[Ruseau]: And the family yes, I'm a Graham yes, never doubt that yes, never about it, yes, never and so yes, ever so yes, Maryland occurred.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, I mean the. We'll move forward to the consent agenda. We have approval of bills and payroll, approval of capital purchases, approval of grants, approval of field trips, approval of meeting minutes, regular meeting September 23rd, 2024, special meeting September 25th, 2024. Is there a motion on the floor for approval of the consent agenda?
[Edouard-Vincent]: Motion to approve.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Olapade, seconded by? I'll second. Member Branley, all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Consent agenda is approved. We don't have any reports of subcommittees, and we have five reports of our superintendent. First up, Dr. Edouard-Vincent, superintendent's updates and comments.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Good evening, everyone. Welcome to tonight's school committee meeting. As the leaves have begun to change color, today's rain put a slight halt to what was a beautiful stretch of fall weather here in Medford. Whether you have participated in New England fall classics, such as apple picking, scarecrow designing, or escaping a challenging corn maze, I hope you and your families are able to enjoy the autumn beauties of what Middlesex County has to offer. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a time to honor those affected by breast cancer and to spread awareness about early detection and treatment options. The American Cancer Society held their annual Boston Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk this weekend, and it was terrific to see so many members of New England come together for this important cause. Remember, regular screenings and self-exams can make a vital difference. According to the National Breast Cancer Foundation, when caught in its earliest localized stages, the five-year relative survival rate of breast cancer is 99%. I encourage you to visit their website and other resources for further information about breast cancer awareness. Also, October is Down Syndrome Awareness and Dyslexia Awareness Month. This month, let's come together to raise awareness and celebrate the unique strengths of our diverse community. Medford Public Schools staff members are here to support all of our students and families working to reach their educational goals. While there are lots of exciting developments across Mustang Nation since we all last gathered, this weekend was another busy one across Mustang Nation, with students, families, and staff members coming together to achieve goals and create long-lasting memories. On a very high note, our Medford High School football team scored a big victory over our next-door neighbors, Somerville High School, on Friday night, where captain Justin Marino broke a 52-year-old school record. the senior scored six touchdowns, eclipsing Babe Colonna's record of five set on Thanksgiving in 1972. In addition to his six touchdowns, Marino finished the game with 200 rushing yards, an interception, a blocked field goal, and a fumble recovery in a 48 to 12 victory for our Mustangs. I'd also like to thank Tufts University for hosting and to our supporters for their sportsmanship displayed throughout the game. After performing alongside our football team on Friday, our Medford High School marching band spent Saturday afternoon and evening at the New England Scholastic Band Association's fall event at Westford Academy. I am happy to share that our band finished in first place in their division. Perhaps even more impressively, the band also took home overall competition awards in both Best Visual Performance and Best General Effect. The Best Visual Performance Award showcases the stunning visual elements of our Mustang performance, which were brought to life by our talented guard and precise choreography. Similarly, the Best General Effect Award reflects the overall impact of the performance, from the music to the visuals, and how well the bands came together to create a cohesive and engaging experience for the audience and judges alike. Congratulations to our new band director, Michael Dampier, and all of our students for their amazing performances this weekend. We look forward to continuing to hear you shine throughout the school year. Among many other exciting events, yesterday, our Brooks Elementary School hosted their annual fall festival. This beloved event was a fantastic way to embrace the spirit of the season and support our school community. They had a wide variety of exciting games, food, rides, crafts, and vendors for kids and families of all ages to enjoy. I'd like to give a special thank you to the Brooks PTO and Principal Shannon Deimos and her school community for hosting this welcoming event. Tomorrow, Medford Public Schools and the City of Medford will be hosting the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the McGlynn Elementary School. Tuesday, October 8th, beginning at 3.30 p.m. to celebrate the official opening of our new universally accessible playground. Members of the public are invited to celebrate and most importantly, play on the new playground following the ceremony. The new playground has already been used by our school and surrounding community and the early enjoyment has been so heartwarming to witnesses. There are countless types of play opportunities for all children. The new and inclusive Gaga pit has especially been a roaring success amongst all the new playground equipment. If you need a reasonable accommodation to attend or participate in tomorrow's ribbon-cutting ceremony, please contact the City of Medford ADA coordinator, Ms. Frances Nwaje. As a reminder to our community, next Monday, there will be no school in observance of Indigenous Peoples Day and Columbus Day. Tonight, you will hear a report on the Communities That Care Youth Survey from Assistant Superintendent, Dr. Peter Cushing, Director of School Counseling and Behavioral Health, Stacey Shulman, Director of Physical Education and Health, Ms. Perry, Rachel Perry, joining us online, and the Medford Manager of the Office of Prevention and Outreach, Ms. Catherine Dhingra. Later on, you will hear an elementary literacy update from Assistant Superintendent, Dr. Galusi, and Director of Humanities, Dr. Chiesa. And finally, Dr. Cushing will present on Medford Public Schools rate cards and on a recommendation to approve construction of the Brooks hot water heater. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Dr. Edouard-Vincent. We have number two, Communities That Care Youth Survey. Dr. Peter Cushing, Assistant Superintendent of Enrichment Innovation and Operations, Ms. Stacey Shulman, Director of School Counseling and Behavioral Health, Ms. Rachel Perry, Director of Physical Education and Health, Ms. Catherine Dhingra, Manager of our Office of Prevention and Outreach for the City of Medford. Welcome, everybody.
[Cushing]: Good evening, Madam Mayor and members of the committee. Thank you for this opportunity to present as we do every two years on the Community Cares Youth Survey. Tonight's presentation looks a little bit different, just also because Catherine is new to the team and really want to welcome her. She's been a really great help to us as we've been moving through. And Director Perry is online. If you'll just give me a second while I share my screen. Um, two slides were added. Those are at your place. Um, those will be updated to the, uh, report as well. Uh, when it's posted online and So the Communities that Care Youth Survey has been administered to Medford High School and middle school students in 2017, 19, 21, and 23 using bivariate chi-square analyses. The results have been examined. on whether student outcomes differed from the year of the survey administration. And 2023, we added personal characteristics, gender identity, sexual race identity, and otherwise noted finding was deemed significant where there was a standard deviation of approximately 0.5. I'll now hand it over to the team and see you in a few minutes.
[Dhingra]: So, hi everyone. My name is Catherine Dingra and I am pleased to be part of this team. I started in the city of Medford back in June and coming from about 20 years experience doing surveys like this and other communities including Wakefield and Lynn. And what's great about coming into Medford is seeing the wide variety of programming that you all are doing already here to address the protective factors and risk factors. So this survey gave us a nice overview of what the Medford students, their gender, sexual orientation, race and ethnicity, along with protective factors and risk factors that we're going to get into. So we really wanted to look at behavioral health, substance use rates, bullying, and some of the other factors that impact students' health and well-being, that impact their ability to learn in the school environment. So we're gonna take a look at that tonight and take a look at how the personal characteristics impact those stats. So we'll move to the next slide. Okay, so I'm gonna turn it over to Stacey for mental health.
