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[Unidentified]: Everyone can you all hear me? Okay. Hello.
[Jenny Graham]: All right, I'm going to read the meeting agenda.
[Erika Reinfeld]: We have to start recording or push to YouTube or oh, I see community media.
[Jenny Graham]: I'm going to start reading. Dr. Lucy is signing on. She's sitting right next to me. So. Where did I put it? Thank you. Okay, please be advised that on Wednesday, June 11th at 530, there'll be a family and community engagement subcommittee meeting held through participation via zoom. This meeting is being recorded. The meeting can be viewed live on Medford public schools, YouTube channel through Medford community media on your local cable, which is Comcast. 98 or 22 and Verizon 4543 or 47 since the meeting will be held remotely participants can log in by using the following link or call in number meeting ID for zoom is 97829828875. Questions or comments can be submitted during the meeting by emailing Jenny Graham at medford.k12.ma.us. and you must include the following, your first and last name, your Medford street address, and your question or comment. So I will call the roll. Member Reinfeld. Present. Member Intoppa.
[Unidentified]: Here.
[Jenny Graham]: And Member Graham. Hi, that's me. Three present, zero absent. Okay, so I will say that many of the people on this call have a hard stop at 6.30 because we have a school building committee meeting right after this. because there just aren't enough hours in the month of June, apparently. But we are here because Member Reinfeld sent forth and received approval for a resolution that says, be it resolved that the Family Engagement and Communication Subcommittee will need to discuss protocols for family-facing communications around after-school enrollment and academic transitions. This meeting will include the director of communications as well as relevant programs, program directors and school leaders. So. Um, what we wanted to do was start with a discussion of, like, our current protocols and just so that we can sort of hear what the district is currently doing across these different transition points. Um, and then see if there's any public input. Oh, there you are. Sorry. I just hung up on myself and then talk about, um. Suggestions for next steps and communication plans that might smooth out some of these transitions. So, before I continue member, I felt, did you have anything else you wanted to say to lead us off?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I would just say that this is a meeting about not the content of what we say, but what. The processes are, or what. what communications go out, not necessarily what's in them. Like general topic is fine, but not getting into the details. But to say family needs this sort of information and this is appropriate for a real time communication, this communication could be archived on a website for people to reference. And what are those processes? What do they look like? So it's not the details of exactly what we're telling people about what happens when you move from middle to high school or How the lottery works, just know it the after school lottery works. It's just keep. We need to have content about what the. How people need to know how the lottery works, but we don't need to get into the details. Of how it works on this call, so there will probably be a fair number of action items after this meeting. but it's just to say what are the points and what are the points where central administration can support program directors and principals in getting messages out to a large swath of people, right? Are there moments when it doesn't make sense for each middle school, some things that will make sense for each middle school to communicate with the families going, but if it's generally what happens when you move to middle school, that could potentially come from a central location, or the message could be crafted centrally and sent out by individuals. Does that make sense? Do people have questions?
[Jenny Graham]: So, on the hit parade of transitions to discuss, the first one from a current protocol perspective is kindergarten registration. And I know there's been a lot of change in how we communicate about kindergarten in the last, like, handful of years. That warms my heart. So, I was hoping somebody could maybe start with kindergarten registration, and then we can just, like, run down the list of, like, current practice.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Sure. And can everybody hear me? All right, I just want to make sure I'm going to share some audio with member Graham. So I think is so Megan fiddle carries on the call. And I think between Megan, myself and will, we definitely moved up the timeline for kindergarten registration significantly and moved it even earlier this year. So, Megan, I don't know if you want to start from the very beginning of where we're generating. The list from, but our timeline, the list part. Starts in the fall and then we're usually reaching out to families come.
[Megan Fidler-Carey]: December yeah, so, um. So starting in November, we reach out to City Hall to ask for the census, the census data for all students, all kids at that point who were born from September 1st to August 31st, five years prior. So whichever students would be age eligible. So that's our first pass to get contact information for students we don't know about otherwise. I think what was very successful this year was really partnering with the Medford Department of Public Health and their connectors and liaisons to really have them help us get the word out. Because we've realized that we've got quick access to our current families, But it's their neighbors. It's their coworkers that we couldn't reach as easily. So we were reaching out to the connectors and liaisons through Medford City Hall, and they're the ones they actually had funding and made those lawn signs. So I'm not sure if you've had a chance to see them, but we put out lawn signs. We were trying to really just push the information to families. And I think that that was what was successful in getting some of the families that historically have been dragging their feet and not signing up as quickly, I think we got them to sign up earlier. So that was a communication success, I think, in my book, huge from where we are. But then, you know, as far as we're having Will here on the team, we really did look at the language on our webpage. I can share that here or it's, you know, it's on the standing webpage for kindergarten registration to really make it accessible to all families and to have those banners pop up at really relevant times. So I think that that helped with getting our numbers earlier than they've historically been.
