five bullets, yep. The secretary on the 15th and last business day of each month will approve and sign bills for payment. Signed bills are sent to the city auditor for payment. The scheduled bills as approved and signed by the secretary shall be presented to the school committee for approval of the next regular meeting of the committee. The school committee will receive regular financial reports. So Ron, to answer your question better than I did. After the secretary signs it, they are then presented at the school committee meeting. At that point, any school committee member during that presentation gets to ask about such and such bill. And then often the secretary will pipe up, I saw that one, that's what this is about. Or the superintendent will say, that has to do with, okay. So there are more eyes afterwards, but they don't, the school committee as a whole doesn't receive, they don't see the actual invoices that the secretary does.
[Ron Giovino]: Paulette, who does the assignment to the budget line item? Is that the city finance people, or is it the secretaries involved in that? The school finance. What's that? The school finance. OK, the school finance. Got it. Yeah.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And by the way, this is on the 15th and last business day of each month. It's, I think, mid-month and end of month. It's a little bit more flexible than this actual wording suggests.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So I would probably go back.
[Ron Giovino]: This is a good document. I have one question about it. Yep. I don't recall reading anything about the annual review of the superintendent. Isn't that a major task of the school committee?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah. It certainly is. Is it in this here? I think there's a whole other page dealing with it.
[Ron Giovino]: Okay. Yeah, that's all. If it's going to be covered later, that's fine. I just didn't see it.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Well, the question is, how much do we put in? And now you know that there's a very, very detailed policy handbook, okay? It's just one page. There are hundreds of pages of policy. How much do we put in? This one made sense to me. When you say you elect the superintendent, we certainly could put in another bullet point, which says that responsible for the review of the superintendent.
[Ron Giovino]: I just thought, you know, I know that there's Massachusetts laws that back up all the stuff that's not listed. To me, only because it's our charter, I just think it should be in writing that I think one of the main tasks that the school committee has is that annual review.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: They also have an annual review of themselves.
[Ron Giovino]: Not so much as important as the superintendent.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, well. Anyway, by and large, with a few doctors on this.
[Ron Giovino]: I like it.
[Eunice Browne]: I do too. Yeah, I think it should. I think it can't hurt to include the whole thing. I think it's I mean, going from a 2 and a half page charter that didn't even mention the school committee to having as much spelled out as we possibly can. You know, I think that's. We should be leaving very little chance or interpretation.
[Phyllis Morrison]: So, I'm in the different. And the first point on this, it says legislation on policymaking. I think that would probably be assumed that when it says the committee is responsible for the development of policy as guides for administrative action and for employing a superintendent who will implement its policy. It's probably somewhere embedded in that.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah, at that area. That's why I would put just a need annually. It's annually a formal report. That's all.
[Phyllis Morrison]: I have a couple of questions. Phyllis, where did you put that? That was on number one under school committee powers and duties legislative or policymaking.
[Ron Giovino]: Yes, somewhere it says implementation.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Number one. It says the committee is responsible for the development of policy as guides for administrative action or for employing a superintendent who will implement its policies. And so there would be the review and guidelines for professional development or whatever.
[Ron Giovino]: It could be under the appraisals instead of saying appraisals, just review. Yeah, review. Yeah, it's just words, but.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Right. Now, the only thing is as we change it, this, I do kind of need to check with the MACC and putting it together just to make sure that's all, you know, whatever.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Aubrey has some questions.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Yeah, I just have a couple of questions. I like that first line with all the bold. My question is if we start listing powers and duties and don't list things, does that limit or set a precedent for things that gets us into trouble later? And my understanding is that the charter is hard to amend. And so when we are coming up with language for this, I'd prefer vague and reference to something like a policy handbook that can be updated later.
[Ron Giovino]: There is a disclaimer that falls into the Mass General Laws. There's always that disclaimer that anything we decide would be washed up against that. So I hear what you're saying. Yeah, if Bill stopped being the 15th and started being the 18th, it's not like... Yeah, I don't know why that's there, but obviously there must be some process that says that.