[Schulman]: So these are some of the factors that the survey asks. As you can notice, they talk about four groupings of questions that lead to potential depressive symptoms by year. This is all four of the survey distributions from 2017 to 2013. And you'll notice, we're very happy to see that depressive symptoms are trending downward from the 2019-2021 peaks. This is middle school students' depressive symptoms by sexual orientation. So you'll notice that our LGBTQ plus population are more likely to endorse depressive symptoms in our middle schools. This is by race and ethnicity. There was a trend here. So on this trend, we wanna note that the P value is less than 0.10, which is not statistically significant, but middle school students who identified as Latino were more likely to endorse depressive symptoms. I'm sorry, that it is statistically significant than students who identify as white on three of the four items. For high school students, this is the same four questions we're looking at again, depressive symptoms. You'll once again notice that the 2023, there was a drop in students endorsing depressive symptoms. So that's the trend that we wanna see continue on. Depressive symptoms by gender at the high school, you'll notice that our genderqueer, non-binary, unsure students are noting more depressive symptoms than other categories. Substance use, back to Catherine.
[Dhingra]: So as you can, yeah, I'm just gonna show a picture back on. As you can see, substance use trends have changed dramatically over the years. And here are kind of some of the more recent substance use trends of things that we've had to take a look at what our students are encountering and what the trends are. So you can see that pen down on the corner is actually a THC vape pen found in a, neighboring district schools. So the devices are different. The Zen pouches are a way that students are utilizing nicotine now. And we know alcohol continues to be the number one substance that students are using. We were happy to see middle school substance use rates trending down. And this is a national trend and a statewide trend that overall substance use rates are trending down And we're glad to see that and sometimes we did see an increase in vaping in the middle school. So That's something that we are looking at The high school we had because of the survey intake of juniors and seniors we decide not to present those CTC data because it was lower amongst our juniors and seniors and it didn't it didn't prove valid to show the trend data. So I wanted to show the high school substance use rates across the state, which typically I looked at some comparison tended to trend with Medford year over year. So you can see statistically that substance rates are coming down with both alcohol, marijuana, and vaping across the state have come down, but it's still something that we're concerned about, but one thing that we'll talk about when we talk about strategies in a little bit is you see the higher numbers, but we really like to say that most students aren't using substances, so. Mayor? Member Ruseau?
[Ruseau]: Are these percentages on this slide?
[Dhingra]: Yes, those are percentages. I'm sorry, I tried to insert percentages, but that's percentage of students ninth through 12th grade.
[Cushing]: And Peter is going to talk about some we did we talk about quantitative data and we talked about qualitative data and this is some interesting data So, thanks to some funds coming in from the opera grant that the city has We have installed four vape sensors at Medford High School two in two girls bathroom one in two girls bathrooms and in boys' bathrooms as well. We are watching this data. It is worth its weight, I think, in gold because it is showing, I think, how vast the problem is and the challenge to really educate our youth as to the challenges of vape. So these are some screen captures that came in. that give you a sense of the health index, the air quality index. You'll see that air quality index broken out in the next slide. That was a slide that I gave you today. You also see the number of instances This data was from last Friday when I inserted it. So week to date on the bathrooms. One of the sensors was not properly connected so it wasn't collecting data, which is why it's low. but we rectified that issue. They were installed on the last Thursday in September. I think that was September 27th. And you see the week forward data for last week, 104, 92, 68, and 45 over the various bathrooms. It also picks up, the sensors pick up acts of aggression. words of aggression, they don't record or anything along those lines but if somebody says help if somebody here if it does seem like a commotion, it will register as aggression, it will register if the device is being tampered with it will register, and I'll move to the next slide. You can see here the air quality indexes as well as noise levels in the bathrooms for the highest points of noise. It gives you the temperature, the CO, the CO2, and those types of things. These also are things that we haven't had the professional development yet to really dive into. I see a question, Madam Mayor.
[Reinfeld]: Can we see a copy of what the baseline numbers look like? What is elevated? Is zero the baseline on everything?
[Cushing]: I can get you those. Thank you. Yes.
[Branley]: Member Bramley? So acts of words of aggression if device is tampered with, have we seen that devices have been tampered with?
[Cushing]: Unfortunately, one device was removed from the ceiling by students on the second day. But we were able to respond, myself and Principal Cabral, just because we were the only two people at that point receiving the data, as they had literally been set up the day before. We both responded to the bathroom and addressed the students in question. Principal Cabral took over and dealt with the situation. The device has been restored to its place on the ceiling. Students were shocked to think that they might be responsible for a $2,500 device if they were to destroy it. And that helped with the identification of individuals involved.
[Branley]: And then with the acts of words or aggression, how are we following up with that?
[Cushing]: I would have to the we actually just had the first one this morning, so I would have to follow up with the principle of that but right now just so that everyone's aware we're purchasing iPads, so that not only our cameras, but also the sensors can be monitored by our building monitors the system principles, while they move throughout the building. And so, While the results come to their email, once the app is loaded on your phone, you can set up for notifications as well. As you can tell from the levels of data, which, hold on, I just got to remember what the next slide is. This is another slide. As you can see, it's a frequent occurrence. And please remember, these are four locations. I would love to be able to see us eventually move to a point where these are more ubiquitous in the district and also in our middle school bathrooms as well. Because the data, and I think Catherine might be able to speak to this far better than I can, but the data that we're seeing is that the usage of these vape devices is happening at sometimes fifth and sixth grade.
[Branley]: So just a follow-up question on that. With the amount that the device is going off, say 104 times for the second floor boys bathroom, is that bathroom being monitored? I mean, I'm assuming no one's running to the bathroom 104 times during a day to see the device went off, so what's happening?
[Cushing]: But it's also monitoring a bathroom while students are expecting a certain level of privacy. So what we're doing is we're marrying this data with our camera system. to be able to have those conversations, use the I Decide program for diversion, and to really try to not see this as a disciplinary issue, but to see this as a public health crisis for our students, and to be able to really understand how, as a society, we had beaten back tobacco, but have now widely opened the doors on vaping. Thank you. And if Catherine or Stacey or Rachel, who's on the call, have anything else to add, I welcome it because I know Stacey is intimately involved with the I Decide program. Moving forward to bullying. So, Medford middle schoolers endorsed experiencing both physical and cyber bullying from 2017 to 2023 at a very similar frequency. So, you can see the results when the surveys were done. Experienced physical bullying in the past 30 days. The percentages are here, so you can see of respondents, that's percentage. Experienced verbal bullying in the past 30 days. and experienced cyberbullying in the past 30 days at pretty consistent rates across the years. Middle school bullying experiences by race and ethnicity. So middle schools identified as black were more likely to endorse experiencing physical bullying than those who identified as white. Middle schoolers who identified as black were more likely to endorse experiencing cyberbullying than those who identified as Latino or white. High schoolers who identified as LGBTQ plus were more likely than those who identified as heterosexual to endorse experiencing bullying and high school bullying experiences, verbal bullying, 2017 to 2023 in a similar frequency. And just so you know, these are things that the district is continually working on. And now we'll be talking about the strategies being put into play and protective factors.