[Jenny Graham]: And how much earlier are you seeing the numbers come in? Like, do you have like a comparison?
[Megan Fidler-Carey]: Dr. Glusi and I were just talking about this today, and it seems like our overall number is comparable to what we had around this time last year, but it's spread out more evenly across the four schools than it was in the past. So, I mean, that's why I'm kind of confidently saying that our targeted approach to different constituencies who speak different languages with those lawn signs and with our liaisons and connectors, I think those numbers at those schools are up. I'm wondering if, you know, what I didn't look at was the number in the census to see if it's a smaller class overall in Medford. I'm not sure. But it does feel like some numbers are up, even if our kind of bottom line total number doesn't seem so much bigger.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Yeah, specifically, I would say we, you know, historically, a school like the Missituk, We, at this point, at this time of year for the, since I've been up at central administration for the, since 2020, we typically have only about 30 students enrolled by this time of year. And August is very, very active for the Missittuck school, but this year we're already at 60. I think maybe 60, well, at least 60. So that's a significant change. That's almost double than what we usually see. The other schools are showing similar patterns. The Roberts is a little less. than what I've seen the past five years. So I don't wanna make any assumptions to what that might mean, but the Brooks and the McGlynn are trending as typical.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay. And then once people are in, it's the building bridges and it's what's on the website, right? Those are the kind of the, and then there's an open house in the spring and the screenings, right? Those are.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Yes. Yes. We offer 3 building bridges, 2 in person, 1 virtual. We usually do the zoom 1 in February. So it's January, February, March. because the open house for all the schools is the first Wednesday in May. And the screenings are usually, they roll a little differently from school to school, but they begin at the end of May and conclude in September. So it's a slightly different schedule for each family.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay. So I guess my question is, are there things that we need to streamline or improve? It sounds like we've made some progress in the last few years.
[Suzanne Galusi]: I think if anything from, for my perspective would be once the registration is complete and we have all the documentation we need, the medical, the district sends out, um, another kind of welcome email. And with that is attached the home to school transition form. Because the enrollment for students is different if they're our own meet and Megan, you can talk about how we've shifted the meet registration this year. But if they're our own, we have a lot of data. In terms of in terms of transition. If it's a local Medford preschool program that they came from, we typically get their transition form. But if students are coming to us without preschool experience or from a home-based preschool experience or a preschool experience outside of Medford, a lot of families, their business, where they work may have a preschool program, we don't often get transitional data. in instances like that. And so we do push out a home to school transition form, because the most information we can ascertain about a student helps us with class assignments and just to ease the transition process. That is an area that I think I would welcome a conversation about how to do that better. and how to make sure we're connecting with all families to get some transitional data on their child.
[Megan Fidler-Carey]: Yeah, I can tell you what we did. We updated both of the forms. We put the form for the centers and the form for the families. Gabby and I worked on those together, and we put those in front of elementary school principals and in front of kindergarten teachers to say, are you getting the information that you need so that when you get these transition forms, you can make informed decisions about how to group your students, which is really what those are best used for. And then we sent all of those to all families who were registered or who even start the registration process on May 1st, as well as all the centers. And Gabby was really thoughtful about asking, you know, because we ask for data about how much prior education they've had. Did you have, you know, full-time daycare, two plus hours a week daycare? So we asked that, and then if it was something, a center that we'd never heard of, we asked for more information, contact information for that center. And then we reached out to them to say, you know, we're gonna be sending out this transition form, would you be willing to fill it out? And all of them said yes. So we have, we've been just amassing our kind of database for all of the different programs that our students have come from. And now we'll just send it out every May 1st to all of those centers to say, if you have a student that you know is attending Medford Public Schools, please fill this out, return it. fillable online and they can email it right back to us. So it's really easy and they're like trying to remove as many of those barriers as we can because the principles were telling us that is very valuable information.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay, and I was just going to ask, could that happen when they're say that that goes on a list of required documents and say this isn't essential for registration, but this is helpful to get that sooner? And I think the big question that families have is, particularly people who haven't been in schools, is why am I giving you all this information? And I don't, it's been a while since I filled it out. I was out of Medford for early childhood, so. I remember filling it out. I just don't remember the messaging around it.
[Megan Fidler-Carey]: Well, yeah, we tried to put like at the top, you know, the objective of the form.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So I mean, and I think I certainly understood. I'm just thinking of people who are less familiar with American education systems.