[Milva McDonald]: I think Aubrey makes a good point. And I guess I would just wonder whether... It's like, have we seen other charters that have this level of detail?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: That would be my question. Well, how can we answer that? Because, I mean, we've only, you know, no, we haven't seen other charters. You know,
[Eunice Browne]: Well, we have that many variables document that lists 40 or 50 different charters. I mean.
[Milva McDonald]: Yeah, you can look at them. And did you say that it was on the MASC website? There was a section with charters?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: No, I don't know about that. To me, this is in accordance with the general laws.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Are these specific to school committees, Paula? These are specific to school committees, correct?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes, this is a school committee.
[Phyllis Morrison]: I mean, this is taken right from the school committee policy handbook.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Right. That is totally fine for me. My only concern is that policy handbooks are much easier to edit than charters, if something should be left in two to ten years.
[Phyllis Morrison]: You are absolutely correct. So if the handbook is...
[Eunice Browne]: Yeah, no, that's a good point. I mean, if the handbook gets, unless there's a provision in the charter that, you know, for lack of a better way is that, you know, the handbook supersedes, you know, or whatever's in the handbook is, you know, what we abide by.
[Milva McDonald]: I can't, I don't think you can do that. I don't think you can. I mean, the charter has to be like the,
[Eunice Browne]: The Bible.
[Ron Giovino]: The Bible, because it has to be washed against the Massachusetts general laws. You can't just change the handbook.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Sorry, Ron. I'm sorry, Ron.
[Ron Giovino]: Go ahead. No, I'm done. I'm done.
[Phyllis Morrison]: I was going to say, could we not include a statement that says the policies and procedure as stipulated in the school committee policy handbook?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Sure. The only thing with doing that is that then you're sending someone else rather than being clear. What does a school committee, what are they responsible for?
[Phyllis Morrison]: You know, I mean, if the policy, if the school committee policy handbook is going to change off and on, I mean, I think there can be some language found to how that could, you know, how in the charter it says, you know, this is what we'll be following, you know.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So when I looked at the powers and duties that were listed in the other communities, I found them to be inadequate. So the question is, if you want to go back and look at those documents, okay, and say, okay, let's take a look at this document and we'll take a look at those and we want to figure out which, that's fine.
[Phyllis Morrison]: I have no issue with what is listed here, Paula. That's not what I'm saying. I have no issue with what is listed here. I think Aubrey's point brings a question to my mind. What she's saying is, it's easier to update a handbook than it is a charter. And while we may want this to be something that we are aware of, we may have to say, we followed the policies and procedures as per the school committee's handbook. with these things. If they're already in there, why can't we make the statement that these are the guidelines that will be followed when it comes to the powers and duties of the school committee? That way, people would always have to refer to this doc, the school committee's policy and procedure handbook. So updates, and there are changes, then we always have to refer to the school committee's policy handbook.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So right at the top, I put the link to the committee policy. And I put this is from the Medford school committee policy handbook. Yeah. So I can add wording to that to make it even more clear.
[Phyllis Morrison]: I don't think any of us are disagreeing with you about what's laid out here on this paper. Okay. But changes, I think Aubrey is what you're saying. If there are any updates in that, right?
[Maria D'Orsi]: Yeah, that's what I am saying that that it might be more difficult. It might be better. It might. Is it possible to change this language to zoom out one level and just say you're responsible for this broad thing and then define it somewhere else that can be more easily thanked? And specifically also this, if I'm a specific bullet, exercise all other powers and perform all duties set forth in the Sydney Charter, we don't want that one because this is the Charter.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Libby Brown]: Right.
[Ron Giovino]: Aubrey, specifically, what is the what's the just so I know which dot are we talking about? Are you saying like the 15th in the last business day of the month may change to the... Because I don't... It doesn't matter. I'm just trying to identify the... I'm trying to... I understand what you're saying.
[Maria D'Orsi]: I think the word textbook might be replaced with something else. They might be virtual books or who knows what that becomes later.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Because ours says that we're stuck.
[Ron Giovino]: Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So guys, I will tell you that I clearly had spent a long time on all of these documents. When I got to this one, I started by doing the same process that I did with the others. I looked at what we had and I kept on playing with it. And I just kept on saying, I don't like this wording. I don't like this wording. And then I went to this document and I said, I'm going to bring it to the committee because this is the most comprehensive. solid piece of definition. I'm happy if we want to edit it in whatever way and make it our own. I will tell you that I need help doing that because I don't have hours and hours this week before our next meeting.
