[Robert Skerry]: Mr. Benedetto, Ms. Kreatz, Ms. Mustone, Mr. Skerry, present. Ms. Vander Kloof, present.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Mayor Burke, present. Seven present, none absent. All please rise and salute our flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. This evening, we're blessed to have the Roberts School Chimes with us. They're led by Mr. James Connor, who's the fine arts teacher in the school system. We look forward to hearing from you. Thank you.
[Unidentified]: We're taking the keys to these pieces. I want to say that all of our members are fourth and fifth graders of our school. I'm going to play a little bit of T-Syre.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Ms. Van der Kloot. Mr. Connor and members of the Handbell Choir, before you leave, I just really want to thank you for coming here tonight. You know, it's kind of a long and hectic day, and when we come to a meeting, you never know what to expect. So to begin our program, our meeting tonight, with such a lovely program from you is really exceptional, and I'm so grateful. Mr. Connor, as you know, I've had the chance to hear your Handbell Choir before, and I was so impressed then. I think the thing that really strikes me more than anything is that With you taking this initiative to try something new at your school, not only are you teaching the kids a lot about music, but what really stands out with this particular activity is the teamwork. And so I'm very grateful to you, and thank you for the kids. You did a fantastic job. And hats off to those two recorder players as well. They were fabulous. Thank you so much.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Mr. Benedetto.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: I just want to say thank you for coming and to all the parents for putting your best foot forward. It starts our meeting in a very calm way. And as you know, I always need that. So I really am very grateful for the peace that you brought to us in the art that you all take seriously. Thank you.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Wonderful. Thank you so much. That was absolutely beautiful.
[Ann Marie Cugno]: Ms. Cuno. I just want to reiterate the fact that this is wonderful. It's nice to see. It gives the kids a really sense of pride and I love to see that and I love to see the pride in the face of the parents. In my personal note, my babies are graduating this year, and everybody used to say, you know, it flies, and remember this, even though there was days I wanted to pull my hair out of my head. Really enjoy it. I loved watching the faces of the parents watching the kids. So really, really enjoy it. It's a wonderful night. Thank you. Nice job.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Next up, the approval of the minutes of May 16, 2016. There's a motion for approval by Mr. Skerry. Is there a second by Ms. Van der Kloot? All those in favor? All those opposed? Mr. Benedetto?
[Erin DiBenedetto]: The minutes are great. I talked to Mr. Belson a little earlier about our agenda and adding a few items to it. You did, yeah. OK. So I didn't see that. Oh, great. Thank you, I see it. Thank you very much.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: On the motion for approval of the minutes, all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? The minutes pass. Approval of bills, transfer of funds. Motion for approval by Ms. Disceri, seconded by Ms. Cuno. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries. Approval of payrolls. Motion for approval by Mr. Skerry, seconded by Ms. Cuno. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion passes. Report of the secretary. None. Report of committees. None. Community. Okay. Is there a motion for suspension of the rules so that we can take item one? Motion for suspension by Mr. Skerry, seconded by Ms. Cuno. All those in favor of suspension? All those opposed? Suspension granted. Report on robotics team. Botwell tournament results. Mr. Superintendent.
[Roy Belson]: Madam Mayor and members of the committee, we're going to call upon our Director of Mathematics and Science to come up and introduce the robotics team and their successful competition recently, which put them into a very favorable company in New England Regional Robotics Tournament. So Carolyn Joy is going to come up and we have some presentations for them as well.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: If the students could all line up along the side for their awards.
[Carolyn Joy]: recognizes Medford High School's robotics team for an outstanding performance at the 2016 New England Regional Botball Robotics Tournament held at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell on April 30th. The robotics team, under the advisership of mathematics teacher Ms. Barbara Chen, proudly brought back three awards to the district. The team was awarded second place for the morning seating rounds. Then they went on to receive the judges award for outstanding team spirit. This is one that I personally hold in high regard. And at the end of the day, the team took home the award for overall third place out of 17 teams participating from the New England region. The overall score was based on a weighted formula which combined the results from three periods of online documentation, online presentation, the morning seating rounds, and double elimination rounds. A successful season was the outcome of teamwork. The students worked many long hours writing code, engineering two robots, and then, excuse me, and then crafting their presentation. The district extends thanks to Dr. Martinus Van Schoor, founder and president of Mighty Technology of Medford, for supporting the team through five years of competition, for their families, for their health, and Ms. Chen for her dedication and oversight. So we'll bring up the students now. Yes. Thank you.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: There's actually several members of the robotics team. I know a few are here this evening, but seniors Serena Doe and Christopher Ellis, juniors Matthew Avella, Ronaldson Belland, Joseph Farah, Scott McGaldrick, sophomore Scott Ramjahan, I'm sorry, my bad, freshmen Darwin Doe and Ethan Medeiros. The Medford Public Schools is proud to recognize Serena Doe for outstanding performance at the 2016 New England Regional Ball Robotics Tournament. Christopher Ellis. Christopher Ellis? No. Matthew Avella? Ronaldson Beland? No. Joseph Farah? All right, Joseph. Scott McGoldrick. Scott Renjanathan. Darwin Do. Ethan Madero. And Barbara Cheyne-Advisor.
[lq25S5HOVFA_SPEAKER_10]: If you'd like to.
[R49wqTZ5YIg_SPEAKER_00]: Actually, there are two seniors happen tonight. They're in senior barbecue, so they couldn't come. And actually, one student, she's going to MIT, and really proud of her. And the other, Chris, is going to UMass Lowell. And so I'm very proud of leading this team to competition. And they work very hard. And the night before the competition, the school until 8.30 at night. So they work very hard before the tournament. So one day the kids even say, oh, can we come out here? So they work very hard. They get hooked into the robots and get very excited about it.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Is there a motion to revert back to the regular order of business? Motion by Ms. Vandercliff, seconded by Ms. Discari. All those in favor? All those opposed? Community participation. Melanie Perkins McLaughlin, CPAC report. Do we need to turn this on?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. Hello. Thank you. Hello, school committee members, Mr. Superintendent. Thanks for having us here tonight. It was great to see the robotics club and the chimes. They were very relaxing. I am Melanie Perkins McLaughlin and I am the co-chair of the Medford Special Education Parent Advisory Council. And we have a PowerPoint presentation we're going to share with you, but first we want to share, well actually no, we can start it. We are here as representatives of the Medford Special Education Parent Advisory Council and every year we give a community partnership award. And this year's community partnership award It's always for promoting the acceptance and inclusion of people of all abilities in the community and beyond. This year's award is going to Lawrence Memorial Hospital, who have been working in a partnership with Medford High School for the past 15 years and the Special Education Department. The hospital's volunteer program, coordinated by Tracy Murray, has provided ongoing opportunities for Medford High School students of all abilities to contribute to their community while developing and practicing skills beyond the school environment. As volunteers, students interact with supervisors and learn specific skills, such as following safety protocols, waiting on customers in the cafeteria, and organizing materials in the central supply room. These students also learn to manage their time, follow a schedule, and travel independently. In just this past school year, Medford High School students and the Postgraduate Transition Program have provided over 85 volunteer hours to the Lawrence Memorial community. We want to ask the Lawrence Memorial Hospital community and a few students that were kind enough to come here tonight with them to come up please and receive your award from the Special Education Parent Advisory Council. Please come on up. Would you guys like to hold the award and go up in the air and take a picture? We could do it in the middle with all the school committee members.