[Schulman]: Thank you, Peter. So in terms of our strategies and protective factors that we have at Medford Public Schools, helpful adults, as we've talked about before, are one of the key strategies in order to both connect with our students and get students connected to care if they need it. So we're pleased to see here that high school students increased their naming someone who is a helpful adult at the high school and middle schoolers, there was really not much change from the past few years. High schoolers who primarily spoke English at home were more likely to endorse experiencing a helpful adult at school. So that's an important data point for us to consider moving forward. Once again, here is our MTSS system of support in terms of counseling and supportive services to address students who are in need of care. Social-emotional strategies that we have across the district include restorative practices, our wind blocks, our advisory classes, health and wellness classes, Nexus, and EL class push-ins from Councilors. School culture and support systems district-wide include our Start with Hello programming, which is under Sandy Hook Promise, our GSA programming, both at the middle school and high school, And of course, our say something reporting service, the Mustang All Stars at the high school level, Mustang Way at the middle school, we're running circles. And then the high school level is running PD on equity, highlighting a sense of belonging. The city is also running a campaign to reach out to our community members to get them connected to care who are part of our Latino population. In terms of substance use prevention and intervention strategies, we have a lot of new programs that we're lucky to have this year. We're running an I Decide Diversion program for students who are caught vaping. That is about four hours. of education around substances. It's an alternative to punitive response for students. We are lucky to have a youth wellness coach with us two days a week, who is running Project AMP. That's students one-on-one coaching. And it really is a youth-driven substance use prevention and early intervention program for students. And then we will be starting, we just identified our advisor, a Medford Youth Action Team. And we'll be connecting with the help of Catherine, our Youth Action Team lead, and students to other neighborhood schools who are running similar programs. This is Katie Kobe, our Youth Wellness Coach. She is mentored and supported by C4 Initiatives, and we were able to have a Youth Wellness Coach through the support of our partnership with MGH, so we're really pleased. I'll let Rachel talk to the evidence-based health education.
[Perry]: Good evening, everybody. I apologize for not being there. I just finished up a volleyball game, so I'm online. So some of the things we've been doing in health education, we're using the Michigan model for health for K to 12. We conducted a HECAT evaluation of the Michigan model and decided to stay with it, but to make some changes and to look at a new sex education curriculum Desi just came out with their recommendation, so that's something we'll be working on. For K-5, we have our Nexus curriculum, which now includes health education lessons that started last year. So now our elementary students will be getting more health education lessons. We also updated our puberty lessons for we're using puberty happens lessons added for our fifth graders that also happened last year, and we are also combining everyone together in those lessons on this year we're adding vaping. lessons to the fifth grade nexus curriculum, because what we have seen in the past year is we're seeing more students in the sixth grade starting to vape. So we're trying to pull those lessons in a little bit earlier to help educate our students. Guidance Councilors are doing introduction days at the high school in our phys ed and health classes. So that's for ninth graders so that when they come to the high school, they get to meet that guidance Councilor. as part of their health and phys ed class, they go to their office, they talk about what their guidance Councilor can help them with so that they have that relationship early on in their freshman year. We also, with our new wellness coach, she's gonna be coming into our phys ed and health classes to introduce herself and to talk a little bit to our students about what she can support them with. We have our suicide prevention presentations, our SOS and NAN project, That happens throughout our health classes from nine to 12. Mentors and violence prevention lessons in our portal to hope presentation. That's been happening for the past few years as well. We've been increasing our professional development for our teachers and for myself. We've had our teachers go last year out to Mayford and get some training in health education there. We had our nexus teachers actually train in puberty education. We had our high school teachers go out and train in sex education as well. Staff will be going on November 5th again to Mayford to get some more training. So we're really trying to increase our training for our staff to make sure that we're supporting and supplying the needs of our students. We're going to continue to make KiCat and Frameworks changes to our curriculum this year. So hopefully by the end of the year, we will have everything mapped out and ready to go. And we will be continuing to review the DESE recommended curriculums to make that decision. And I think that's all I have. I'll speak to a little bit of the caregiver and parent university. which we have started this year. We did an athletic orientation, which Catherine did some presenting as well, which was great. We had 200 parents that attended that presentation. We did a training back in April on drug, alcohol, and addictive education and the doctors that spoke talked about curriculums and presenting the education to our students. But the biggest piece was to make sure that we're adding parents into that mix. The parents need this education as well. So that was one of the big things that we wanted to add was a parent caregiver university. And that's, you know, starting this year. And I know, Catherine, if you want to talk about the navigating the caregiver's guide that you put together.
[Dhingra]: Sure. Peter's just getting our new, um, hot off the press, hot off the press caregiver university. And this is an initiative I did in my previous district and it was widely successful. And that's the thing that we're excited as the health department to partner with the schools and leverage resources. So we can, we know that children are well when their families are well, so we can provide that education and partner with the schools. and hear what some of the concerns are and bring those resources in. So we're excited to launch the Medford Caregiver University, which will have a flagship experience. And then throughout the year, we'll have a lot of different variety of topics based on what we're hearing from both parents and educators. So we'll be doing that. Another thing we created was navigating the teen year guides. If you were at one of our back to school nights, you got your guide. And that's something, again, we partnered with the schools hearing about the different topics that they knew caregivers wanted to learn about. And from the city, we put that together. So we're just really thrilled to be partnering with the schools and helping our children be well and helping our parents stay educated and our caregivers stay educated on supporting their young people.
[Lungo-Koehn]: What? All right. Member Reinfeld and Member Graham.
[Reinfeld]: I have three questions, two of them for Director Perry. You said HECAT framework changes to curriculum end of year. Is that end of calendar year or end of school year?
[Perry]: I am hoping to get it done by the end of calendar year.
[Reinfeld]: Thank you. And then I was wondering at the middle school level, how the reduction in guidance Councilors has affected the delivery of health education. I know that was a big question during budget season about the teaching responsibilities with that position.
[Perry]: So I'll be, I don't know if Stacy wants to take that with the guidance Councilor.
[Schulman]: Sure. All of the classes are covered by the one Councilor in the building.
[Reinfeld]: have other, do they have room in their schedule for other activities? That was one of the things that concerns were expressed about.
[Schulman]: Sure. I think that, um, as we expected, it's challenging, um, for one person and, um, they're doing the best they can with the support of their, um, school adjustment Councilor, school social workers.
[Reinfeld]: Thank you. And then my third question was just to confirm that the caregiver university is an a la carte model. People can tune in and out to different sessions. It's not an enrollment based. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Member Reinfeld. Member Graham?
[Graham]: Thank you. Can you tell me a little bit about where the content for Caregiver University comes from? Like, are we creating content? Are we buying content?
[Dhingra]: So usually, it's a partnership between the city and the schools, and the content is usually both in-district expertise, So we might, and then academically and then social emotional topics. So we might bring in partners from the community or we might leverage, you know, somebody at Tufts University who is an expert on children and play or something like that. So the topics range and usually we'll try to bring in a keynote on a topic that would cover, you know, that's more general. For example, someone like Lynn Lyons on anxiety where a lot of, you know, That's a hot topic that a lot of people want to learn about. And then breakout sessions on college planning to the new math standards or something like that.