[Jenny Graham]: Is there like a one page like here's what you can expect for the year kind of document that we could like give to the particularly the local preschools at the beginning of the year so that there's like a timeline like here's when you should think about registering your kid and here's like when there will be an open house so that people aren't like bombarding the school like I want to come take a tour right like I'm just thinking about like the active marketing that happens particularly from the charter schools to get kids into their pipeline in kindergarten And even though we're starting in November, like, there are definitely families starting before November to try to understand what their options are. So if there was a way for us to, like, give them a, like, one-page roadmap of, like, here's what happens in the next year on your way to Medford Public Schools, and it's just this easy. With a little bit of information that helps people feel good, like, could something like that obviously could go on our website and it can go on our social media pages and things like that. But could something like that also be useful to hand to the preschool so they can pass them out to their kids so that parents. can just like be prepared, like, oh, I have to register my kid and I can do that starting in this. Cause there's always somebody who's like, when do I register my kid? Or when is the first day for kindergarten? Or like, is there an open house? And like, you know, all those dates, those dates all exist. Like, well, you know, well in advance. So I think that would be sort of an interesting experiment too, to just try to create like a one page of like, here's what it looks like.
[Suzanne Galusi]: for this year. Yeah, I think so. It would be combining what we have into one, one pager.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And one of those, and if exact dates, days of the week are not known, but to say it's in early May or mid May, or I'd say days of the week.
[Suzanne Galusi]: The first Wednesday, yeah, we can easily do something like that.
[Erika Reinfeld]: It sounds like kindergarten, we know that. Otherwise, I know middle school open houses are a little less fixed.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah. Okay. That's that's an easy one. I don't see a whole slew of community members on, but does anybody else have anything they want to add before we move on from kindergarten?
[Erika Reinfeld]: No, I think we should move it a reasonably with all due respect to input.
[Jenny Graham]: Okay. After school enrollment and lottery.
[Megan Fidler-Carey]: So I can take that one too. So we've got a web page for before and after school that's got a whole section about the procedures for registering the lottery and the waitlist, how it all works. And then we've got an internal document that's got all of the sort of step-by-step just so it's done the same way every time. But when Dr. Glucy and Will and I were meeting about it before, we were saying that this seems like a great activity for the new after school task force and maybe presenting things in terms of FAQs, frequently asked questions, instead makes it just easier. So it doesn't feel like it's a bunch of information coming at you that you have to chew on and figure out how to untangle, but instead it can be like Here's the question that this is the answer to instead of like because I you know I look at the web page and it does feel pretty dense because we're I've tried to like anticipate every question that's going to come up, but then it's like giving a bunch of answers, and it looks like a lot of information so I think an FAQ. would be a great way to present that communication. And I think working with the task force, they'll have a better sense of exactly which questions and what answers they're looking for and ask the questions the right way instead of me sort of wondering what questions.
[Erika Reinfeld]: That makes a lot of sense to me. I think one of my questions around afterschool is, I know we have done a live question and answer about, say, the middle school lottery, which I grant is a very different lottery beast, but is there some sort of real-time thing that's needed here? I'm not sure if it is, but...
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we actually went as part of our conversation with the task force last week and the week before we are planning a night in July at the Met Republic library to kind of have that open forum more like. Focus groups kind of coming together among the people who join us that evening to kind of collaborate and I think part of that is developing kind of those communication. Paths I think is the is the best way to put it. So kind of understanding what questions they have further and how we can best kind of gather all the thoughts to get the information to families as best as possible. So that. That is in that is in the works for for late July this summer.
[Jenny Graham]: And I think, you know, I'd be interested in what the task force has to say to that. And maybe we can simply defer to them on after school for this, the purposes of this meeting, but maybe like, you know, again, like a one pager, like, here's how after school works, which I know it does change all the time, but the same kind of thing, like, here's the lottery, here's how it works. Because, you know, we've had, I've had people say, um, well, they don't tell me where I am in the line. And I'm like, well, that's because we asked them not to. And that's because people were badgering our staff who have to take care of kids and we needed them to be able to focus on taking care of kids. So I think there's, you know, a lot of like transition happening there, but maybe something like in a one page kind of format, again, like pretty early in the game so that if anyone, whenever you sort of think like, oh my God, I have to find afterschool for my kid. Like there's some like simple way to understand how the process works would probably be very helpful, but I totally defer to what the task force has to say about that. All right, well, why don't we move on to transition from elementary to middle school?
[Suzanne Galusi]: And of course, I was, oh, do we want to wait? I was just going to say that. Well, I think, um. I think this might be an area of improvement for sure. I mean, I think we do more for the transition from 8th to 9th. Then we do from 5th to 6th, with the exception of Joan Bowen and her wonderful department, who does a nice job with that transition, but I don't think there's an awful lot. Jen skein in terms of, like, the transition from grade 5 to grade 6, I think that is a growth area for metro public schools. But I defer to your sure.