[Unidentified]: Thank you.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Not coming on?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think so. I'm not really really looking for it.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Oh, here it comes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So I'm just going to do a short presentation, a PowerPoint presentation. Could John maybe adjust a little bit instead of me coming on the other side? Or Mia, do you want to do it? It just needs to be centered and the focus needs to be taken care of. Thank you. So I'm going to do a brief PowerPoint presentation, just sort of letting folks know what the Special Education Parent Advisory Council does and what we've accomplished in the past year. And I want to acknowledge some of our families that are here tonight and thank them for coming. So as you know, this is a cartoon I wanted to share with folks. Bill Henderson, former principal of the Henderson Public Schools and the Inclusion School, always shares this with his when he does his speeches. And I think it's just a great example of how we can all work together. For folks who might not be able to see it, it's a ramp, a handicap ramp and stairs, and they're all filled with snow. And there's a student in a wheelchair asking if the ramp can be cleared. And the person shoveling the steps is saying, just a minute. When I'm done, I'll get to that. And someone says, well, if you do the ramp, we can all get up. And it's just a really good example, I think, of how, if we work together, we can all achieve. So our CPAC mission, the CPAC's purpose is to fulfill the directive of Chapter 71B of the Massachusetts General Law, which requires school districts to have a PAC and assign both advisory and participatory function to the PAC. So our mission is to advise the districts on matters that pertain to the education and safety of students with disabilities by seeking input from the special education parent members and self-advocates. We meet regularly with school officials, and we participate in the planning, development, and evaluation of the school's special education program. We also participate in planning workshops and activities. And I'm not sure if I introduced myself because of the award for the Lawrence Memorial Community Partnership Award, but I am the co-chair of the Special Education Parent Advisory Council. We have, for students with disabilities, the Medford Public Schools has 18% of students are students with disabilities. So that equals about one in five, and there are approximately 800 families in Medford that have students with disabilities. Our authority comes from the law that is required for school districts to have a PAC, and again, our mission is that we revise the school committee on matters that pertain to the education and safety of students with disabilities, and we meet regularly with school officials. Joan Boehm, Kathy Madaglio is the Director of Pupil Services, was going to present with me tonight, and unfortunately, she's ill. So Joan Bowen, the coordinator of secondary special education, is here. Thanks, Joan, for coming tonight. And is here to answer any questions as well, if we have any. Right, Joan? Yes. Right. So here are some of our accomplishments. What we normally do is we meet the second Wednesday of every month from 7 to 9. Paul DeLeva at the Andrews Middle School is kind enough to allow us to use his school every month. We meet there and we host workshops or sometimes we host socials and we learn from our community what kind of workshops they want, they require. We are required annually to have a basic rights workshop, basic rights in special education, and that is a collaboration with the Federation for Children with Special Needs and the Medford CPAC and the Medford Special Education Parent Advisory Council. This year we also did the special education mediation process. and that is from a mediator from the Bureau of Special Education Appeals, Merto Flesas is a Medford mediator. We did agreeing to disagree with attorney Dan Heffernan of Cote and Crabtree and Strong. We had a great night. We did meet the school committee. Folks here might remember that. That was really nice, and it was a nice dialogue between the school committee and families and guardians and students of children with special needs and students with disabilities, and we were able to share what some of our needs are. and we're able to get some great feedback. Let's Get Organized was recent, and that's a workshop that actually had really good feedback, too, and we had a lot of folks from the special education department come out and help families get organized with their IEPs and their paperwork and all the 504 material, all the paperwork that can be overwhelming sometimes. And we had one on homework anxiety, and that was actually presented by two Medford Public Schools staff members, Angela Lepore and Lauren Kwiatkowski. I hope I pronounced her name right. And that was actually really great. We had some hands-on material building between the special education department and the CPAC and parents and we were able to build some tools and talk about anxiety and it was a really helpful session as well. We're always welcome to ideas and for professional development as well. If there are teachers or school committee members or special educators or general educators out there that would like a particular workshop, please let us know and we'll see what we can do. We also have monthly meetings with the Director of Special Education. We advise parents and guardians on the special education process. We go to meetings with the Disability Council and the Human Rights Council. And we go to conferences around the state, Mass Down Syndrome Conference, Federation for Children with Special Needs. There's a great educators conference that happens every October for general educators and special educators in Worcester. We attend a parent leadership series. and school committee meetings. We offer resources to families, and we also can help with conflict resolution. We do some public relations and media outreach, and we do public speaking if necessary. We interact with Program Quality Assurance and the Office of Civil Rights. Those are the places folks go to if they have an issue that hasn't been able to be resolved within the district. We meet with state legislators regarding issues concerning students with disabilities. That's Gracie on the State House there. Last year we had, a couple years ago, we had the governor sign some litigation, I mean some, sorry, not litigation, some legislation, thank you, on Down syndrome and providing updated diagnosis for individuals with Down syndrome. But we go to the State House pretty much every year, if it's not with the Parent Leadership Series, with the CPAC. Next year we're hoping to have an event at the State House that we hope you guys will join us at, where we talk a little bit about what different districts can need, and we hope to collaborate with folks across Massachusetts. We attend IEP meetings as needed, public hearing meetings as needed, and we facilitate and attend IEP or 504 meetings as needed. And we attend MassPAC meetings. MassPAC is the Massachusetts Parent Advisory Council through the Federation for Children with Special Needs. Our CPAC members have done things from present to the United Nations, to create employment programs for students with disabilities. We share our stories nationally and with legislators. We've presented to the associations for special educators, have met with legislators, as we said. And we just had a member tonight telling us that she's going to be trained on Wednesday to be a surrogate special education parent, which is really exciting, and that is You can be a surrogate through the Federation for Children with Special Needs for families of children who don't have representatives for their IEP. So for foster children or homeless children or folks who can't have supports there. So we have a member that's starting to do that too. We're excited about that. CPAC members are immigrants, accountants, pediatricians, attorneys, stay-at-home parents, teachers, a little bit of everybody. We have children with varying diagnosis, no diagnosis, mild diagnosis, moderate, and significant disabilities. So we wanted to talk to the school committee tonight. In addition to sort of what we've done for the past year, we also want to talk about one of the things we've realized in the past is that we've talked a lot about what we do, but we haven't talked a lot about how we can collaborate with each other and what we can do moving forward. And so that's really a big purpose of this presentation. We want to talk about what's the state of special education in Medford right now and how do we work together. So in the special education data that's available on the Department of Education website, and you can see on the bottom there, and maybe we can have this share it on the website. But there's a link that you can go to to look for data on your school district through the Department of Education. And for special education, they have indicators. So indicators one through, I think it's eight that we'll look at here. And that is sort of an idea of accountability ratings, but also how we're doing in terms of what the ratings are for special education. So indicator one is the graduation rate. And Medford is below state average for graduation rate, according to special education. So the state average is 83.4%. Medford is 83.4% and the state is 87.3%. Indicator two, dropout rate. We have a higher dropout rate than the state average by about 1%. Indicator three, participation and performance of students with IEPs on statewide assessments, MCAS. We did not meet the target. But on 3B and 3C, so on your PowerPoint, I want you folks to know that the bold is things that we need to work on, and the italics are things that we have met the target on. So that will help you decode when you're looking at it. The participation rate for students with IEPs on MCAS, we've matched the state rate on that. And the proficiency rate for students with IEPs on MCAS are also proficient. We've matched the state rate on that. Indicator four, suspension and expulsion for students with IEPs. We're currently below the state rate, which is great, and we have improved significantly over time, if you look at the rate from five years ago and see the decrease. Indicator five, educational environments for students age six to 21 with IEPs. So full inclusion, partial inclusion are substantially separate. For full inclusion, we're below the state average, and we're below by, like, around 10%. For partial inclusion, We are above for partial inclusion, and we're also above for substantially separate. And we're slightly above for separate schools, residential facilities, or homebound hospital placements. Indicator six, educational environments for students age three to five with IEPs, we're above the state average for full inclusion. So we're doing something really well in preschool. That's good to see, as well as all the other things we're doing well here. But it's nice to see that in the preschool level. For early childhood outcomes and parent involvement, also all above state average. Indicators nine through 14, we are all meeting the proficiency standard or above state average. So those are great. So disproportionality in special education, disproportionality in specific disability categories, initial evaluation timelines, early childhood transitions, secondary transitions, and post-school outcomes for students with IEPs. So that's the special education data based on indicators that again is available on the Department of Education's website. And as we know, Medford Public Schools needs, so when we ask what is the state of special education in Medford, Medford Public Schools needs technical assistance. So the school is, the district is considered a level three, although we have one school that's a level three and a few that are level one and a few that are level two. If one is labeled a level three, the Department of Education sees the district as level three. So that means we're seen as needing technical assistance from the State Department of Education. And in summary, our special education data and concerns. So there's a substantial achievement gap between typical students and high need students. We feel that that's a significant issue. I didn't show a slide here tonight, and I'm happy to share it with the school committee if you want to. where you can see typical students in a bar graph aside, students with disabilities. And it's substantial. And it's not just here. It is across the state. But it is a significant issue. It's the achievement gap that we have that we talk about often. Full inclusion rates are less than the state average. Dropout rates are higher than the state average. And substantially separate settings are higher than the state average. So these are our concerns. I want to back up a little bit to talk about, you know, the things that are great that have happened. And we want to make sure that we recognize things that have happened in the special education community that have been great, and there's a lot of indicators on there that have met proficiency, and I think that's because of a lot of hard work with Kathy Madaglio and Joan Bowen and our staff and the CPAC and the students. There are some things that we need to work on. So CPAC recommendations, we have some recommendations that we'd like to make to the school committee. One is the use of DSAC technical assistance accelerated improvement plan. So DSAC is the Department of Education's when a district needs improvement, there's a group called DSAC, that will come to the district and help with some technical assistance. And I think using that and utilizing that, especially as it pertains to students with disabilities, would be really helpful. We think using that and utilizing that would be really helpful. Some professional development, especially around students with disabilities and general educators and special educators working together to understand the needs of students with disabilities and the typical population. professional development around differentiated instruction and universal design for learning. For folks that are here, the school committee I'm sure knows, but maybe people in the audience or people watching tonight may not know that there's a new law that's been written that's replacing the No Child Left Behind Act called the Every Student Succeeds Act. And written into ESSA, the Every Student Succeeds Act, is a requirement for universal design for learning. So it's really important that our school district understands universal design for learning and how to implement that. And it's a great tool for students with disabilities, for all students, I would say. We recommend co-teaching and collaborative teaching. We had an example recently where we were at a school council meeting, and they were talking about a school improvement plan. And one of the things they were talking about was sort of how to differentiate math instruction. And one of the questions I had was, well, are you talking to your special educators? And the general educators and special educators working together seems like it makes a lot of sense. have been trained for a lot of differentiation, and I'm sure our general educators have as well, but the two of them collaborating together makes a much more powerful example, as we've seen from other schools across states. And cultural competency, understanding students with disabilities and students with different needs is really important for all of us. More recommendations, we ask that the school committee, the Medford School Committee and the Medford Public Schools create and or endorse an inclusion subcommittee. So an inclusion subcommittee might consist of inclusion facilitators, experts, consultants, school committee members, CPAC members, where we could evaluate educational environments, inclusive schools, after schools, the summer camp program that we have in Medford, and the community school program. There are inclusion subcommittees around the state. Boston Public Schools certainly created one a few years ago that was very helpful. I know you folks have subcommittees, is that what it's called here, too? Where we could have recommendations at the end, basically, as we talk to educators and parents across the district about what that could look like. We would ask that the Educator Guidebook for Inclusive Practice, which was sent out by the Department of Education, I think it was last year, be used with general educators and special educators. Kathy wanted us to mention for sure that the administrative team in Medford has reviewed the power elements for inclusive practice on the educator guidebook for inclusive practice. And we are seeking endorsement from the school committee in the district of this DESE advisory. It's available online as well for folks that want to look for it. So improve family and community engagement. Some suggestions we would have is, Superintendent Belson and I spoke