[Graham]: And is it videos? Is it actual e-learning? Is it seminars? Can I watch this stuff any time? Or how do I consume it?
[Cushing]: So, ultimately, we want to make sure that we're able to, as best we can, save presentations and have them available either through the district YouTube channel or other media to be able to do. But there'll be some as, you know, we've now implemented mandatory back to athletics nights for each of the seasons. So those will be more challenging to record to present those types of things, but our hope is that a good example of an outside partner coming in last fall, if I remember correctly we had Dr Englander. present on zoom, that would be an example of a future or past event that would fall under the caregiver parent and caregiver university logo as well as those athletic nights and really trying to make sure that we're presenting to parents the things that are gonna really help them to work with their children to make their children be successful and be successful as parents. So we haven't really gone into an e-learning model on it yet. It's more being able to produce the content and quality that really attracts parents and caregivers. Because I think one of the things that we've all seen is when we put these efforts on, they're not sometimes the best attended. So we want to make sure that they do remain available for people throughout. But I want to also, if the other three members of the team have anything to add.
[Graham]: So I guess what I would like to see is that there's like a central place where all of this content can live. Like the athletics night is a great example. It was mandatory. I was unable to attend. I don't know how I, address that as a parent. But no one's followed up with me either. So that would be like an example of, yes, it's in person. Yes, you want people to come in person. But what, like, what can this platform do for us to make sure that actually the parents who couldn't, I think there might have been a school committee, something at the same time. So who can't come for whatever the reason might be still get the content that is happening in those important meetings, because like you said, people are busy, they people need to be able to consume content, sort of when it's convenient for them. But I think in some cases, we also need to know that they consumed content, like, every time I register Lucas for sports, there's like 100 pages of waivers, and 100 things I'm supposed to like, view and watch. And I actually make an effort to do that. But it is extremely easy to just scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, and click that I have done it. But if what the district is seeking is like cover, that's fine. You know, so if Lucas gets a concussion, like I, you have my signature that I've done something, but there's no evidence that you can point to that I actually did or didn't scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, click, sign my name and I'm done. Right. So I think there's like compliance and what we want, you know, from a requirements perspective as we think about all of this going forward, but then there's actually like, did it sink in or did it stick in any way, shape or form? And was the thing that was really important actually delivered? And I would argue that when you sign your kids up for sports, that is not true. Like the thing you needed parents to know when they like rolled out of that sign up, it's, It's not the takeaway. The takeaway is, wow, this system is bad. And it is really tedious and time consuming. And I'm glad that's over. So I want to see parents be educated about these things. And I think parents genuinely want to be. But I think we have to do a better job of delivering that content for parents to do that. So I'm hoping that we can address some of that when we are thinking about the build out of this parent and caregiver university, because I think it's it's very needed for all kinds of reasons.
[Dhingra]: Yeah, and because a lot of this will be funded under grants, evaluation is a key part of that. So that's where we evaluate indefinitely. And having parents and caregivers on the committee that help determine and provide feedback like that is crucial. So thank you. So we did... We just did want to follow up with our next steps on where we'll go with health and wellness and our students' well-being. As far as school data goes, we, as a team, are looking at exploring moving from the CTC to the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. This is what a lot of the communities around us do. This is what the state does, so it's easier to compare to similar communities and to the state. So the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. We'll add in more protective factor questions. And then also the IDECIDE and MGH school-wide assessment as part of being partners with MGH. That is a key component. So we'll have some more quantitative data in the years to come. We'll be launching the Parent and Caregiver University. So we look forward to being able to provide data and insight from that. I know Rachel's been doing more with the professional development, including health educators and looking at the statewide standards. And again, partnering with the health department, we can help leverage some professional development training and bring in outside experts for the school staff. We have a task force that's gotten together to really start to address some of these strategies. So in the last four months, We have incorporated a lot of new strategies to address these behavioral health substance use. And we're looking forward to continuing to make changes.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you very much. Appreciate the presentation. Yes, next we have report on elementary literacy update Dr. Suzanne Galusi, Assistant Superintendent of Academics and Instruction and Dr. Nicole Chiesa, Director of Humanities. Welcome.
[Galusi]: Good evening. Would help if I turn the microphone on. As Dr. Cushing puts the presentation up, I just want to say good evening. Thank you very much for the opportunity for us to talk to you tonight and provide an elementary literacy update. So the structure of this presentation tonight is gonna highlight the work of our elementary literacy plan for school year 24-25, as we continue to advance and strengthen our literacy instruction across the district. This is a plan that is co-constructed with administration and the district leadership literacy team, as well as our consultant Hill for Literacy. Our agenda for this evening We are going to highlight the elementary district literacy plan. I'm going to speak to about the role of the elementary literacy coaches. We are going to speak about the district literacy leadership team, the training, the coaching, the professional development we have done and we continue to do throughout the year. How the inter-reading program implementation has gone and will continue to go. The data meetings that we have, the structure and the format that we've set up in the district, what we have done thus far and what we will continue to do throughout the year. We will talk a little bit about the student supports as a result of the gathered data and highlight some key family communication events and outreach opportunities. So first, just because this is the frame for our work this year, as well as the presentation for this evening, these are our four key levers of our elementary district literacy plan for the year. So first is to install systems and processes to support the implementation of a multi-tiered assessment and instructional framework, which we have been building for a number of years now, but we're really at the stage this year where we're starting to put a lot of those teams in place and data cycles and training so that we actually can create a process moving forward across the district from school to school. use core supplemental and intervention literacy curricula in a multi-tiered instructional model at each grade level effectively and strategically. This is the piece that is really guiding a lot of our instruction so that teachers are really able to get an understanding of what to do with all of the data that we are collecting so that they can make those instructional decisions to target what students specifically need. Collaborate through shared knowledge, skills, language, and collaboration among teachers based on the essential components of literacy and evidence-based instructional practices. This is the key piece of that collaboration. Teachers coming together to share their their knowledge, their skillset, that is done through common planning times, that is done through some training activities, and that is also done for the teachers that participate in the district literacy leadership team. I'm gonna say DLLT for short. And then finally, construct an assessment system and process for using measures of student performance to inform decisions at the district, school, grade, classroom, and individual student levels. And that's kind of the fruition of all of our work here. We are so excited. We're growing very, excuse me, yeah, I know. We're growing very slowly here. But this body so graciously made sure that literacy coaches were a priority in the budget, which we are very grateful for, and thank you for that. We did start the year with three coaches, and unfortunately we are down to two, so we've had to do a little restructuring district-wide. The position is still posted, and Dr. Chiesa and I, with the two literacy coaches that are on staff and fully working, are still vetting resumes and going through that process. But we are so happy and very pleased. We have Kristen Howell, who has been a very long devoted Medford Public Schools employee. She was in a classroom for several years and also most recently has been a reading, a title one reading teacher at the Missittuck Elementary School. She's phenomenal. She will be servicing grades K through two. And she also does work for the Hill for Literacy as a coach and an instruction specialist. Both of our literacy coaches are reading licensed and fully accredited. And new to Medford Public Schools is Julie Terwitz. She has come to us, she has taught in primary grades in Dedham Public Schools, and most recently in Needham Public Schools as both a classroom teacher and then also as a literacy coach. Julie is also highly accredited, but she will be servicing grades three through five for Metropolitan Public Schools. They work in tandem. And so when they are creating their schedules, they are going to schools together so that they are working with teachers. Their role this year, they're going to get some direct coaching from Hill for Literacy. but they are here to support teachers and to support principals. So in their support for teachers district-wide, they are working with them to model lessons for the newly implemented inter-reading program. They are helping troubleshoot. They are also helping to, when teachers have identified what an instructional focus is for students, they're going to help model some of what that small group instruction could look like. And they also have an active hand in the data cycles that we are running five times this year, which Dr. Chiesa will highlight a little later. They also are helping to support the elementary principals. So again, with data cycles and data analysis and what principals can help support their teachers with, but also to help identify any need for professional development and keep Dr. Keyes and I in the loop. Last year, Kristen Howell was in the same role as a literacy coach, and she did provide a caregiver Dibbles presentation. We are going to continue that this year, and both Kristen and Julie the dates are here, we'll be providing one in person in the evening and also virtually during the school day to hopefully accommodate varying schedules for caregivers. This is an overview of what DIBLS-8 is, what it looks like, why we're collecting the data, and it will also be, we are also nearing the end of our data on the recent DIBLS assessment. And so we will highlight a little bit of that. So some parents will also get this specifically in Letters Home, just to highlight the dates. And so now I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Chiesa to talk a little bit about DLLT and our data cycles.