[Jennifer Skane]: A couple of things that we have done this year that. uh, obviously are helpful to the process is both Nick and I, um, hold our open houses, which we begin communication with the families at that point. And then, um, this year we, uh, took the. The reins of the course selection piece for world language. So we sent out. a communication to all families to give them a preference for world language. Nick and I do a lot of like individual tours. People reach out and they ask us to just kind of do a walkthrough and give some information. A lot of times that is families that are coming from out of district or moving to the area or from some of the, you know, Saint rays and so forth and so they're looking to transition to public school and they want some more information. So we do a lot of individual or 1 on 1 times with them. We do begin summer communications with the families, so I believe Nick and I both have it down to three opportunities that we send out, kind of like a newsletter of transitioning to middle school. In the summer, in August, Nick and I both offer one-to-one 15-minute meetings that parents can sign up for. I don't know how we're going to manage that this summer with all of the HVAC, but that is an opportunity that even if we have to do it somewhere else, we will probably continue. On the playground? Outside in the driveway, whatever works. But each family can sign up. A lot of times they have information they want to share in order to help the transition be a more positive one or they need information in order to make sure that their child transitions positively. So we do that. And then obviously we have orientation for students. So there are a lot of opportunities for students or families to become familiar with what middle school is and the transition that difference. We both do a student panel at our open houses too, so that parents have an opportunity to hear directly from students and ask student questions. And then my, well, not my, I believe Nick's as well. have transition meetings with each elementary school where our counseling team goes and meets with the special ed and counseling teams down at the elementary level. And they bring a lot of information back for us. And that way we are able to make good scheduling choices, make sure that we are supporting parents in where their child will be placed, like on which side or classes. So there is a lot of work that happens with that. And I'm sure there's things that we can improve.
[Suzanne Galusi]: I think the only thing. Thank you Jen. I appreciate that. That's such a nice long list. I think the only thing for me would be an advance to that like student panel. Right. Where you know how you At the middle school level, there are eighth grade. The high school will send students to the middle schools to kind of talk about the course assignments. And I think that something like that might be nice that we can do where we can have some sixth or seventh graders visit somehow, try to figure out a way to kind of just maybe give some fifth grade students a little bit more information ahead of the open house.
[Jennifer Skane]: Yeah, that might be a great idea. Actually, this year I worked with Mata and Sheila, one of the APs, and we brought some ninth graders down to the middle school to do a Q&A between them, kind of a more casual high school life really like. So I think we could probably facilitate something similar where we bring some sixth and seventh graders down. One thing I did internally, and I'm sure Nick does something similar, is I developed a peer mentor program this year so that students that work with me for the Orientation are also students that will go into homerooms throughout the year just to check in with kids, answer any questions, find out where they're at at that. And we try and put together like a little lesson that's helpful for the kids to kind of teach. And they do that during their wind block. So that was helpful too.
[Erika Reinfeld]: These all sound great. I think one piece that I think, I think these things are all happening kind of once placements have happened, once kids know where they're going. And there's a lot of anxiety leading up to that about not knowing what's coming. So I think, again, kind of that overview of there's- The road to middle school. The road to middle school kind of thing and with the fifth grade teachers. And I know there's some inconsistency among fifth grade teachers of, How how much they're willing to take on or how much they have been able to take on in terms of prepping their kids for.
[Jenny Graham]: For middle school, yeah, I mean, I think again, like, something early in the year that says. You have a fifth grader. That's great news. There's all kinds of things that are going to happen between now and the time they transition to middle school. And this is what you can expect from us. Again, I think if parents are thinking about going elsewhere for middle school, they're thinking about that in October. And the first opportunity to go see our middle schools officially is like May. So I think, you know, when you were saying you give a lot of individual tours, I guess my other question is, is there a way to have some sort of like, Combined tour night between the 2 schools where you talk about, like, middle school in a general way, the curriculum, et cetera. So that people who are interested in that piece of it early, like, October ish. have a place to go to get that information. And maybe some of those, you know, families that you are entertaining on an individualized basis might even appreciate coming to something like that because they're likely to know other people in the community with kids their age, even if they don't go to school with them. And if you show up and your friends are there and they're like, oh yeah, you know, my oldest went to this school or whatever, like there's some like cross-pollination that could be productive there that I think maybe would be very helpful as well. I do remember world language being, like, basically the only choice, right, that you have on the way into middle school. And I don't remember really learning about it, and this may have changed because it's been a couple of years, but, like, I don't remember learning about, like, did you get your choice or not until, like, schedules came out. Is that still the case? And do you get a lot of questions about that outside of, like, when the schedule comes out?