about this a few months ago, and I think he agreed that it was a good idea as well, have coffee with the superintendent or school committee members. That could be a couple of times a year where we could have coffee with parents of students with disabilities and self-advocates and talk about what our concerns are. offer an opportunity for online feedback. I think that was mentioned in the meeting we had for the Q&A. Sometimes parents can't get out, and if they could give online feedback, that would be really helpful. Automated calls for meeting information. So our Special Education Parent Advisory Council has all of these great workshops, and we have these workshops for families and guardians of children with special needs, but we also have them for the educational community, for the school committee members, for anybody that wants to come. It's other interested parties as well. to come, but a lot of times they don't know about the meetings, even though they're on the district website and they're in the transcript typically or whatever, but we would recommend that a robocall once a month go out to the community, letting folks know what the workshops are. There are several workshops that pertain to students of all abilities. We already said meet with self-advocates, students with disability, consult with CPAC, publish CPAC meetings, especially workshops, and ask families to share their stories. One of the things that we're finding really important as we meet each other and we share our community with each other is being able to share our stories and our children's stories. You know, we have families here who have JoJo. What grade is JoJo? Sixth? Sixth grade. And Quinton? Seventh grade. And when we share our stories and are able to share information with folks about who we are and what our children are like and what they need and what they're great at and what they offer to the community, it brings us all closer. We all have a story. not just students with disabilities or families of students with disabilities. We all have a story, and it's important that we share our stories with each other. We're asking that CPAC recommendations that the district implement a district-wide disability awareness program. I'm very excited about understanding our differences. We're very excited about understanding our differences. A Newton-based public schools disability awareness organization that I believe has about 40 years experience with disability awareness, the Brooks PTO, and the Brooks Elementary School has offered to host a pilot program of Understanding Our Differences. So we just trained with the 5th grade teachers a week ago on an autism unit. So the great thing about Understanding Our Differences, it has 3rd, 4th and 5th grade small hour and a half curriculum programs around autism, intellectual disability, physical disability, blindness, deafness, allergies, all kinds of programs. It's a great program and we highly recommend it. And we're excited about that starting next year. And I hope you guys will come to that. We'll be sure to invite you. Review grant information related to students with disabilities. Endorse and offer professional development for general ed and special ed collaboration. Include students with disabilities and families and families in policy and decision making and have transparency of information. And then the redirection of funds. So when we talked earlier about grants and being able to share information on grants of students that are intended for students with disabilities, the Fund 240, which I'm sure the superintendent can talk much more about than I can, I'm not very familiar with the fund, but I know that on the Department of Education's website, especially regarding special education, There was an advance notice of intent to direct the use of fund code 240. So when a district does need technical assistance, they have up to 1% and 5% of the district's total entitlement grant is redirected by DESE into areas that DESE and perhaps the DSAC and of course the superintendent and school committee find necessary. So I would say perhaps some of the things that we mentioned earlier in terms of recommendations might be potentially funded by some of these things. Differences are what makes us beautiful. And I love this quote from the Medford Public Schools Director of Pupil Services, because I think oftentimes people forget this, but she certainly doesn't, which we think is a great thing. All students are general education students. Students with disability are general education students receiving special education support. And I think that is the end of our presentation, our PowerPoint presentation. I'd love to take questions and answers if folks are interested.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Ms. Van der Kloot. Thank you, Melanie, for your presentation. You've given us a lot of information, so I'm trying to absorb it quickly. I think I'm particularly excited. The one that hit me was the implement district-wide disability awareness program. To me, that makes so much sense in terms of students understanding their classmates. I know that early in my years on the school committee, I wanted to do something like that. I thought it would be useful for kids to understand. But at the point in time, the big issue was everybody's confidentiality. And if we have a sea change of parents willing to share their child's information about their child's disability with other students. I can't think of anything that would be more positive.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well, the way that Understanding Our Differences program works, and we would invite you to observe one at Newton Public Schools, and certainly Kathy and I are going to go observe one before we have it in Medford next year. We don't identify the students with disabilities.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: But even in general, talking about a disability such as autism,
[Melanie McLaughlin]: of having children being aware. Yeah, generally talking. Parents and students are always able to opt out, of course, if they wanted to. But also we find that research has shown that when you do talk about things and you do share information, not necessarily about your diagnosis or your child's diagnosis, but you share information about compassion and differences in humanity, that people actually really come together. What Jenny Acosta at Understanding Our Differences was sharing with our fifth grade teachers last week when we were doing the training on autism, because some of these questions did come up, was that it is so powerful to watch the students really come together and that so many times it's actually the adults that have the issues around coming together. So, but I think you're right. I think it's important to include parents of students with disabilities and parents of students without disabilities. And there's a volunteer partnership that parents do as part of the Understanding Our Differences program.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: But I've also seen, you know, on TV stories about, you know, classrooms of kids who once they understood the disabilities of a child in their class, what a team they became with that child. So I think that's wonderful. Now, just to get to one question, on your indicators graduation rate, I just want to ask you whether you use the four-year graduation rate for Medford or the five-year graduation rate. We used whatever DESE had on their site. Because I think that there's a big difference for us between four-year Okay, in five years. Oh, interesting, yeah. Right, and so students, if I recall correctly, I mean, it does take some students longer, but that doesn't mean that they're unsuccessful. In fact, it means they're very successful and they've stuck to it and really, and so when we look at that, I think it's a, that particular detail is important in our understanding overall. Yeah, I would agree. Obviously, of course. I'd like to compare them. Yeah, and I don't remember exactly, but I remember at some point looking at that and saying that was interesting. In terms of your call for the DSAC technical assistance, I thought, are we already having a DSAC team come in, or where are we?
[Roy Belson]: If I could ask the superintendent.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Mr. Superintendent.
[Roy Belson]: So we've met with DSAC, and you know, we've worked with them before, and we'll continue to work with them. There are, you know, different assistances they can provide at different times, and it really depends on, you know, what we identify as being most significant. As Melanie points out, there's a set-aside in the IDA funds that, you know, will be moved into that area, and also DSAC has some funds. So we'll take a look at it. But I think that one of the things that What we probably should do is, since Kathy can't be here tonight, and Kathy had some additional things she wanted to say, is why don't we schedule a session in the Committee of the Whole sometime before the year's out, and we can have a good give and take on where we're going.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. Um, I think, um, the other thing that the PAC called for was the endorse inclusion and endorse an inclusion subcommittee. And I think that that would also be a valuable thing to discuss that night. And I agree that that would be an appropriate follow-up.
[Roy Belson]: I think we'll have a, you know, obviously there's a lot of things going on as, as Melanie points out, the early childhood rate is way up. If you combine the partial with the full inclusion, the rate is that much more substantial. So the question is, how do we get it more full inclusion?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right, and like Kathy would say, if she were here I think, the partial inclusion rate can be anywhere from 79% to 21%. So that's a big span. Big window. Yeah, yeah. So looking at that I think is important.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Oh, and the last thing I just had jotted down was robocalls. It would seem that we ought to be able to include PAC meeting information in a robocall You know, it might be a standalone call or it might be something that other things are being announced at the same time. So I certainly think we ought to work on that.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Thank you. Thank you very much.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Mr. Benedetto. Thank you. Um, I don't know if all of you know this, but my day job is a special education coordinator at a charter school in Somerville in Cambridge. So I'm really well aware of what parents can do together. And at our school, we beg parents to come forward and do work like this. This is exceptional work that you all should be very proud. This room should be filled though. If there's 800 families, this should be, way more people here. And I hope it's because they're home with their children, reading books, and helping them with homework, and doing all those so many things, or they're just having a rough night, and that you're representative of them. Because the work that you're doing is phenomenal. We need to get the word out to them as well. And I know how that is, because I used to be vice co-chair of the PTO at the high school, and it would be the same ones doing the work. So don't get tired. Don't quit. Keep going. It's exceptional work. I'm very impressed. I'm also very happy to see the use of the technical assistance, the accelerated improvement plan in your visual, because I'm a visual learner. So that's very helpful to me. And I'm going to ask the superintendent for some information on what we're currently doing and what we're working with them on to have prepared for that subcommittee meeting, so that way we know what areas exactly we're focused on. I'm making changes so our district is no longer a level three school district. I've said it all year and I'm tired of saying it. I don't like it. It's very upsetting to me. We do great work throughout our community. We need to make sure we're educating every student. I also want to thank you for the opportunity to come to some of your meetings. I don't make as many as I would like to. But the question and answer night, I really liked. I got to mingle amongst parents and really talk to them about different issues that have come up. And I know people by sight, even though I'm terrible with names. And I know some of their children now from going to those meetings. So it's a connection that I need and I appreciate having. I would like to see more of us work with you on those type of situations. If there is anything that this group needs from me, my door is open and welcome to comments or suggestions or if you need things brought forward. I am known as a big mouth here and I don't mind advocating for the parents and the students in the community. And since I work in this area, this is where I feel my expertise is. So please feel free to come forward and thank you again for all your time, your dedication. I know you lead this group well. I know you work with our administrators well. We need to keep those doors open, and thank you again. Thank you.
[Ann Marie Cugno]: Ms. Cugno, thank you, Melanie, for bringing this to us. The way you set it up tonight through the PowerPoint, an excellent job to you and to everyone who worked on this. It's a really wonderful way of going through everything and in the detail. I'm not going to take the time because I know everyone is extremely tired. to reiterate what my colleagues have said, but I am looking over a couple of things, and like, under the accomplishments, which I know that you have gone to a lot of the Attend Parent Leadership Series, is that something that other parents could go to? Is it something that they pay for?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, you know, the Massachusetts Families Organizing for Change Parent Leadership Series is such a good program, and it is available to families for free. families of students with disabilities, family members. So you could be a sister, you could be a brother, you could be a parent, you could be any of those things. And it's hosted overnight. So it's a Friday and a Saturday once a month for three months. And the hotel and the food and everything is paid for. And it culminates in a visit to your state house. And you meet all your legislators and you talk with them about what your concerns are. And we have some recent Mass Families Organizing for Change Parent Leadership Series graduates here. And they could tell you it's a fabulous program. And it's completely funded. It's completely free.
[Ann Marie Cugno]: And how does a parent know about this? I mean, is it because they come to your meetings, or do you send out a newsletter?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: We try to push the information out as much as we can. The applications are in January. So when the applications come, we put it on our Facebook page. We try to let families know. We certainly let our CPAC members know. We'd be happy to share it with you folks for the constituents. It is a really good program because, again, it's free. And the only thing that they do ask is that you attend all four. Husband and wives can go together. It's really great. And it's a nice source of respite, too, for family members that they have child care stipends that they can give you if you need some child care money. It's a great program. Where is this? They host it at Burlington, but the organization is called MFOFC. So the acronym is for MassFamiliesOrganizingForChange.org. And they have regional ones. So ours is the coordinators out of Melrose. Actually, Lori Medeiros is one of the coordinators here in Medford as well. And they host the session out of Burlington at the Burlington Marriott? Woburn, Woburn. The one in Woburn. Yeah. Yeah. It's fun.
[Ann Marie Cugno]: Just out of curiosity, as a parent who, let's say, has a child with disabilities and they don't know about, you know, the Facebook, or how do they start? How do you get them to come to you?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well, first of all, I would say, certainly through our school committee members, we would ask that if you have folks come to you, to please let them know about us, that they can reach out to us at any time. It's medfordcpac.yahoo.com. a Yahoo site, we have our Facebook page, but certainly they can call our phone number. But also the second Wednesday of every month we meet from 7 to 9 at the Andrews Middle School always. Next year we hope to have some coffee hours, maybe some morning appointments as well for families. We've had some feedback for families that night times are difficult for them, Erin, and it makes it difficult for families to be able to come out at night, so maybe after school drop off in the morning might be another option. We like to say, I like to say anyway, that, you know, parenting a child, a student with a disability is extreme parenting, sort of like extreme sports. So, you know, it's a little bit harder to get out sometimes.