[Chiesa]: Thank you. Good evening, everybody. We're going to talk a little bit about our district literacy leadership team DLLT, which is an opportunity for us to have educators, administrators, multiple people involved in making some strong literacy choices. so that we can all own the choices together and hear multiple voices. This is our third year of the DLLT. The first two years were co-facilitated with Hill for Literacy. Year one was our core program review where we were looking at the different options in terms of which program we would purchase and adopt as a district. The second year was taking that program and really going through all the nuances in terms of program implementation. What did we need? How did teachers need to be supported? What was working? What isn't? As you can imagine, it's quite a comprehensive program. So there was a lot to digest and working together with the teachers, we were able to really lead the pathway for that. Participants served on that committee for two years, and now we move into year three. So year three will also be a two-year commitment. This year participants will include Assistant Superintendent Galussi, myself, we will have special education coordinators on this committee just like we did the last cycle. Our English learner director will be on the team, both literacy coaches, and then we've offered it up to teachers to see who will participate. So we are getting a range of teachers, kindergarten through fifth grade, special education teachers, EL teachers, and our reading teachers. We want to ensure that each school is represented and as much as possible, and we want to ensure that each grade is represented as well, as much as possible, each grade, each school, if we can get there. Some of the topics that we will look at over the next two years are looking at our foundational reading needs. We continue to constantly look at that with the data. And then looking at how the program can support or what other tools we may need, what other groupings we may need, schedules and such. We'll look at comprehension needs. Once students have been able to decode, their comprehension is a significant initiative that we need to make sure we're understanding what we're reading. We're looking at writing sequences, small group instruction, how grammar plays into our instruction, We'll continue in this group to look at assessment and notification cycles, and then continue to vet and inform report card alignment. That alone is a huge initiative, but we want to make sure we have it on that list because it is a big need. So quite a bit that we hope to accomplish in the DLLT over the next two years. As we go on, the next slide is going to share with you some of the literacy training that's been accomplished over the past year. So we have, well, actually two years, we have the science of reading series offered through the Hill for literacy. And that was where we had multiple teachers and administrators trained. So if you see from the slides, we had our elementary teachers, reading teachers, all engaged in the science of reading series through the Hill. We then had multiple elementary teachers, K through two and three through five, begin the training in 2023, and that will carry into 2025. And then we've had our administrators engage in the training as well. So we began last year, principals, assistant principals, special ed coordinators, EL director, we began last year, and we will continue with the modules this year. If you're interested in learning more about our module series, it's a wonderful course. We look at the brain in reading. We look at the power of phonemic awareness. You have the list there. But each module, as you can imagine, is quite intense and really helps us see from an administrator what we should be seeing in the classroom for the science of reading and for the teachers how they can continue to use their instruction to support this. Additional trainings have included DIBLS. We have with our Medford, with a partnership with Medford Public Schools and The Hill, we have trained all elementary reading teachers in administering DIBLS. We have begun the process of training, planning the training for the elementary educators. So on March 4th, our PD day, we will ensure that all our elementary educators are trained and our special education program teachers will begin that initial training in the winter. In addition, we have another diagnostic. So we have the dibbles. And then when we need to dig deeper, we have what we call the letter name, letter sound inventories, as well as the quick phonics screener. And so we train teachers, the literacy coaches did a wonderful job providing a strong overview of these inventories and these diagnostics. for our teachers so that they could be equipped to administer them correctly and get the information that they needed. Another training that we just had in September was on Lexia Core 5, which was offered through Lexia Learning and Medford Public Schools. So really ensuring that the teachers understand how to capitalize on Lexia Core 5 and personalize instruction for students, particularly during small groups. So we've taken that training. Oh, I'm sorry.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Member Ruseau.
[Ruseau]: Thank you. I think I know the answer, but I just want you to confirm the English learners are not the letter name, letter sound inventories is they're not there because of they have a very different.
[Chiesa]: Correct. They did not. And what you're looking at is the true the training for them. For the QPS, the quick phonics screener, we are training, we are providing an overview to all EL teachers because the newcomer teachers do use that. They actually use a... We're all using our district version now, so they do use the quick phonics screener. So we've decided that we will give an overview to the newcomer teachers again on the district version of our QPS. And also, even though the EL pull-out teachers won't use it, won't administer it, we do want to ensure that they are aware of it so that we can continue those lines of communications. We don't want to operate in silos, obviously. Does that answer your question? It does, yes. OK, thank you. Anyone else? I will keep going. So we take our training, and we move on to our data cycle and meeting format. fairly intensive process where we now take all the data that you've seen us review just now and look at it as a team. We had a wonderful two days where we had all our classroom teachers as well as our EL newcomer teachers take this data and really begin to analyze it. We will and I'm going to talk a little bit more about that in a moment but just so you can get an overview of this. We will have three data meetings for our beginning of year benchmarks, our middle of year benchmark, and our end of year benchmark. So those three trainings will occur and all students engage in those, take those assessments. We also have, well, we have the progress monitoring. So we have our second data meeting is our fall progress monitoring. All teachers are involved in that, but not all students take progress monitoring. It depends on the outcome of the initial benchmark. So if we take a benchmark and we determine based on looking at the data from data meeting one, as well as other information, if we determine that those students will be progress monitored, we will then be looking at their data at that second meeting and then the fourth. Okay, so we have five data meetings with Hill for Literacy, very informative, making sure that data is not sitting there, making sure it's used for instruction, that it's not just testing for the sake of testing, it's testing to inform instruction. The next slide, which is slide nine, just gives you an overview of the specificities of the benchmarks that we do administer. So at the beginning of the year, we are administering, depending on the grade and depending on the need, We have DIBELS, NWEA MAP, LNI, LSI, or QPS as needed. And then we also have those Hill data meetings. Our progress monitoring, we'll look at DIBELS, the letter name sound inventories, and the quick phonics screener, and then so on and so forth. I don't know if you want me to go through each one, but you can get a sense of the different assessments as we move through these meetings. And I already alluded to this, but essentially what we do with the data is we're going to make data informed decisions. So some things that the teachers have already done after the first data meeting were to identify the skills students needed to master. At the first data meeting, which occurred just last week, for each child, they implemented what we call an instructional focus. So they looked at each child, the different assessments that were available for the child, and working with Hill and the elementary reading department, we're able to choose an instructional focus for each student. From there, they're now working on constructing small groups based on data points and any additional instructional needs. And then we're reviewing the literacy materials as needed to support these students. So which materials from our very comprehensive program will be most beneficial to the student. They're collaborating with supporting staff as needed, and then we begin to activate the progress monitoring for specific students once we have engaged in instruction to make sure that the instruction we've selected is correct and is making gains for the child. And then we provide additional support for students as needed. So that first data meeting, quite a lot of this was covered, and teachers left with an instructional focus for their students to continue throughout next few weeks. And with that, I will turn it back to Dr. Galussi.