[Jennifer Skane]: Yes, that is still the case. The only other thing that students can opt for, and we added to the form, is if they're taking band or orchestra. We do make it clear that it's a preference, not a request, because obviously if I have 85 students who all want to take Italian, I only have so many sections of Italian, so obviously that would be an issue scheduling wise. Believe it or not, no, I don't have a lot of questions about that. It was interesting during the lottery presentation that Dr. Galusi did this year, 90% of our questions were about extracurriculars. They wanted to know what they could do in middle school.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, I think that's well, my kids were on the front end of the lottery. So we weren't the very first lottery class, but we were pretty early in the game. And those meetings were packed because it was new. And now it's what we do. So I think it's a completely different thing. Agreed. I'm not even sure. I think like a meeting about the lottery, if we can message it more proactively, is necessary. Like if you're going to have a meeting about middle school, like I would have a meeting about middle school, not about the lottery. And if you're going to talk about the lottery, you should just make people aware that if they watch the lottery, there's like nothing to see. Because I think people think there's something to see and they think they're going to learn on screen where their kid is going, and none of that is true. And so you just watch a bunch of people, like, passing papers around, and it's, like, sort of the craziest half hour of television of the day, you know. So it's just like, it had—things have changed. Like, that has settled in. That is a process that people are familiar with. So I think we can embrace that and not necessarily have to keep having those meetings that people seem not as interested in anymore.
[Jennifer Skane]: Yeah, I don't just, Dr. Glusi and Will were there. They could definitely jump in on that. But their questions weren't about the lottery. They were not concerned about the lottery. They wanted more information about what middle school would be like and the transition. So I definitely agree with you.
[Jenny Graham]: So even if there could be something in the fall, and maybe then there's a Zoom, you probably could hit up a bunch of different parents and a bunch of different questions with a similar program.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And I think the main source of anxiety I've seen around the lottery is actually in the kids. And am I going to be separated from my friends? And that's where I think the peer-to-peer panels actually make a lot of sense here, especially as middle schoolers are doing that developmental thing where they are separating from the adults and trusting the older and wiser eighth graders before they trust.
[Suzanne Galusi]: That's a legitimate concern and that's the 1 we hear over and over again.
[Jennifer Skane]: Yeah, so yeah, and I think the benefit is that we do have access to the van. So. Those are fairly easy to put together where I can put a nice crew that is prepared to. head down to each elementary school and do a quick presentation. And I'm sure the principals would be happy to help me facilitate that. And maybe we could even cross-pollinate and have Andrews and McGlynn students go at the same time.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I think they should go together. I think you should have representation from both schools. The risk of that is if one kid is engaging and another one isn't, then everyone wants to do that. But there's also anxiety about how different are these two schools and these two experiences.
[Jennifer Skane]: Yeah, absolutely. I just remind them about my eighth grader last year at graduation when she said that all her friends got the McGlynn and she got Andrews and how it was the best thing that could have happened to her. So I remind kids about that all the time.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And hearing that from a kid is huge. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's a good question, is what we can do centrally to take some of that individual burden off of you and Nick to do. I think personalizing middle school is really important, and I don't want to lose that because it makes people feel welcome in the school that they're in. But some of that hand-holding before they know where they're going is good.
[Suzanne Galusi]: I agree.
[Jenny Graham]: All right, moving right along, middle to high school. So you have two middle to high school parents here with you today.
[Erika Reinfeld]: You got two rising, and John's brother is also, you got, yeah, you got four school committee members coming into ninth, families coming into ninth grade.
[Vasudevan]: We're excited.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Actually, I don't think, I don't think one of them, I think one of them is going to a Catholic school.
[Vasudevan]: We don't want that. Um, so things that we do for the transition to high school, we have our open house in the fall for eighth graders to come up to the high school. Um, and there's information shared in the Karen Theater by principals and then a tour of the school. We then have orientation in August for ninth graders, um, led by administration and primarily by students. We then have meet the principals night in August as well. That is just for parents. Other events that we hold is Course Information Night. It's held in the spring. This year, it looked much different than it normally does because we didn't have a lot of the information yet and didn't want to be in the Caron Theater with 300 parents and not having the information from the ratified contract yet. So it looked completely different. We will go back to more of the traditional way in the future. Um, what else do we do so we have the high school principals, along with athletics, along with I forget who else joins. There's a bunch of different people that joined to go down to the middle schools to do a presentation. This year in our senior civics class, we had a project that the seniors went down and did a presentation to eighth grade. This is the first year we've done that and it went really well hearing from seniors instead of from the principals. And students really enjoyed that. They also did like a, I think it was at the Andrews, right, Jen? Where they did like a kickball and all of that. It was quite the event that they had down at the Andrews. So we want to do that at the Andrews and at the McGlynn next year. This year was the pilot. And then we also have just for the smooth transition we do have senior mentors and freshman homerooms to help that is every single day so we have our national honor society students and any other students that would like to participate to seniors per freshman homeroom that are really supposed to help them with everything new. That comes with being in high school. That was something that we piloted this year and it went really well and we will continue that. We also do our quarterly newsletters that we send to families and to students. We also want to send those newsletters, because a lot of it is highlighting what's happening at the high school down to eighth grade parents as the transition. We haven't done this yet, but as the transition happens from eighth grade to ninth grade, so that they're seeing all the things that we're doing at the high school. and just kind of orienting themselves with the newsletters. And then, lastly, something that I do think we can do better is definitely the communication for the scheduling process for 8th to 9th grade. That usually goes through the school counseling department, and I think it's something that we can be more transparent about and share more information as to what the process looks like. I don't think the students care much, some of them, but we do get a lot of questions from parents. And I think we can help ourselves by sending more information in newsletters in order to not get, you know, a hundred plus emails about certain things. So that is definitely our area of growth for the future.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Presumably some questions were asked frequently in those emails that could be pulled out into some sort of FAQ. Because I got the email and I found it wholly without context.