[Ann Marie Cugno]: No, I totally understand. I guess this would be a question for Kathy, but since she's not here, through the mayor to the superintendent, when a child is in our district and they are special needs, do they receive a packet with all this information?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: They do. Do you mind if I answer that, Superintendent Bellson, or would you like to?
[Ann Marie Cugno]: As long as someone answers that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: OK. In October, Kathy Medaglio sends out, the director of special education sends out a packet with guidelines, parental guidelines and parents' rights. And in that, they also send a calendar with CPAC events that we've chosen for the upcoming year. and information on how to contact us. And we also have some brochures we're working on. We also set up tables at community day, but certainly. And then also, whenever a person goes to an IEP meeting, whenever a family goes to an IEP meeting, they're supposed to get information about the Special Education Parent Advisory Council during their IEP meeting. So parents report to us that sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, but that would be the evaluation team leaders are supposed to share information about the CPAC so they know about us. But thank you for that reminder.
[Ann Marie Cugno]: No, I just want to make sure that, you know, you've all done such wonderful work and it's just always the same, you know, as my colleague just said, it's kind of difficult sometimes when, you know, you're running it and you send out the word and you're asking for parents to come and unfortunately it's not all the time and, you know, it's almost, you know, I don't want to I don't want to say it sounds like the superintendent's night that, you know, you have all these parents in the district and then unfortunately you just have, you know, a small group of parents. So with that being said, you being here, being on, you know, at the school committee, having more people, maybe putting it on the blog, things like that, you just hope and pray that word of mouth, it just goes out there more and more.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think we find, Ms. Cunha, like you do, that people find us when they need us. So most of the time people come to the, CPAC meeting or reach out to me when they're having a problem. But the truth is, if you find us ahead of time, maybe you won't have a problem. So that's a great way to take a look.
[Ann Marie Cugno]: But unfortunately, sometimes you don't have time until it hits you in the back. Yeah, I know. The other thing I was going to ask you about is the recommendations. You had asked about professional development. Are you asking for professional development more for parents or for people that are involved, for teachers, for staff?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: We would say for teachers and staff, professional development, especially around collaboration between general education and special education, we find that they operate very separately. And the more they collaborate, as you can see, I think with Dr. Perella and Dr. Riccio and what they're doing at the high school, the more folks collaborate, the better the outcomes are. And we find that, not just we find, but research shows that when students with disabilities are educated in the general education classroom with their typical peers, There's studies that show that the math scores go up, not just for the students with disabilities, for the typical students as well. There's all kinds of research around that practice. But it has to be done well. If it's not done well, then it can be just the opposite. So it's really important, I think, for professional development, for educators, for staff. I mean, there's still a lot of folks in our system that have been in a whole different system years and years ago when things were run very differently and people were segregated very much. So I think bringing people up to speed. I teach a course on disability awareness at Tufts Medical Center as part of Operation Housecall with the Ark of Mass. And we teach medical doctors. There's nothing in the hospitals for medical doctors to learn about disability. So it's not just schools. It's across all platforms. And until you have someone that you love with a disability, it honestly doesn't come to the forefront. It certainly didn't for me.
[Ann Marie Cugno]: Right. And I think that it's important that everyone understand. And I know the parents that are involved with this understand this. And that is the needs of a child are so different. Even though one child is on an IEP, it could be totally different from another child who's on an IEP. As a parent who has gone through that process, I could honestly tell you it's definitely a learning process. And I've been very, I guess, grateful to our staff. Had nothing to do with me being on school committee. But it was really done very well. And unfortunately or fortunately, that's how I've learned. I've learned through listening to parents. And as you said, sometimes you don't want to talk about certain things because you just feel like, well, maybe other people don't want to hear about it. Or maybe you feel like maybe you are, you know, your child's disability isn't as large or as important or whatever as someone else's. And it's not. And when you open up and you start speaking about it, it's amazing how you learn and the process that you go through.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's true. And I think also if people would remember that disability is natural. You know, we're all disabled someday.
[Ann Marie Cugno]: Right. And again, just, you know, always be there for your children to say that, you know, we could try to work it out as best as possible. But, um, I do want to recommend and thank you all for your work.
[Mea Quinn Mustone]: Thank you.
[Ann Marie Cugno]: Thank you very much.
[Mea Quinn Mustone]: Ms. Stone. Melanie, thanks for coming. And I'm sure you covered it all, but I was wondering if there's anyone else on the advisory council who Melanie might've missed something that you want to share with us. This is the right time.
[Jameel Webb-Davis]: Okay, so there's a couple points. My name is Jameel Webb Davis, and my son is Quentin Davis, and he's in sixth grade going to seventh grade. He has autism. He has high-functioning autism. I've been told that, I've been asked, are you sure he's autistic? He doesn't seem that autistic. I get that kind of feedback. So my struggle is trying to convince people that he needs more support than people want to offer him. I just want to say that when I got involved with CPAC, that's when I got more attention from the district to get help for my son. I mean, I didn't come to CPAC because I was having a problem. I just noticed when I showed up at a CPAC meeting, I got more attention at my next IEP meeting. And it's a shame that that's how it had to happen. And as I get more involved in the community and I show a bit more things, I get more support from my son. And I think about all the other parents who can't come to these events and can't show up for whatever reason. I have another, my son, I know another mother who has two boys with autism and she's in the hospital with one of them all the time because he has epileptic seizures all the time. She can't stop and come to a CPAC meeting. And I think, well, how is she getting support? Because she can't show up to try to convince this district. And so that's one thing that I think people should think about. There's plenty of parents who can't come for whatever reason. And how are they going to get the support? And the other issue is transparency in the district. I don't feel like there's a lot of transparency with the parents. I feel like there are programs in the district. This has happened twice now. There are programs in the district that would be perfect for my son, and I knew nothing about them. And I found out about them through other CPAC mothers, or through a therapist who works in Medford, or through another kid who says, oh, do you know we're doing this great thing at the high school? A student shouldn't have to be telling me about programs in the district, or another mother. I should find out about them from my team, my IEP team. And they should tell me about programs in Medford that are for autistic kids, whether he's appropriate for them or not. And then I should know about this, and we should have a healthy discussion about, oh, no, this doesn't work or does work. But I should be aware. And I shouldn't have to find out about a program in the district after my child's been suspended from school six times. And that's the kind of thing that's happened. And that's my biggest beef with that. So that's what I want to say.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, Jamil. So thank you, Jamil. Jamil also is the parent who's just volunteered to become a substitute parent for families of homeless children and children in foster care and was a recent graduate of the Parent Leadership Series, but also One thing that the CPAC did do this year with the special education department is the programs now are listed on the district website. So that's good news. So that was one of the advantageous parts of having Jameel on our CPAC, among other folks. So that is posted there. And it is important for folks to be able to have all the information so that they can make informed, healthy decisions. I think one of the great things about what I'm excited about the district and our future is that we are having these conversations. I think they're long overdue, and I think it's really important that we are, so that's very healthy.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Skerry.
[Robert Skerry]: Madam Chairman, I would ask that we have a Committee of the Whole meeting to further address the CPAC concerns and hopefully come up with some resolutions. if there are any budgetary ramifications that we have this meeting with in the next three weeks so that we can address them properly and address parents' concerns. And any other parent that's not here tonight that would like to be at that meeting, could come in and tell us what they expect of us and your two-way street.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, that's fantastic. Thank you. We appreciate that. We're having our elections this Wednesday as well. So CPAC elections are this Wednesday from 7 to 9 at the Andrews Middle School. We have folks running this year for secretary and treasurer and co-chair, so we're very excited about that. So thank you. I appreciate that.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Thank you, Mr. Skerry. on the motion that a committee of the whole be held in the very near future, seconded by Mr. Benedetto. Ms. Cuno.
[Ann Marie Cugno]: Basically, I, well, first of all, we would love, I'll speak for a lot of us, we would love to be there Wednesday. I know I can't be there Wednesday. I have two graduating, but we're all going to be at the graduation ceremony.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, I know, I know.
[Ann Marie Cugno]: And the other thing is, I basically was going to ask if we were able to have some type of a list or something that could be on our webpage or something like that. but I think that was already answered. So that was great. Thank you. Thank you.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Thank you. On the motion that a committee of the whole, Ms. Vandekloot.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: You know, I certainly applaud the desire. I'm a little concerned about the fact that right now the timing is so tight. We're scheduled to go into a budget meeting next Wednesday. We have to be cognizant that the superintendent and the administration are preparing that budget and that takes time. So I'm not quite sure where we manage. We've got graduation on Wednesday of this week. I just, I'm just not quite sure where we're going to put it in.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Or maybe September might be more advantageous. I mean, folks are, we have a lot of wrapping up of the end of the year things to do as well. And I certainly plan on attending some of the committee of the whole meetings that you already have scheduled. And maybe we'll all be a little bit more informed, especially after the budget process, what have you, that It might be better to have a September Committee of the Whole, but I don't want to recommend that for you guys. I'm just saying, in response to that. Whatever.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: On motion, as offered by Mr. Skerry, seconded by Mr. Benedetto. Roll call, you requested. Roll call.
[Robert Skerry]: Mr. O'Neill. Yes. Mr. Benedetto. Yes. Ms. Branson. Yes. Ms. Postone. Mr. Skerry, yes. Ms. Anderson.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes. Ms. Maybrook.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Yes. 7 in the affirmative, 0 in the negative. The motion passes. Thank you very much, Melanie. That was an outstanding presentation.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Mr. Benedetto? I'm just wondering, have we scheduled the subcommittee meeting for community schools to finalize the charges?
[Roy Belson]: The pay structure?
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Yeah, the pay structure. I'm wondering if we could do both meetings on one night.
[Roy Belson]: We'll work that in. I just, you know, I was hoping that we'd have something to you before the next school committee meeting.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Rate structure. Right. We're supposed to have a community schools rates. It's up to the chair to call the meeting. There's an additional item under community participation. Ellery Klein, elementary recess. Good evening.