[Galusi]: And the only thing I would just quickly highlight, just so if we're wondering about the icon in the middle, I probably should have had you focus on that. That's okay. Part of this work in the data meetings that we're creating the structure for is this continuum platform and this is a literacy-based platform where all of the student data, the assessments, go onto this platform and it helps educators generate that instructional focus. And so with each progress monitoring and with each new assessment, that data will go in and we'll be able to keep track of the progress and how the students are doing because instructional, some students may have more than one instructional focus and we'll be able to target specifically what the need is. And then as they're progressing, move on to what's next. I just wanted to draw to that, that attention, um, to the platform that's being used during a lot of these data meetings. So the, the last little piece here, as we're taking all of this data, um, there is another level in terms of like the implementation. And these are the meetings that happen that are, uh, literacy and action we're calling it. And so, There are several administrative meetings monthly and throughout the year with Dr. Kieser and myself, the literacy coaches, and some of them are also with Hill for Literacy where we are constantly reviewing the data and setting goals and agendas for our meetings and any training or professional development or support that's needed. We're also making sure that we have monthly meetings with principals. So this, principals have a lot on their plates. They are getting training in science of reading, but they are also meeting with Hill for Literacy around data, and they are also meeting with myself and Dr. Chiesa around this same piece. And also that, how they can support teachers during literacy instruction in their classrooms. We also have meetings with the literacy coaches on quite a regular basis. Monthly, they have training with Hill for Literacy so that they are going on guided observations so that they are also learning firsthand and growing their skill as literacy coaches within our district. We have some teachers that have been wonderful and have volunteered to work directly with hill for literacy during those in person coaching sessions, which are happening once a month at every single elementary school. identify teachers at every building at every grade that will get the direct coaching from Hill, that our literacy coaches will also be there to observe, grow their skill set, and be able to also model that for other teachers. They are involved in direct co-planning and modeling with educators, as previously mentioned, and work with Dr. Chiesa and I to drive our literacy plan for the year. And then I've already kind of highlighted a lot of the principles. The only piece that hasn't been discussed is that they have dedicated common planning time with their staff to also move this work within their building based on specific building and grade level needs. And then the last piece is there are various ways that we try to, we are always looking to improve, but that we try to communicate with caregivers. So as previously mentioned, the literacy coaches will be doing a DIBLS 8 overview again in two different ways. Dr. Chiesa and I, as we did last year, will send out the DIBLS screening letter globally this week. that just explains to parents, again, about the DIBLS assessment and that what the regulations are around the early literacy screening per the Department of Education and Mass Literacy, and that they will hear from us if their child has been flagged for at-risk. We also sent home the NWEA map growth reports, we do that at the first report card so that teachers, there's that opportunity for conversation so that educators are able to explain to the caregiver how these are being used to target their students' specific need. Because just as a reminder, All of this data is really for the educators to meet the student needs, and for school based and district wide administrators to to support teachers, so they can meet the students needs. We also have the report card conference opportunities. And then the elementary reading department provides three to four family events for students and the caregivers of those students that receive reading services. Those are in the process of being created right now. There's usually three to four a year. And then Dr. Chiesa and I are also in the process of finalizing. We're going to have a caregiver evening that kind of shows the inter-reading program in action for caregivers. That will be sometime this fall. We're trying to be very ambitious just so that we can set the stage for that. And we welcome any questions or suggestions that you may have. Thank you.
[Graham]: Member Graham, then Member Reinfeld. Hi. There was some commentary on social media in the last week or so about whether or not the district provides DIBLS results. And the general consensus of the parents was you had to ask for those results. But it doesn't sound like that based on what you just said. So I'm just trying to understand clearly, like, who gets results? Does everyone get results? and if not, why not?
[Galusi]: So when we rolled this out last year, we were following the guidelines for mass literacy. And so as we presented last year, DIBLS is approved through the Department of Education, checks all the boxes, which is why we've navigated towards that. So their recommendation is for grades one through five, you use the first year benchmark and that you are informing parents that whose students were at risk. And kindergarten parents are informed at the middle of year benchmark.
[Graham]: And so what does it mean to be at risk? Like, is there like a threshold? And is there a reason why we would not just give everybody their results. Because basically what's happening on social media is sort of a push to go everybody as individuals to the principal to request the results. And that seems like it is going to be far more complicated than if we just gave parents the results that we have.
[Galusi]: I think when we, I think I understand that piece of it. So part of it is, I think we can have that conversation that I think that's fine. The way that we have, first I'll answer your first question. I was trying to remember your first question. So the first question was about, so for each grade level, there is a threshold. So for K and one, we're using what's called the composite number, which is kind of like a summary of all the subtests. And so for students that were flagged, it could mean several reasons. And a lot of times it just, some of it is readiness, but they, it's for students that are performing below grade level. And so for students in grades two through five, we use a predominant measure because we have the NWEA map. So we're not using the comprehension component of the DIBLS program. So it's, Students are flagged, unless you wanted to add on, students are flagged for being below grade level in the reading skill at risk.
[Graham]: For two to five?
[Galusi]: For all. Okay. Through K through five. It's just that level shifts depending on the grade.
[Graham]: Got it, got it. And on this chart where we have in our packet the whether schools are title one, how many total students there are, how many reading teachers there are in the grades that the reading teachers are servicing. Is there a way to add to that chart, like the number of students who are at risk? Because if you just look at the numbers, there's a huge distribution of how much support is happening in buildings. And if that's really perfectly aligned with like the number of students who need support, and then there's like even out caseloads, that makes some sense. but if you just look strictly at like total population it's hard to understand like are we doing are there enough reading teachers in our district and are they deployed in the right places?