[Phyllis Morrison]: You did a lot of work, Paula.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes. There are still other areas which I need to do, and I'd rather spend time on that then. Aubrey, if you think of any, first of all, I need somebody who's going to do the minutes, so I don't have to do the minutes this time.
[Maria D'Orsi]: I can do the minutes this time, and I can have two proposals for this document to make it easier. I'm fine with most of the language. I want to take out the bullet that says charter because it's circular in the charter, and then add some kind of language that says- What if we change textbooks to curriculums? Something like that.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Curriculum. So you could do learning materials, but.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Learning materials would be great.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Learning materials.
[Maria D'Orsi]: And there's something that says, including but not limited to the following.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: OK, so we need to be very careful on this one. And we need to talk to the superintendent on how to word it. Because you see, when it was textbooks, they actually brought the textbooks into our meeting. And we sat and physically look at them. Learning materials, that could be a website. Now, we could go down many more pitfalls with this. And because we certainly don't want to put the school committee approving every book that comes into the library. So this one is an interesting one to try and whatever. So, you know, Aubrey, if you can just just highlight it or do something so that we can go back.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Yeah. I'm sorry, I know we're past time. So just one more. question is that this you said was the first page of a multi-page document. So this is an example of the duties. This is a subsection of a much longer document. So this does not include everything. So we could remove that bullet that has textbooks and not address it in here and say and other duties because those are going to be included anyway, right?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Absolutely.
[Maria D'Orsi]: So something like that can just, we can just remove anything that could be. Or global.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah. Yes, absolutely. And you can feel free to go through. By the way, if anybody would like to look at the policies, if you go to the school committee section of our website, and at some point or another, it pops up school committee policy handbook. And you can see all of it. Yeah. OK. This one, the subheading on what I was looking at was school committee powers and duties. So that's what we did. Okay, so Aubrey, if you make those changes, my homework is to now go back to the other sections, which I didn't do, and see if I can get those lined up with everything we've talked about now, okay? Once again, we're gonna lay on, the table, but I think it's okay because I think we're going to take it up in someplace else, is the concern about the public participation. Do we have any members of the public on here tonight right now? I don't think so. No. No, so we don't need to ask for any more.
[Ron Giovino]: No, not there.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I know that I'm running out of steam now. I need to go to bed.
[Ron Giovino]: Motion to adjourn.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Wait a minute. I want to say something, Ron, first. I want to thank Paulette. Even reading the materials, I understood how much work you did. I mean, I can't even imagine the work. So my sincere thank you to you for doing this. Yeah, major kudos. It made this conversation easy. It made the meeting.
[Unidentified]: Good meeting.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Efficient and effective. This is one of the best meetings we have had in my estimation. I really mean that. And I felt a lot of clarification tonight. And I know that having these and having them prepared, so I know. Thank you very much. And now I'll be quiet. Thank you.
[Maria D'Orsi]: Before we adjourn, Ron, can you say one more time the date of the next meeting?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thursday, April 11th. At 7th. You know, I probably, on that particular day, I don't have my grandson, so I could move it to 630 if that was preferable.
[Phyllis Morrison]: Yes, I could go to bed earlier.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Is that preferable? Yeah, but maybe I'll make it a two-hour meeting.
[Milva McDonald]: I believe we have full committee meetings on the 4th and the 18th, so.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Aubrey, does that work for you to have a 630? Does that work for you? Oh, right. What?
[Maria D'Orsi]: We trained bedtime, so that'll be fine.
[Libby Brown]: All right, so April. Do we have any homework? Any action for each of us?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Who's going to do the minutes, guys? Aubrey. Aubrey, you're going to do that? OK, great. Thank you, Aubrey. I don't think I have anything else specific except reviewing whatever I send out. OK. All right?
[Unidentified]: That's good.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I get in trouble. All right. Thank you all. Okay, so I heard a motion for adjournment. Everybody in favor? Second by Phyllis. Everybody in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you. Thanks, everybody.
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