[F9BRnpGt19U_SPEAKER_04]: Good evening members of the school committee and Mayor Burke and Superintendent Belson. Thank you for allowing me to speak tonight. I'll try to keep it pretty brief. Um, so I'm here tonight just, uh, I've been meaning to come for a while to speak on this issue. It's something I've been addressing, um, constantly for the three years I've been in the school system and from many, many conversations with other parents in the school system. Um, it's a topic of great frustration for a lot of parents and that is, um, the recess policy or rather the lack of a recess policy in our school district for elementary schools. So the last few times I've heard Nelson speak, I've heard him talk about the commitment to the education of the whole child and I definitely think there's many ways that we are doing that successfully here. We saw that with Mr. Connor. I'm a Roberts parent. I think Mr. Connor is We cannot thank him enough for what he brings to our school community, not only in music, but also the beautiful flowers outside the building. And our art night, Cheryl Rodriguez over here organized art night, and we saw amazing art that our kids are making in our schools. So there's a lot of ways that Medford is succeeding, and I'm very happy with a lot of things here. But recess, I find, we only get 15 minutes of recess. at our elementary schools, which isn't really enough. And not only that, we often find that we're struggling to keep recess from being taken away, either partly or completely, for not doing homework, infractions, disciplinary infractions in the classroom, and other reasons, like maybe a lesson takes too long and it just cuts into recess. So what I'm asking for tonight, basically, an overarching policy, because when I first started dealing with this issue, I went to Diane Caldwell to ask, what is the policy? Because there was a feeling among some parents that there was an actual policy written that said recess could only be taken away in case of fear of harm to a child himself or herself, or that that child would harm another student. And it turned out that this was not true. Diane directed me to the Roberts Handbook, where there was kind of a vague, description of if the principal thinks the child should have recess taken away or something to that effect. I didn't go and look that up tonight. But it wasn't very clear exactly what it meant. And it was clear from Diane sending me to the Roberts handbook that there is no policy for the whole school district on this topic. So my proposal, there's a lot out there if you search about the benefits of recess to kids. But I think the most clear is from the American Academy of Pediatrics. So some of you may be familiar with their June 2013 statement on recess. But if not, and for those watching at home or whatnot, I'd like to just go over a few quick points from that statement. Foremost, the American Academy of Pediatrics believes that recess is a crucial and necessary component of a child's development. And as such, it should not be withheld. for punitive or academic reasons. So the AAP basically says it shouldn't happen. Recess represents an essential planned respite from rigorous cognitive tasks. It affords a time to rest, play, imagine, think, move, and socialize. I'd just like to point out that often I find one of my struggles is understanding what recess is and what it means for a child with many staff members. Sometimes it's like the walking recess is a punishment that's given so the kids have to pace back and forth. And they say, well, they still get to move their bodies. But this list shows that recess is not just about moving your body, that it really is a time for unstructured play and unstructured activities. And after recess, students are more attentive. and better able to perform cognitively. In addition, recess helps young children to develop social skills that are otherwise not acquired in the more structured classroom environment. And I might add, as a child of the 70s, I spent my after school hours running around with various people from the neighborhood. And that happens a lot less now. We all know. I mean, I fortunately haven't heard of anyone in Medford calling the police when they see children walking down the street. But we know that often recess, especially maybe in a Title I school where kids don't have access to some of the sports programs that other kids might, I think it's very important that every kid have this time promised to them to socialize, to imagine, to rest, to move, to think, socialize, et cetera. Through play at recess. So the play is a means. It is not the only goal of recess, which I find is the other thing. Recess is sometimes viewed by administration, staff, and teachers as fun time. Fun time is optional. It's like a little party, and it can be taken away easily, because it's not important to our day at school. I would argue the opposite. Through play, children learn valuable communication skills, including negotiation, cooperation, sharing, and problem solving, as well as coping skills such as perseverance and self-control. So while reading and writing is very important, obviously, to our future life as human beings, I would say that these skills, probably all of you would agree, are the most important when it comes to running a business or working in a job. If you can cooperate and negotiate. These are skills you're not going to learn sitting and doing your common core math. You're going to learn them out on the play field. with your other kids. On the basis of an abundance of scientific studies, withholding recess for punitive or academic reasons would seem to be counterproductive to the intended outcomes and may have unintended consequences in relation to a child's acquisition of these important life skills. So, as I said, recess I find is often characterized as fun or just a time to move your body. You can see from the AAP that they really define recess as something more than that. And that is the policy I would like to see reflected for all the elementary schools, so that this is not a battle that parents have to fight teacher to teacher, principal to principal, school to school. It should be defined by our greater Medford School Committee. And I forget the word I'm looking for. The school administration. So number one. My first point is that I'd like that policy to be put in place so that it's clear to everyone in every school that recess is just as important to a child's day as math, as art, as music. That it is a really valuable time where the kids are learning something. And as I said, I find that I'm struggling often with just that definition of recess. So I feel that teachers might need support both understanding what recess is and also finding ways to to correct behaviors that are unwelcome or get homework done without taking away recess. I'm not sure. I didn't have time to research what our social emotional procedures are. I don't know if responsive classroom is used in Medford or not. But I know that in responsive classroom, the punishments or, I like to say, the corrective measures are often made to be connected to what the child's done. So homework would have something to do with homework. Something that, you know, disruption in class has something to do with that. So it's not just always just make them walk the school building at recess for five minutes. They only have 15, so they're left with 10. And often, you know, getting the coat on in the winter or something, it's even less than that. So I'd love to see some support and training for our staff and teachers on this issue. And on another note, I often find that the kids stay inside on cold days, and I don't always think they need to. It would be great for them to get out a bit more, even in cold weather. So lastly, as I said, we only have 15 minutes of recess a day. Asking around parents in other school districts, I found that a lot of schools have two recesses a day. Some of them have one recess that's 25 minutes long. So they have a 25-minute and a 15-minute recess. So you can see, I think Medford is a bit behind on this issue. So my third request is just maybe we look to the future on how we can maybe rearrange our day. I understand there's union time issues with the teachers and things like that. But all these other schools that seem to have longer recess times had longer school days on, let's say, the Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and then a shorter day on Wednesday. So there was a bit more time for these recess times in the day. So that's basically it, my presentation. there to be a clear policy from the top on the importance of recess, the definition of recess, and reminding staff that really taking it away should be a last resort, not the common resort that I know myself and many other parents here have found it to be. And that the teachers get some support and training in something like responsive classroom that will enable them to have the tools to find that alternative. I often hear, recess is the only thing I have. And I feel that we probably could find something else And as I said, number three, the long-term vision for maybe finding a way to bring a little bit more recess. I think ultimately, as they said, the students are more attentive and better able to perform cognitively. So as we're struggling to raise our MCAS scores and other things, the more time kids have during the day to have recess, that they're going to learn better. And it's going to be better for us as a school district. So thank you.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Thank you very much, Ellen.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Hi, thank you so much for coming forward with this issue. This isn't the first time this year we've heard it. I believe it's at least the third. Recently, we met and parents brought this issue up to us at a committee of a whole meeting. And even more recently, when we were going over our budgets with our elementary schools, these questions were asked. It was my understanding at that time, and it still is, that recess is only taken away as an extreme last resort. And it has to have at least three different occurrences documented that the student hasn't been able to get their work done in an appropriate amount of time, and that's all that they had. But it had to be documented to take cases. And now I'm going to ask through you, through the mayor, to the superintendent, to clarify that. At our committee meetings, our budget meetings when the Columbus School was presenting, I specifically asked the question regarding recess and that children should be given all their recess at all times. And I was told that we were going to have a policy in place that they had to be three documented times to the parents. that the child hasn't done their homework, and that recess was going to be taken away before that was to ever happen. So I'm asking if that's in place, and if so, we should just write up that as a policy and put it in all our elementary school handbooks.
[Roy Belson]: So that's the policy. And you know, sometimes you have a policy and not everybody implements it the same way. And that's the problem. This was a discussion we had at a curriculum subcommittee not that long ago, and I think you attended this.
[F9BRnpGt19U_SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, on homework, yeah.
[Roy Belson]: Yeah, you were there. And, you know, we had that discussion at that time. And, you know, we went back out to the buildings and we told them that policy is our policy and follow it. And that there are some teachers who feel like, you know, they're hamstrung when a youngster is misbehaving or work is not coming in. And they misuse that policy. We've got to stop it. We don't want them to do it. The whole issue of recess is not a new topic. We've talked about it many times. We're hamstrung a little bit by time and learning requirements. The Medford school day is not as long as some other places. And we need to meet that 900-hour requirement from the state. And recess doesn't count. That's something that, you know, we're up against the wall on. But there are other ways to promote exercise, and there are other ways to do things that perhaps we can look into, and we certainly will. And maybe there are ways that active learning can take place when youngsters are moving around. There's a book out not that long ago called Spark. I don't know if you've seen it, which youngsters are up and moving while they're learning. And that's a good way to get some exercise in as well. But recess is an important topic. No one wants to deny that. But there are some issues that we have to sort through. And we do not want our faculty to use it as a punishment. We had the same issue years ago in writing, where Some faculty members assign writing as a punishment. And we said we don't want kids to think of writing as a punishment. We want people to think of writing as something you enjoy doing and like to do. So we're going to work at it. We certainly need to have a little more discussion on it. And I'll take, obviously, the input. And let's see if we can't, during our administrative meetings, come up with something that might further the issue that Mrs. Kline's raising.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: So at this point, I'd like to make a motion that our policy be placed in every elementary school handbook and that it be placed on our website so that our administrators, our teachers, and our parents are well aware of what the school's policy is in place and that if people aren't following it, it can be part of their improvement plan or their evaluation by their superiors and that everybody is acting on the same page throughout the district, not one school acting differently than another. So I have a motion on the floor. I need a second. Second. Roll call, please.
[Roy Belson]: Well, you know, we certainly have it on the web page. We'll just make it more prominent. And we'll, once again, reinforce it with our principals during the administrative meetings. And that will take place at the close of school. And we'll make it more of a definitive priority to people that's not going to be taken lightly if people abuse that policy. That's as much as we can do with regard to the policy. Now, with regard to other measures, that's a whole discussion unto itself. We need to think about what we can do about that given the time and learning constraints and all the other things that we have to meet with regard to state requirements.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: In the meantime, could you send out notifications to all the principals to get it to the teachers? But that's not a punishment time? Absolutely.
[Roy Belson]: We've said that many, many times. I'll say it again.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Mayor Brooke, if there is school handbooks, it should be in the handbooks as well?