[Galusi]: So I would I would say Yes. And so we always are looking at need, which is why we added an additional person to the McGlynn school based on the level of need, especially in last year's data, um, around our EL population and just how that population has shifted in the school. Um, but I also want, we can absolutely get you those numbers. I just also want to make note that the way that the reading services are also structured is a tiered approach. And so it is, we can give you the students that have been identified, but the reading teachers are servicing, I will break it down so that you can see that there are some students that are receiving reading services that are just receiving reading services. And then there are some students that are duly identified. So they're EL and they're also special education. So we could always use more support, but I will say that, especially for fiscal year 25, The I exhausted every penny I could on reading teachers.
[Graham]: Yeah, and I think I think that breakdown would be helpful and it would be helpful next year. for us, like, or, and I'm not even sure that this is the right, like, exact time of year to look at that. I don't know. Maybe, maybe it's like a look back for last year. I'm not sure. But like, whatever the thing is that we land on is like, this is when we're going to look at this. What you would ideally see over time as this curriculum takes hold, right, and matures in the district. And if we are being successful in our efforts to keep, to do more, sort of holistic instruction at tier one, there should be fewer students over time who need these services. And it would be ideal to be able to see that in this chart somehow. So like last year we had a hundred students at risk. This year we have 90. Like, so because, and I know it gets like very wild and complicated when you're talking about all the grades and all the things, but there has to, I feel like one of the things we don't do that well as a district is, give people a concise way to say, are we making progress? So I know that we have talked a lot about moving the need to where the need is. And so I'm making an assumption that that's why these numbers look so strange. Like if you really calculate the math, it intuitively makes sense to me based on what I know about each of those school buildings. But I want the data to actually just make that clear for everybody who just may not tune into these meetings every You know, for four or five hours every other Monday night so, so I think there's like a couple of things there from like a historical and data perspective that would be helpful to see. As we think about like this work and are we making progress.
[Chiesa]: So I just want to add, we did have another row in that table, which was exactly what students served actually. So it's funny that, and then we took, we got rid of it because right now we were still grappling with the data and didn't feel like that number was the true number quite yet, but absolutely we can get that number. In fact, today we were just looking at you know, the results. And actually, we were cross comparing like the two of the grades at one of the schools to look and see, was that going down? Yeah, where were the trends? So we can absolutely get the number. I don't think it's quite ready yet, but will be in the next week or so. So it was there.
[Graham]: And then we know, well, I think that's a good, that's a good question, which is like, when is the right time to have some of these conversations? This maybe is too early. if you want to look at what's happening, like from the beginning of the year to the end of the year, if you don't yet have the data. The other thing that's interesting, we were looking at cohort survival models for MSBA enrollment purposes, and it was easy to see a cohort move through the ranks, right? So you could see in this year, there were 100 kindergartners, and next year there were 99 first graders. And then the year after that, there were 102 second graders. So you could sort of see that progression. And I feel like that is like a really complicated data view. I don't know if the tools that you're using can provide something like that, but to be able to see a cohort improve over time, I think would actually tell the story that like this all works, right? So we had X number of kids in kindergarten. We had fewer kids in first grade. We had fewer kids in second grade. And by third grade, we had even fewer. So that's, I think what I would want to see from this. And if that means that this is not the right time of year to get this presentation, it's also not my personal goal to make you come to as many school committee meetings as possible to talk about literacy. So if there's a better time of year for you to come where like a better story is available, like I am all ears for that because this group, this, meeting has no shortage of topics. So we just want to make good use of your time and the data that's available.
[Galusi]: Just to echo what Dr. Keyes was saying, we literally have had these conversations ongoing. And I think where last year was the first year for DIBLS, and it was also the first year for the science of reading training for teachers, which that really is a huge priority for us to just keep pushing that. Every single teacher needs to have that science of reading training. And that's not an easy feat. And so I think in partnership with just continuing to have that, because in order to improve, as you so wonderfully said, that tier one instruction, we have to make sure that all the teachers have the science of reading training. And I think because this is the second year of DEVILS, we are starting to have those conversations around, because we're even seeing the need across classrooms and the teachers that are going to need some additional support. because of where the numbers are falling. So I think for us to be, and because the real key for kindergarten is not to the middle of the year, I think that for us to be looking at those five cycles of data, but to maybe come at the end of the year would be great. Okay, thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you.
[Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld? Yes, I was just wondering what opportunities there are for teachers to give feedback or share how well it is working for them. I realize there's still a lot of training going on, but that formative assessment of, is this curriculum working for us and for the people who are delivering it? I can see a lot of these meetings coming, we're looking at the student data and we're really focused on the students, which is absolutely important, but I, where the teacher voice and their experience, is that happening in the PD sessions? Is that happening in the weekly meetings?
[Chiesa]: I think to the, can I speak? Oh yeah, go ahead. The DLLT really also, there's multiple opportunities for teachers to express themselves, and we want that. But I will say that those that can join the DLLT team, or if they can't join but then a representative is reaching out to their colleagues, That is where we're doing a lot of looking at the program, especially last year when we were implementing and seeing, okay, the writing isn't, you know, we need to work a little bit more on nailing our sequencing down. And so I feel like the DLLT was very productive in doing that. It offered a safe space to share concerns and to share, you know, positive and negative, you know, different pieces. I do feel, to be fair, that the teachers are probably, still digesting the program because it is very comprehensive. We're all still learning. And that's why we need to have that DLLT team continue. We're actually going to be more in-person with the team too, which I don't think I mentioned, so that we can get some of those things done. One other example is, you know, one thing that the DLLT team did was it looked at the program and it came up with some common assessments. And we came up with, you know, what is an assessment that we know from the program that all second graders are going to take? And we very clearly said, this is something that we will circle back to. Did it work? Was this informative? And that's where that DLLT team will be very productive.
[Reinfeld]: And participation on the DLT is volunteer basis? Yes. And we don't turn anybody away. But there's no stipend?
[Chiesa]: There isn't a stipend on that one. But I do feel like the energy and the willingness to participate in it is quite high, because we're making some real decisions. collaboratively, which is what I want. I love hearing that. Oh, good.
[Galusi]: And to that point, the only thing that I would highlight is, I'm so glad you mentioned that work, because that work to build our scope and sequence, our pacing, our assessment, it was key for the DLL team members. However, we also sent out several surveys throughout the year so that we got all teacher perspectives. It was brought up as part of common planning times to also have those discussions within those smaller groups. and the DLLT members in each school were having some of those conversations in the building so that when we were making those decisions, we tried to get as much cross representation and voice as possible. And we're gonna still need to do that this year as we move, because it is massive and overwhelming.
[Chiesa]: And just to shout out to our literacy coaches as well, you know, they're working on the ground every day with the teachers. So they're able to, We are talking to teachers, obviously, of course, as well, but they're really able to give us that live experience and that feedback, too. Great, thank you. Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you very much. Thank you. 8.48 p.m., report number four on Metro Public Schools rate card, Dr. Peter Cushing, assistant superintendent of enrichment, innovation, and operations.