[Vasudevan]: Yeah, I think, you know, we did have challenges this year with just figuring out what we were going to offer and still what we're going to offer with seven periods and teacher assignments and so forth. And I'm not sure what we previously did. This was like my first transition in between. So I do think that we can definitely be more proactive about sending out more information with the scheduling process.
[Jenny Graham]: I feel like you've been here a lot longer than that, Marta. I know.
[Vasudevan]: I'm only on year two. It's just year two.
[Jenny Graham]: So I will say that there's a million missed opportunities in the open house. So I've been to several of them now. And I think the vocational teams do a really great job of showcasing their students and their programs. And so any parent that is like wandering into any of those places is getting like a pretty lovely experience. But if you come with questions about academics, like your takeaway is this is not the place for my kid. It's really lackluster on the academic side. And I know that, you know, it's easier to be excited to see something, right? Like here's this thing that the kids built, right? Like here's this car that they're fixing. Here's this web, like the, the vocational side of, um, the house has like all the benefits in the world of having tangible things that people can see and, you know, Touch and feel in some cases, right? That makes that experience really engaging, but. There we aren't the 1st school to have an open house about academics and we can certainly do better than we've done. I mean, a few years ago, I'm happy to share that email with you, but a few years ago, after Lila went through it, I sent a. really scathing email about how mortified I was at the experience. And it's fine, like, it wasn't the end of the world, but it was like, there were just so many opportunities where we just didn't put our best foot forward. And that was before your time, Marta. So, but I imagine like there's some good nuggets in there. And I think it's the first, that is like the timing is just right for parents who are thinking about You know, where they want to send their kid to high school and, like, we've just got this, like, golden opportunity and then we basically give everyone a map and tell them to go wander a giant building.
[Vasudevan]: So, yeah, I think, you know, I'm really big deal. I'm trying to build culture within staff. So that staff volunteer for this. It's. challenging because it's not a contractual night for staff. And I'm really trying to build that as, you know, we want staff to come to highlight this. And this is important for us as a school community.
[Jenny Graham]: True.
[Vasudevan]: I didn't think vocational, vocational teachers are there.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I know, I know last year, it was there were a fair number of curriculum directors there who They had a range of ability to speak to what the day-to-day lesson is, but most of them were able to say, this is the curriculum, this is the textbook we use, and didn't really talk about what the student experience was, like what you do in class.
[Jenny Graham]: I thought, I could be wrong because negotiations were wild and crazy, but I did think that something shifted in the night event. But I'll go back. We're moving forward.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, I need to look at that as well. I'm not sure how school shifted.
[Jenny Graham]: I think it was on the 10th, but I don't know where we landed. Yeah, it was definitely discussed. Hotly. At various points of time.