[Roy Belson]: It is in the handbooks.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: In the policy that parents get three notifications in writing before a child loses recess?
[Roy Belson]: We'll put it out again.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: OK. I just want to make sure every school handbook has that policy. In the same language.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Ms. Van der Kloot. At one time, I recall when this was an issue, many years ago, we started tracking it. And, of course, it was a bloody pain in the neck for the teachers, but it did enforce what the policy was and that they had to inform the principal when recess was withheld from a student just for tracking purposes. Now, of course, over the period of time, then it sort of fell by the wayside, but at least temporarily. I keep on hearing this again. I think we're clear on our policy that it is the exception, the exceptional exception. It is not supposed to be something that is done frequently, but yet I keep on hearing it, so we clearly have an ongoing problem. I am wondering, one of the things you just said, Mr. Superintendent, is recess, part of the problem is recess is not part of time and learning. It's not considered by the DESC to be important, and maybe what we should do is to write motion this year to go before the MASC and start advocating for recess minutes to count as an indication of how important those are when we're talking about our whole child. And that would be an active thing that the Medford School Committee could talk about and take to a statewide level.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Would you like to make that in the form of a motion?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Sure. That the MASC, I mean, sorry, that the Medford School Committee craft a motion regarding recess being part of time and learning, which would be brought before the MASC committee, the resolutions committee, which is coming up pretty soon. It's a good thought.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Very good. Thank you. Ms. Quint, Ms. Mustone, sorry.
[Mea Quinn Mustone]: Thank you, Ellarie, for being here. I think, though, what I heard you say is that whatever our Roberts handbook says is very vague, and that it doesn't even explain to teachers the importance of recess. So I don't know if we could meet to come up with an actual better stated recess policy that we could put in for the new coming year for all families and teachers, maybe even at their orientation, because I'm embarrassed to say I have not read the recess policy at the Roberts Handbook. But if it's that vague, then we should probably work on rewriting it.
[F9BRnpGt19U_SPEAKER_04]: Part of it is my memory is vague. Make it in the form of a motion.
[Mea Quinn Mustone]: I'm going to make it in the form of a motion.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: A separate motion.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Point of information.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Point of information.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I think, Mia, that it needs to be not just for the Roberts Handbook, but it needs to be our Medford Public School Committee
[Mea Quinn Mustone]: It's not something that... But if it's our vague one is the Roberts, I imagine that's the same vague one in the other three elements, right?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So what we need to do as a committee is to look at the four handbooks and see what is actually in our online handbook. And we've talked about a couple of other meetings, and if we need to define some wording and make sure that it's clear, that is what we should be doing in terms of... putting out clarity from the school committee, a policy from the school committee. And I agree with you that, obviously, if Ellery's saying to us, you know, it's really vague, well, we hear that and we need to make it clear.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: So on a separate motion offered by Ms. Mostone, that a policy be developed prior to the start of school year that applies to all elementary schools. Thank you.
[Ann Marie Cugno]: being involved with a lot of the site council meetings is that if there's a couple of things change in the handbook that's fine but if there's going to be an actual policy the policy has to come in front of the school committee but if it's not the same across the board it just doesn't make sense and we have made it very clear here that that's what we want to do so the policy has to be
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: We have two motions on the floor. One to submit a resolution to the Mass. Association of School Committees that we go on record supporting recess being part of time and learning. And we have a motion, Part B, that a policy be developed prior to the start of the school year that's consistent across the board and applies to all schools. Good? OK. On Part A, roll call vote. Ms.
[Robert Skerry]: Cugno.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Yes.
[Robert Skerry]: Ms. Monadello. Yes. Ms. Grace.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: 7 in the affirmative, 0 in the negative. Motion passes. On Ms. Mustone's resolution for a policy that be developed. Roll call, please. Yes.
[Robert Skerry]: Yes.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Yes. 7 in the affirmative, 0 in the negative. Motion passes. Good job. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. report of the superintendent item number two report on department of public health and evaded care coordination grant.
[Roy Belson]: Mr. Superintendent members of the committee, um, the Medford public schools has been awarded a $15,000 grant from the Massachusetts department of public health. With us this evening is our supervisor of health services, Tony Vento, who can come up and explain the grant and explain what we're going to do with it and why we want to implement it next year.
[Toni Wray]: Good evening, Mayor, Superintendent, School Committee members. This was a grant that was written by Stacey Shulman, Jeffrey Lapid, and myself in response to the growing social-emotional learning needs and the physician-diagnosed mental health issues. We've decided to base our project, which we call the Mental Health Supervision for Clinical Staff, on a multidisciplinary model that parallels the psychiatric consultation model that clinicians receive out in private practice and in the hospital-based settings. So our goals are to build student resiliency and increase time on learning by providing support to students. We look to promote multidisciplinary and interagency collaboration and communication, decrease student visits to the nurse's office and the Councilor's office, decrease student absenteeism and increase the staff knowledge around mental health concerns. The way we're going to do this is we gained the grant money that will fund a psychiatrist or a clinical psychologist as a consultant to the district. We'll use co-coordinators, a school adjustment Councilor and a school nurse to identify cases and the school building staff will present the case and to the psychiatrist at a weekly meeting and they can discuss and review it. The aim is to develop a behavioral plan and school accommodation plans for the students and we'll track then the students' absentee rates and their visit rates to the Councilors and the nurses. Any questions?
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Ms. Van der Kloot.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I just want to thank you for this work. I thought this was great, an important step for us, and I just was really pleased to read what we're doing, Tony.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Skerry. Mr. Benedetto. I just had a couple questions. So the pediatric psychiatrists or the clinical psychologists, will they work directly with our students or will they
[Toni Wray]: work with our staff who will work with our students?
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Staff.
[Toni Wray]: It's a consultative model to staff. So you have the advantage of teaching staff about mental health illnesses and approaches that then can be brought down to the level of student accommodation plans in school. And how will we determine which staff at which schools will take? All levels. High school, elementary, and middle. So on a weekly rotating schedule, we will have, everybody has a, a chance once a month to present a case or a couple of related cases. Okay, so every clinician in the district will get a chance to do this? It's up to the school building team. I would say on that team would be not only the Councilor, the nurse, the teacher, the paraprofessional. So each school will have a team? Well, each school, you know, the Councilors and the coordinators, I should say, will open it up to that school building to say, you know, what case would you like to discuss? Who would you like involved? And, you know, it'll be scheduled on a day when those people can take part in that type of meeting, student faculty meeting.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: This is great. The social and emotional needs of our students have expanded dramatically in the last few years. As everywhere. and they're not slowing down. So any way we can bring in funds or experts to help our students and help our teachers, our nurses, in-house adjustment Councilors and therapists, help our kids and our families, that's great. We need more grants. Keep going. Thank you.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Thank you for your motion on the floor to receive and place on file. Seconded by Ms. Vanden Heuvel. All those in favor? All those opposed? Motion is passed. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Superintendent, report on state budget fiscal 17.
[Roy Belson]: Good afternoon members of the committee. The governor proposed a 2017 budget. The House and the Senate then passed their versions and the budget now is in conference committee. The conference committee has to reconcile the legislative differences between the two chambers, and when the conference committee reports out, and generally they'll take a good part of this month to do it, there'll be an up and down vote in each chamber. If passed by both chambers, they can't make modifications once it comes out of conference committee. It will go to the governor, and he'll certainly veto a few line items based on his preferences. It will then go back to the legislature for possible veto overrides, which is typical. And a final version will then be sent to the governor for enactment. This process probably won't be completed until towards the end of June. You need to be realistic about how that takes place. It's a typical process in the state. It usually doesn't happen any sooner than the last week in June, if that at all. So negotiations begin amid uncertainty over the 2016 revenues. Now, when I wrote this report, there was $260 million behind projections. As of the other day, that projection went up to $311 million behind projections. Now, Kristen Lepore, who's the Secretary of Administration and Finance, has indicated that they could handle that at the state level. But it does dampen the kind of thinking that goes on in the legislative chambers, because they're saying to themselves, well, if we're $311 million behind now, what will we be in June? What does that mean for carryover money into fiscal 17? So we just don't know how that's going to play out just yet. The overall budget levels filed so far as follows. The governor is at $39,553,000. The House is at $39,539,000 below the governor. And the Senate is at $39,558,000. So the Senate's usually higher. And generally, it comes in somewhere between the House and the Senate. The overall increase is about 3.59%. The Senate is the highest. According to the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, the original projection rate for revenue was going to be 4.3%. However, right now through April, it's only 1.9%. That's quite a gap in revenue that the state is expecting to have. Overall, the House and the Senate provide similar support for K-12 education. But there are differences among the 30 line items that need to be reconciled. And I'm going to give you some representative differences because I think they do affect us as we prepare our budget and as we go forward. So one that I know you're all interested in, the house appropriation for kindergarten is $18.5 million. That's level funding from this year. The Senate is, that's a mistake, the Senate is at $2 million. I'm sorry. The Senate is at $2 million. Any reduction in this level will affect direct funding coming to Medford for kindergarten. This could be as much as $150,000. If the Senate level carries or something lower than what we're getting, we could lose as much as $150,000. That's not good. Charter school funding is still well below the formula entitlement offset local costs for both branches. The Senate is 5 million higher than the House. but neither really addresses the actual gap which could approach $50 million in underfunded entitlement dollars. Medford is projected, based on the early returns, to have less students in charters, but we could end up paying more in the current year, because that's the way the funding works. And if the reimbursement goes down, that's a problem. Non-resident pupil transportation would be funded at $1.8 million by the Senate, which is $1.5 million more than the House. The funding line helps to offset the cost of the Minuteman bus. Now, we're working on a less expensive cost for that particular vehicle because we have less youngsters going. We might be able to use a smaller vehicle and pay less for it. But in the meantime, we would like to get that reimbursement because that obviously helps to offset the cost. The Senate version puts $350,000 into a new line item that would support the development of alternative assessments of student performance beyond test scores. That's aspirational. I don't know that we're going to see much from that, but it's an interesting proposal. The Senate has used the budget process, if you will, to legislate policy issues, which the House has not. It's a real tricky slope because that means the Senate has to convince the House that it should be legislating policy through budget. The governor has eschewed that at this particular point in time. So let's see what happens. The Senate version of the SPED circuit breaker is about $5 million more than the House and approximately $10 million more than the Governor. This funding line offsets extraordinary special ed costs. We're projecting that we need somewhere around $283 million in the state to offset the cost to get to 75% reimbursement. That's worth somewhere in the vicinity of $1.45 to $1.5 million to us every year as it's currently coming to us. If that goes down, that's money we have to find in our budget. We don't think it's going to go down, we just don't know if it's going to meet the 75% because every year more and more youngsters require care, costs of these placements may go up, and the gap could increase. So those are the main differences affecting Medford. Both the House and the Senate provided $55 per pupil minimum additional aid to schools under Chapter 70. This is $35 per pupil higher than the governor's. It's $30 per pupil higher than last year. This overall funding goes in directly into the city treasury and is used, obviously, for a number of reasons that the city needs to cover its expenses, including health care, pensions, and other matters that affect schools, but may not be something that you see on a regular basis in our budget. Homeless transportation is level funded from FY 2016. This is well below the need. Pat and I are projecting right now that we could have $140,000 in costs next year based on past experience. And we're not getting anywhere near that in reimbursement. And that was supposedly an unfunded mandate that the state auditor said would be funded, but it hasn't met its expectations at this time. So we call the legislators up on a regular basis. I was up the state house today for some time and spoke to some of our people again, but quite frankly, you know, it's hard to know what's happening in the conference committee until they really get serious and what the trade offs are going to be, because there's so many line items in the state budget. If somebody gets one thing, they may give away in something else, but they know what we want. They certainly know what we want. And, uh, we certainly have, the support of other school districts who have the same needs as we do. So that's an update so far on the state budget. It certainly affects how we plan our budget because we won't know some of these answers when our budget comes up. So it may be that we have to defer making certain decisions until we know what the actual state funding will be for certain items. But we'll keep you posted and we'll provide some additional information if something breaks to us in the next few days.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Thank you very much. Is there a motion to receive and place on file by Ms. Kreatz, seconded by Ms. Cuno? All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes. Report on the public records bill. A synopsis, Mr. Oh, I'm sorry, the financial report.