[Cushing]: Good evening again, everybody. Quickly, this is one part of the rate card. As we have settled collective bargaining agreements, we need to increase the rates that we charge our renters. After talking with Mr. Gerald McHugh over the summer, he made calculations. $70 should be enough to cover our expenses based on this. I understand also that there are other parts of the rate card that were still open from last spring. but I am not here to discuss those at this point, just this one aspect.
[Ruseau]: Motion to approve the rate card.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Second. Motion to approve. Thank you, Dr. Cushing. Motion to approve by Member Ruseau, seconded by Member Graham. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Rate card's approved. Recommendation to approve construction of Brooks Hot Water Heater at $267,000. Again, Dr. Peter Cushing.
[Cushing]: This includes a 10% contingency. Thanks to the administration and chief of staff, Nina Nazarian, for putting this on for the committee of the whole last week for the capital stabilization fund that was established by the city, I believe last June 30th or thereabouts. So this will be covered by that stabilization fund. I gave you two of the quotes that we have. We're doing our best to examine a third quote. However, this is an extremely time sensitive project, and the cost vastly exceeded what our initial expectations were and what I presented on.
[Ruseau]: Motion to approve.
[Lungo-Koehn]: I am Member Ruseau, seconded by Member Reinfeld. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Thank you for the work.
[Graham]: Mayor?
[Lungo-Koehn]: Dr. Cushing.
[Graham]: Can I just say thank you to the Council for moving quickly on this ask. It's really important that schools have hot water. I think that goes without saying, but also when you need to spend $267,000, like you need the cooperation of the Council and the Stabilization Fund to do that. So I just wanted to say thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you to the Council and thank you to Dr. Cushing and Chief of Staff Nazarian who worked to get this on the agenda as soon as possible. Thank you. There is no presentations of the public or continued business. We do have new business offered by member Rousseau, first reading of policy, GBED, tobacco use on school property by staff members prohibited. Use of any tobacco products, including but not limited to cigarettes, cigars, little cigars, chewing tobacco, pipe tobacco, and snuff, and electric cigarettes, electronics cigars, electronic pipes, or other similar projects that rely on vaporization or aerosolization within school buildings, school facilities, on school grounds, or school buses, or at school-sponsored events by any individual, including school personnel, is prohibited at all times. Staff members who violate this policy will be referred to their immediate supervisor. Motion for approval by?
[Reinfeld]: I would like to amend this the same way I amended last week's to include nicotine pouches and non, we have the phrasing in last week's. minutes to include nicotine pouches and state exclusion of prescription nicotine products, such as patches prescribed to end nicotine dependence and addiction.
[Lungo-Koehn]: To add nicotine pouches and to exclude patches. Motion for approval by Member Reinfeld as amended, seconded by? Second. Member Graham, all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Paper passes.
[Graham]: Motion to waive the second reading. Second.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Motion to waive the second reading by Member Graham, seconded by Member Reinfeld. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Second reading is waived. Number 2024-37 offered by Member Graham be it resolved that the administration will provide an in-depth before and after school update that includes answers to the question posed in our 3-7-2024 meeting. The request should include Number one, current wait lists for this school year by building in comparison of the prior three years at a comparable point in time. Two, enrollment information at outside programs and a summary of the offerings MPS is supporting via transportation or other activities. Three, for each wait list, the percent of students on our wait list that are enrolled elsewhere versus entirely unenrolled. Four, description of efforts pursued create programming at Andrews Middle School and or with Medford Recreation. Five, summary of other initiatives to expand programming citywide and or within MPS.
[Graham]: Member Graham. Thank you. We had a meeting back in March where we discussed a whole series of questions and those questions never quite came like back around to us so I just want to make sure that they do and I also would like to be clear about some of these questions and where we are versus where we've been because I've had a number of parents in the last couple weeks tell me we've made no progress. I don't actually think that's true, but I believe that that is what it looks like because we don't provide data in a way that allows people to understand what progress looks like. So I would like to, I'm totally open to when between now and the end of December, you need to be able to provide this report, which is why I didn't put a date, a requested date on it. But I do think it's important for us to have this conversation. It's a continuing issue. And some of these questions are really trying to get at what does solving this problem look like? I think that looks different depending on who you talk to, but I think this will help us maybe have a conversation and help the community be part of that conversation as well. Yes, Dr. Edward-Vincent.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Member Graham, my clarifying question in regards to number three regarding the waitlist Is that question saying if there were students that are currently on the Medford public schools waitlist and they're currently enrolled in the YMCA or RSK or Sigma, is it to say, remove those students from the list to see who's actually still left over?
[Graham]: Well, what I want to be able to see is if there's 100 kids on the waitlist. I don't know if there's 100, but if there's 100, are 99 of them enrolled elsewhere in the city? Because I think as a community, we have always thought of solving the afterschool problem as a thing that Medford Public Schools has to do on its own. And thanks to lots of advocacy from lots of parents, there actually are other programs now. They have created other problems for us to solve, which is why I want to know, what is the size and context of the problem? So I just want to know, if there's 100 kids, Are they all enrolled somewhere else? Are they half enrolled somewhere else? And I know that we have that data because we bused them, right? So I'm just trying to understand clearly what it is that we are trying to solve for. And if what we're trying to solve for is transportation so that we can continue to promote other programs in our community, like everybody else has for like decades and decades, where we're just sort of starting that process, right? That's a different solution than continuing to sort of bump up against, is it 80 or 100 kids in a building? And we keep hearing 100 is too many, but we keep saying, but we do it in one building. And we're like around and around the circle, which is fine if what we haven't done is agree on like what the problems are that we're trying to solve. And I think we're just trying to make it better. So I don't think we've been very targeted in our like solutions and maybe that's okay because it means we're trying like every which way that we can. I just would like us to be clear and to be able to see the data over time, which I don't think we've really ever been able to do all that well.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Okay. We'll be able to work on that. Okay.
[Graham]: I'm happy to work with whoever, as they create the report, if there's help I can provide or I'm totally happy to help.
[Edouard-Vincent]: Thank you.
[Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Motion for approval by my member Ruseau. Russo, seconded by Member Reinfeld. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes. With no reports requested, and we have a few condolences. The members of the Medford School Committee express their sincere condolences to the family of Jean Bando, mother-in-law of former Medford High School boys hockey coach Mark Bates. The members of the Medford School Committee express their sincerest condolences to the family of Linda Small, beloved wife of former Medford Vocational Technical High School HVAC teacher, Robert Small. The members of the Medford School Committee expressed their sincerest condolences to the family of Pasquale Patrick Melchioda, former Director of Fine Arts for Medford Public Schools. And the members of the Medford School Committee expressed their sincerest condolences to the family of Rory Douglas-Klein, who was a Medford Public Schools employee for 28 years, cafeteria manager at the Mississippi Elementary School, and sister of Charlene Douglas, former teacher at the Andrews Middle School and MTA president. If we all may rise for a moment of silence. Thank you. Our next regular meeting is October 21st, 2024, here in the Alden Memorial Chambers, Medford City Hall, in addition to Zoom. Is there a motion to adjourn? by Member Bramley, seconded by Member Graham. All those in favor? All those opposed? Meeting is
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