[Vasudevan]: But that is, and I think, yes, I will take all of the feedback I can, but I think that that's the challenge in such a big building is to just have the four content directors. That's not good enough. And the coordinators is just not enough. That's all we can do. Yeah. So yeah, I think there is. We should be showcasing all of the classrooms in student work in the classrooms. Correct.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, and I think there's amazing things going on. everywhere, world language, everywhere in the arts. There's so many amazing things going on. It's just so unfortunate that we don't get to really show that off to people. So I think that's a big deal. And then I definitely would say, I still don't know what's going on with Lucas's schedule. He came home and told me he picked something. And I was like, why did you pick that? He's like, I don't know. And I'm still completely unclear. Is there another round of this? Is there not another round of this? So I completely support the idea of kids having a front row seat to how this is supposed to happen. But I think we need to tell parents that that is what's happening proactively. Again, here's the roadmap to going to high school. This is going to happen. You're going to get to approve it. this is how it gets finalized, et cetera, et cetera. Here's the dates and all those good things. Like same thing, like what is that pathway that you can expect from us? But from a scheduling perspective, I'm still personally like very unclear if his schedule is done or not done. Yeah, I would echo that.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And I think the other piece that's perhaps missing from parents and maybe it's the, overly involved parents like me, but wanting to know if I make this choice now, what are the consequences of that later? You know, we're trying to say, okay, somebody says, well, I don't want to take this honors class, say, okay, but that means you won't be able to do this, or just knowing kind of the trajectory of how some of these things go, especially with what the graduation requirements are. and say, if you opt for your instrumental class, you then have to choose between language PE and one other arts class or whatever it is, just kind of that big picture and a little bit of the long-term planning of, you know, in order to take AP science, you need to make this choice. Actually, I don't think that's true in Medford. I know I said, If you take earth science, you close off AP classes. That was my high school in a completely different state. But knowing a little bit more of the big picture of how scheduling works and what it means, because it does feel a little bit like throwing darts at a dartboard. And I recognize the challenge that we don't have the schedule and the courses for the semester. I'm a bad example as a rising ninth grade parent.
[Suzanne Galusi]: the thread of everything we've talked about tonight, the one-pager, the roadmap, that all makes sense. I think those are things that we can internally be working on. I do know that MARTA has been working very closely with guidance. I think they actually are making tremendous headway, to be honest, because I think they're very close to sharing a draft. Of a student schedule, which is really, I have to say, like, this year to have just gone through a completely new schedule and. Ratification of a teacher's contract that was not that long ago is like a herculean effort. So I think what the communication has been this year, yes, we could provide an update and that makes sense. So that parents that have all these questions, at least to get that communication, like, this is what we're building, but this year is definitely not what is typical or what would even be at this time next year.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And I do think parents understand that. Everyone I've talked to, and granted, I only talk to the people that I talk to or reach out to me, they understand why things were in flux. So I think there's a lot of goodwill here, just making sure that we're ahead of it.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah. And I will say like the messaging from the high school has never been like entirely on point. Like when it, what I remember when Lila was going from eighth to ninth grade was You have to make these selections. You have to make all these selections. You have to make your course selections. And in the choices of anything, it was her choices were like, are you going in honors or CP? That was it. Because her year, everyone did the CTE. So you weren't choosing that. You weren't choosing to go to gym or health. You were literally choosing. like which version of the required class you were taking which was fine but I was like it was billed as like you have to make all of these selections and this is really important and I was like there's not you're making it sound like there's choices here and there aren't. So I do think if the high school has the parent advisory council or whatever they're called, there just might be some people willing to help pre-read some of these things to say, does this hit what parents are asking about right now? Because I feel like particularly around these transition points, it's really easy to get stuck in, like, on thinking everyone knows your language when they don't. Like, because not only do they not speak school, but they also don't speak high school because they only have a middle schooler. So I think particularly in that transition, there might be some opportunity to ask people to help with that messaging in advance in some way that could just settle it down. And I also think, Marta, if you want help or support from families around, like, the course selection night or open house in terms of feedback. Like, there's—I could think of, like, five or six people who would be more than happy to, like, have a meeting so that you're hearing that perspective from more than just me and Erica and John, right? But that's also a possibility because I think there's plenty of parents that would be willing to help.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, I was going to also say, I think bringing in some parents to advise on that would be really helpful. And there are some people who are very productive and kind about it. And then the other point I think that students and families is what is the relationship with guidance? I think guidance Councilors play a different role at the different levels and knowing that scheduling is going through guidance and challenges you're facing go to guidance, particularly at the high school level. You mentioned meeting the principals, and I think you said sending guidance Councilors to the middle schools, was that true? Or was it guidance? No, it was the Councilors going to elementary. But I'm wondering if there's an element of that that would help with the transition of I think that's a big question that parents often have is, who do I go to about this? Am I going to the principal? Am I going to... Right, in elementary school, it is the teacher first and the principal, but who is it at these other levels? I think that would be really helpful, because the relationship with guidance absolutely changes, or has the potential to change. Not everyone leans into that resource.