[Roy Belson]: So we're going to call upon our Director of Finance and Administration, Pat Feely, to bring you up to date on our finances as we approach the end of the fiscal year.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Thank you very much, Ms. Beale. You're still hoarse.
[5T-XCQueORE_SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I still don't have a voice. Attached, please find the summary financial report as of June 1st. As of the writing of this report, the budget is 85.69% expended. The final 10-month employee teachers paychecks will begin payout June 16. That is the last regular paycheck. And then June 21st is the last day of school, and we'll see the final four paychecks to complete the 26 days due per contracts. And that's for anybody who is a 10-month employee. Currently, six teachers are on maternity leave. Special education will utilize the planned budget. Budgeted resources were $3.5 million. Currently, we're encumbered at $1.95. General fund, idea, just about $1 million. Circuit breaker, $1.4. Those numbers will change a little bit as we come into the end of the year and we do our final adjustments. Telephones, all schools are complete with the new phones. The only issue is our firewall. And as Alan Arena mentioned at the Committee of the Whole, It's proven very problematic. So we are working on a solution. Alan is meeting with network technology tomorrow to try and integrate a solution. Transportation, bus routes have been running smoothly for the spring months. The last day of school, June 21, we'll see an early dismissal. Eastern has been notified. We're still undecided as of the last day of late runs. We're still deciding on that one. The review of routes using the Transfinder software is underway. The next stage is to sit down with Eastern, review the findings, and make further decisions to improve MPS's routes. Utilities. Through the month of April, natural gas is under budget still by about 25%. As we all know, warmer than typical winter, less usage. The savings will assist in the maintenance expenditures. Electricity is running over budget by about 4.5%. That was anticipated, and we have set the budget at 1.18 million to capture that. Buildings and grounds has been provided information in order to review the buildings that we did not expect an increase at, and they are looking into those buildings and trying to review what's going on. It's minor at those buildings, but if you don't nip it now, we get a regular winter, it could be a real problem. We have had a new contract settled with the city. And the new rate for electricity supply is 0.0882. The current rate is 0.0941, or a savings of less than $0.01 per kilowatt hour. And the savings will be roughly about $70,000, which should assist in maintaining our $1.18 million budget for next year. The ability to order from General Fund was stopped as of April 22, with the exception of grant and revolving funds and, of course, maintenance emergencies. The balance of June and into the first two weeks of July will see the payment of invoices that have purchased order approval. Barring anything unforeseen, the year should close as planned, as in the FY16 budget. Questions?
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Thank you very much. Mr. Benedetto. Thank you. Pat, thank you so much for this report. It's very helpful. And I really like seeing these because I see the total amount, the appropriation each year for each department. It always surprises me how much we spend and how funds are allocated to different departments. Now, I know that this is helpful to me right now because I'm very self-aware, especially with the budget coming up. And I see that some departments don't have as much funding as others. Our foreign language is under $1 million, but our finance is $1.5 million. And I know that there are more children's services there. But that helps me when people come forward to me at budget meetings and ask me for a lot of things. to have this in front of me. So I just want to say thank you, and I really utilize it well. Mike, you give us these, is this a quarterly report? I give you those every time that I make a presentation. Right. Is it monthly? It's pretty much monthly. And then quarterly, we're getting the community schools now. When do we get the food services in the rink? Can we set up a schedule for finance reports so that way I know exactly which ones we're getting for all of next year ahead of time? So I'll know every three months I'll get the community schools, the rink fee. Quarterly. So those will be added to these ones on a quarterly basis? Quarterly basis. OK, great. This one will be monthly. Right. Yeah, OK. I just wanted to make sure. I know we had made that motion, and it came forward to us recently. But I wanted to maybe have an outline of when we get them, what months we'll get each report. Because I think sometimes at the end of the year, when we get our budget book, it does have all of those things. It will have the rink as well, and it will have all of our buildings, all of our facilities, and all of those budgets, the food budget. Is that correct, Mr. Superintendent?
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: All budgets that are under the school.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Right. Okay, so those will all be presented soon when you present us with our next year budget. Will it also have what we used this year and how funds were allocated? Like I know sometimes we use community school, you know, if we have extra money in one budget to transfer it for a shortage in another budget, does the school committee vote for that or is that just something that's appropriated?
[Roy Belson]: We do that at the end of the year. We're a single appropriation. as opposed to the council, which has individual line items.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: So we have rights to move.
[Roy Belson]: But, you know, we always give you that at the end. And once everything's reconciled, but it takes a while for it to reconcile because things come in during the summer, they're encumbered, they're held over until they're actually paid utility bills, things of that type. So until we actually see the actual numbers, you don't want to make a million changes just simply on the fly.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Okay. Now I, I, I talked a little bit about this a little earlier about, I know when we met about community schools, there was some community people here that wanted to change what we had initially set, and we were going to meet again. Will we be meeting so that way we have those budget numbers for the summer programs and for next year's programs? For the rate structure? Yes.
[Roy Belson]: The rate structure, we're going to provide to you probably by the next meeting. So, you know, our recommended rate structure. That's being worked on right now.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: OK. I know that. I know we were talking about, I know that the committee chairperson was talking about June 22nd. I just didn't know if that was a definite date for that subcommittee meeting.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: The chairperson will call the meeting.
[Roy Belson]: The only thing I'd say is that let us concentrate on budget right now. You know, we've got a number of things we've got to do. This is a serious period. I don't want to try to get tied up with too many things. I don't mean to put anybody off, but this is the most important thing you do. And if I have to be running other meetings and going here and doing side bets, I'm not giving you my full attention. There's the close of school. There's a lot of things. There's hiring of teachers. There's things that have to go on. I think we'll get you the material, but let's not try and squeeze everything in because you You make it more difficult to concentrate on the things that really will make a difference for you going forward. You'll get it. We're not pulling anything back. You always get it. But the issue is, you know, timing it. I think it will bring you something by we have a meeting on the 20th, I believe. You'll have stuff well in advance of that to look at. You may not need a subcommittee because we'll explain it. You may be able to just look at it and say, yeah, that works.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Okay. Um, my final thought on that issue is that, uh, I, I've seen that, um, Camps and programs are being advertised for this summer. And I just want to make sure that everything goes through the community schools and our new online payment system for starting July 1st. So if all coaches and anybody who plans on using our facilities is made aware of that, that would be extremely helpful. Because I have been seeing things online. that are concerning, that maybe everybody in the community doesn't know the new process yet. So I would just like that to be communicated. I understand that you're busy, but I wanted to make sure that we didn't run into the same situations that we had earlier this year. So I would like you to address that before the facility is being rented or used and that everybody goes through the proper way and the new way so that we know We can look at the calendar and say, so-and-so is renting the fields. If we were up at the fields and they're using the fields, that's great. If someone else is using the fields, we can say, hey, how come someone's on the field? It's not rented for this time. And who's going to manage that and make sure that's going to happen? I'd like some of those answers before we adjourn for the summer. Thank you.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Ms. Krautz.
[Kathy Kreatz]: Thank you, Pat, for your report. I always enjoy them. I like reading them because they're easy to read instead of the numbers. I just have a question, because I know you're working with Transfinder, and I wanted to just check in with you. There was an open issue with a person that called last year, and he's called again this year, and he wanted to have his bus stop moved from Waddell and Park. So I'm wondering if there's any way to check in with the Transfinder and see if there's another route that might be possible. even a little ways down the street, there was another corner that I had met with this resident once before, but on Park Ave, the next street over, that was almost a better location, and it's still gonna come up the same route, it's gonna come up Highland, the kids aren't gonna get out on the Highland Ave, and the bus would take the right onto Park Ave, and just go right by Waddell to the very next corner, which is almost like the size of the bus. And the bus could stop nicely right there, and then cars couldn't get around. I know it's ideal with the four-corner stop, but what the resident told me was that what he saw was cars were going around the bus, even when the lights were on. And he said it was more of a safety issue, because even though the lights would be on, the cars would just, you know, going around it, you know, even though it's against the law. they were, you know, and so, you know, that was just an idea. You know what I mean? If we had to just move it just a nudge over to the next street, which is really just like 50 feet.
[5T-XCQueORE_SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I have been looking at that stop as I've been working through Transfinder. We also have to remember that some of those children are actually coming from the other side of that stop. So moving it forward or moving it off to the right makes them walk further and they're young. So, but I am looking at several alternatives and once I have that written down, I'll share them with you and maybe we can have a discussion.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Sure.