[Vasudevan]: Great, thank you for the suggestions and for the support.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, if you if there's folks that you want to chat with, just I'm happy to send some people your way as well. And then the last thing on our list was end of year school happenings and events.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Erica? Yes. So that was, that was, so I've been seeing a lot of people being taken by surprise by a field trip or the prom tickets are going to be, some of it is around expenses, some of it is around scheduling, but just knowing that these are the moving on ceremonies that every grade at the high school often has a dance and who's responsible for that to say, this is a PTO thing, this is a school led thing. And I think just having a heads up about what that is gonna look like is gonna be really helpful for people. Because a lot happens at the end of the year and people, I think, feel like things just suddenly get thrown onto the calendar when we actually knew these things were coming. And so being able to communicate that at every level is helpful and also around expenses. We got the field trip notice for Canobie Lake Park, and it's a $30 field trip, which some families panicked about that. Some families said, oh, that's fine. Some might have said, oh, if I'd known that I was going to be paying that much for a field trip, maybe that would have been a gift that I would have given my kid at their bar mitzvah or at their as a as a milestone and so being able to plan both time and financial resources. And I know it's not always easy to say exactly how much something is going to cost or exactly when this is going to happen. I know at the high school, the dances, there was talk of a combined dance, and then there was talk of individual grades. But what that looks like, I think we know more and can tell people more in advance. And it's probably a PTO slash school collaboration. Yes.
[John Intoppa]: Yeah, I was going to say, if I can, coming from personal experience I know so for a lot of like the field trips yeah I agree that having those sort of expectations of what something may cost what I will say with like the proms is it changes year by year, because it's based on how much the class fund raises. And so that one is one that will always be kind of like a heaven full of like there might be a range but like. It really is like, we were able to bring it down below a hundred for the first time because we had very successful Yankee Candles, but then it can shoot back up. And so, you know, I think also there's also that thing of like making sure people are involved in helping with fundraisers. Yeah.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah. Because this is, this depends on the class fundraising, knowing that this is what we're fundraising for, or, you know, fifth graders always do a fundraiser at the Roberts. don't know what happened. They do fundraisers and it's, what is that for?
[Suzanne Galusi]: To be able to plan, I guess, is just what I... We've had some, we've definitely had some internal conversations about calendaring. and about communication, Jen Silva was concerned, very concerned around the amount of field trips that were planned, maybe, I don't know, either not communicated or planned suddenly. So there's a lot of kind of streamlining and aligning that we need to do to make that a little bit better. I would say, The communication around field trips, the communication between what is a PTO event versus school-based event, that is the responsibility of a principal. I think having those conversations in partnership with Will to help kind of streamline that. We definitely have been talking about a better way to do our internal calendar, too, to make sure that we're cross-checking events that are already scheduled versus ones that you want to schedule. So that is definitely a work in progress that I think we can smooth out a little bit better next year. It definitely seemed like there was a lot kind of packed into the end of this year for some reason.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And concerts and moving on and
[Suzanne Galusi]: Those are done well in advance, so I think, you know, we do that was 1 of the other conversations that we had, because we do have an internal calendar for school assessment for school events for things that are happening around the district. So, Suzanne fee, when it comes to the, the arts month in May, those are all done in the summer. So. Will and I have had conversations around how we can make that calendar. accessible, like, to the community in a way that doesn't overwhelm people and differentiates between, like, daytime events. You know, school assessment calendars and field trips is one part that's during the school day, but events at night and whether it's PTO or whether it's our concerts and our art shows and our plays, that's another.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And I recognize any of these calendars are going to come with a subject to change. I think I keep cutting miss gain off.
[Jennifer Skane]: Yeah, I was just going to say, if maybe district wide, I have 2 thoughts about that 1, if we all so. I don't know about other schools, because I don't look, but I know both McGlynn and I, we have a Google calendar. So one thing that I would say is all of our events are on there, other than a few here and there in August, like we literally put all our events for the year, and they're subject to change. The only thing I would say, and maybe, Will, this is something for you, is we only see like a week at a time. I'm wondering if there's a way we can see further out so that they can fly through the whole year.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you talking about on the website?
[Jennifer Skane]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[Jennifer Skane]: Yeah. And then I would say if, if, if we started sending the message of the calendar is on the, the school websites and the, the like, and start getting parents used to using that as a tool. I think sometimes they go to Facebook and social media and things like that, and they don't go to the primary source that would be the best information. Yeah.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, perfectly fair.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Is there an integrated, is there, I don't know how sophisticated our web stuff is, but the calendar, is there a way to filter? So if I have a kid at the high school and the Andrews and the Mrs. This is what we're working on. This is what we're working on.
[Vasudevan]: So the high school has a Google calendar that you can link to your Gmail. And I think each school could do that.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah. Okay, I think we made it to the end of our agenda. Thank you all for indulging.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, I think we did those action items along the way.
[Jenny Graham]: We did. Are there any other comments from the group? Is there a motion to adjourn? Yeah.
[Unidentified]: So moved.
[Jenny Graham]: And also adjourned by a member and Tapa seconded by a member. I'll call the roll. Um, Jenny Graham. Yes. John and Tapa.
[John Intoppa]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Erica Reinfeld. Yes. 3 in the affirmative 0 on the negative meeting is adjourned. We'll see you all.
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