[Kathy Kreatz]: Okay, great. Thank you.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Very good. Is there a motion to receive in place on file by Ms. Van de Kloof, seconded by Mr. Skerry. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes. Mr. Superintendent, report on public records bill.
[Roy Belson]: Okay. So last Friday, pardon me? So on last Friday, the governor signed the public records bill. that the legislature finally put together over the last several months. I'm not going to go through the whole thing. There's a lot here. Obviously, we need to go through it more carefully, but there are new enforcement procedures in this, and there are new requirements under the public records law, which means that we've got to be that much more attuned to when people make certain requests. And obviously, you know, there is a need to to rethink electronic records versus paper records, who's the custodian of these things, and what constitutes a public record versus what constitutes something that's exempt. There are multiple exemptions from the public records law. The Secretary of State has yet, obviously just got passed, to issue regulations. When he issues those regulations, that will be another step forward. But this is scheduled to go into effect on January of 2017. So over the next several months, we'll be watching very closely to see what the regulatory requirements are and how that fleshes out the requirements of the law. But please read it, go over it, and we'll pay attention to it as well and keep you informed so that if these matters come up, we can handle them appropriately. I would say one thing that you've got to be aware of, your email is a public record. Your email is a public record, so if you say something you don't want to say in your email, it could be discovered. So you need to think about that a little bit because sometimes, you know, you say something in a sort of out there way and you don't really want to broadcast that.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Thank you very much, Mr. Superintendent.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So this clearly is an issue not only for the school committee, but the city of Medford overall. Right, so at some point as it becomes refined, that needs to be posted. I also see that there is a reasonable, a city or town may charge a reasonable fee, and I would think that they would need to have some discussion about what a reasonable fee is for this request.
[Roy Belson]: It's set by law. It's set now.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Oh, okay. So when this is, when everything is settled, I would certainly want to have it on our website. OK. Motion to accept.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Motion for suspension. OK. On the motion that we receive in place on file, this report by Ms. Van der Kloot and seconded by Mr. Skerry. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes. Motion for suspension of the rules. Opposed? No. Yes. Well, I'm not sure if the person wants this.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: What is the?
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Motion for suspension of the rules offered by Ms. Mostone so that a citizen parent could speak. On. OK.
[lq25S5HOVFA_SPEAKER_10]: Hi, my name is Elizabeth Light. I'm a parent at the Brooks School. And we met with Superintendent Belson, some of the PTO members last week to discuss the process for hiring the new principal.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: If you could just hold that actually is the next item. That is the next item. All right. There's a report on the Brooks Principalship. If the superintendent could offer his report, and then you could add to it. Thank you.
[Roy Belson]: All right. So Madam Mayor and members of the committee, As you previously had reported, Kevin Andrews is leaving to take a position as principal of the Nahant Elementary School. So on Wednesday, June 1st, I met with the faculty, along with Diane Caldwell, over at the Brooks, and then I met with the parent leadership team to hear their viewpoints on a succession plan. Both meetings were very informative, but the conclusions were very identical. There's virtually unanimous consensus to appoint an internal person to the position. There's a strong desire for continuity. And there's a significant confidence in the current assistant principal. The superintendent concurs with that expression of support. So unless the school committee really wants to go through a process that's different, I really don't want to run a pony show for anybody. I don't want to bring people in and pretend that we're having real interviews when I really believe that it could very well be something that we'll have a known conclusion before we even get started. Naturally, I'll speak to the unions about posting issues, but I would like to obviously, um, know that let allow the Brooks community to know the result before they go home, uh, the summer and also to allow for planning to continue. And it also will inform the budget process as well, because if I make moves internally, uh, that has some cost savings associated with it, which I think is a distinct advantage to us. given this year's budget. So I'm bringing it to your attention. I want to get some feedback from you. And obviously someone wants to speak on it. So I'd be happy to hear what people have to say, but that's my thinking on it right now.
[lq25S5HOVFA_SPEAKER_10]: Floor is yours. I just want to say that, uh, when we met with, uh, superintendent Bellson last week, we, um, I think everyone there, there were about 10 of us, um, support, um, hiring, uh, the assistant principal. promoting her. The parents have a great relationship with her and I get the sense the teachers do as well and we know the children really look to her for, she's a very nurturing presence in the school and also excellent.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: She also did a fabulous job at our meeting for the pre-budget meeting. She did an excellent job presenting. Thank you.
[Ann Marie Cugno]: Ms. Cuno. With that being said, though, if that does happen, then we will be looking for an assistant principal at that point.
[Roy Belson]: We'll appoint an assistant principal afterwards, but one step at a time.
[Ann Marie Cugno]: OK. And would you know if that would be someone internal, or would that also be someone who you would be putting the process out there to post it?
[Roy Belson]: Well, we'll first look internally. And the reason we look internally is because we'd like to give our people opportunity, one, but two, is also a distinct budget advantage. If I have a senior member of the faculty who is qualified to be an assistant principal, it certainly helps to replace that person with a lower salary and recapture some budget funds. So there's a couple of advantages to going internally, but if that didn't come to pass and it wasn't something that worked out, then we would do what we have to do.
[Ann Marie Cugno]: OK. Well, I know we're on the Brooks, but what about the Andrews?
[Roy Belson]: I'm sorry?
[Ann Marie Cugno]: What about the Andrews?
[Roy Belson]: We're working on a solution there too and I really don't want to speak to that right now because I have to talk to Paul DeLeva in the morning. But again, I'm very budget conscious right now and I'm looking internally as much as I can because obviously anything I can save allows you to have a little bit more in other areas that you I might have some interest.
[Ann Marie Cugno]: I just want to make sure, as you mentioned, that we do everything in the proper way and make sure that we handle it with the proper procession of like the unions and everything else. Whereas if we're not going to post it, we have to do it properly. Very good.
[Erin DiBenedetto]: Mr. Benedetto. Um, I have a, um, I have a great knowledge of the assistant principal at the Brooks school. She was my daughter's teacher and that was our first year here in the method public schools. She's an excellent educator. She really was able to differentiate instruction to everyone in her classroom at that time. I watched her grow within the community. I was very happy with her becoming the assistant principal. And I wholeheartedly endorse this candidate for that position. So just so you have it on record, you have my blessing. Thank you. Which you don't usually get, but I thought you'd like to hear that.
[Roy Belson]: It's OK.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Thank you, Maren.
[Roy Belson]: I'll take it.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Ms.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Van der Kloot. I also just wanted to mention that over the time, the opportunities that I've had seeing the assistant principal interact with parents and with us. Again, as you said, she did a great job answering questions and fielding questions when the school council reports were submitted both this year and last year. And I would very much concur that it seems like there's wide spread support from the people I've spoken to, and I think that this would be a very good move. I, too, don't wish to do a process, which is, you know, you said dog and pony show. We don't need to do that. I was curious, were there any other people who had come to speak on this tonight? Oh, okay.
[Roy Belson]: Okay.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Interim or permanent? Interim or permanent?
[Roy Belson]: Oh, I'd make it permanent. I'd make it permanent. I'd give the person the, you know, I would want that person to have the authority level. I wouldn't want someone to think, well, you know, this is maybe, you know, something that could change rapidly. You know, I want that person to have the authority level and be able to move forward.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: On the motion by Ms. Vigendickel, seconded by Ms. DiBenedetto, that the school committee allow the superintendent to make a direct appointment of the current Brooks assistant principal to the principalship. Roll call vote, please.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Roll call. Ms.
[Robert Skerry]: Cugno. Mr. Benedetto. Yes. Ms. Kreatz. Yes. Ms. Costone. Yes. Ms. Skerry. Yes. Ms.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Linder.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Yes. Seven in the affirmative, nine in the negative. Motion passes. Congratulations. We do have one item under suspension. Motion for suspension of the rules by Ms. Cugno, seconded by Mr. Skerry. New business. Be it resolved that the Medford School Committee express sincere condolences to the family of Wes Foote, Sr. Mr. Foote was the Medford Public Schools foreman carpenter for many years. His wife Connie was an account clerk in the payroll office. If we could all rise to take a moment of silence.
[Roy Belson]: West Foote was the foreman carpenter of the public schools for many, many years. And West was a very gentle soul, big man, very strong and very, you know, impressive kind of guy, very quiet. His wife Connie was one of the key people in the payroll office, and the two of them, you know, would see each other because they were basically both part of the central office. And Wes was very, very skilled. You didn't have to, you know, explain to Wes how to make something happen. You know how to make it happen. And the Foote family was very active in the community for many, many years. His daughter, Linda, and daughter-in-law, Linda, and his son, Wes, Jr. So very close to them, very good people, you know, and 95 years old. 95 years old. God bless him. He was a great player, and I can still see Wes coming through the corridor. looking with Ernie Demon. I don't know if you remember Ernie Demon at all. Ernie Demon, the two of them. Ernie being the character in the crowd and Wes being the straight shooter. And it was really kind of funny because Ernie would say something and Wes would say, oh, Ernie, stop that. But really good, really highly skilled people. And they could do a lot of things. Back then, we had several carpenters. And they really did some really nice things in school to keep them up and running. And very fond memories of Wes. Good guy.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: Thank you very much, Mr. Superintendent. We're at the bottom of our agenda with negotiations and legal matters. Is there a motion to go into executive session to discuss these items? Motion by Ms. Van der Kloot, seconded by Ms. Cuno. Roll call vote, please. Yes, seven in the affirmative, nine in the negative. Just Ms. Cunha wants to make a public statement.
[Ann Marie Cugno]: Yes, please. I just want to say, because I know it's at the end of the year and it's kind of hard to get everybody in, but I just want to say that the superintendent and I had a great opportunity this Sunday. We were down at the Italian Republic. They were celebrating their 70th year anniversary and four of our high school students won first place across the state. on essays that they wrote, and we were very, very proud of them. And I'd also like to congratulate the road team and their coaches coming in second at the JBL. They are now second in the state. And our girls softball team going off to the second game, hopefully tomorrow night without any lightning or thunder. against Lexington, so our best wishes to them, and also to congratulate the Curtis Tufts students for their graduation tomorrow, and for the Medford High School and Vocational School students on their graduation on Wednesday evening. May they keep safe, healthy, and achieve all their goals, and their dreams, and come back as visitors, not students.
[Stephanie Muccini Burke]: On the motion to go into executive session in room 207,
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