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[Jenny Graham]: PM, there'll be a strategic and capital planning subcommittee meeting held through remote participation via Zoom. The meeting can be viewed live on Medford Public Schools YouTube channel or via Medford Community Media on your local cable channel, which is Comcast 9, 8, or 22, and Verizon 43, 45, and 47. The meeting will be recorded. Since the meeting will be held remotely, participants may log in by using the link below. The meeting ID is 297-832-3964. And if you would Like, to submit questions or comments during the meeting, my correct email address is Jenny Graham. All 1 word at Medford K. 12 dot dot us. And you must submit your 1st and last name, your method street address and your question or comment. Okay, I will call the role members. So is absent member Reinfeld present. And member grant present to present 1 absent and we'll be along in just a few. Um, okay, so. I put the, um. The resolution at the bottom of the agenda just for reference, but I did some thinking, you know, I was doing some thinking about what we sort of said we wanted to to talk through and think about. And what I was hoping we could do today is talk a little bit about, like, how would we put this into motion? And in my mind, I see this sort of in 2 phases, which I think we talked a little bit about even in the. Resolution that was sent to us. So the 1st phase, I think, is to really think about what the, like, how to engage the community and some of the conversation around strategic planning. That's never been done in Medford before. So, while we have had strategic plans in the past, they never have started with asking the community what the community wants their schools to look like. So. To me, that's like phase one and then, you know, phase two is like, okay, how do we, how do we make that happen? Like, what is the action plan that takes us from where we are to where we want to be? So I think, like, roughly what I was hoping to do today is talk a little bit about particularly that phase one and start to think about how we might do that. I did put together a couple of things that we can talk about. One, one is a survey that could go out via email, and the other is an agenda for a series of focus groups. So we can get to both of those things, but I wanted to pause there and just find out if anybody had anything else they wanted to, like, immediately add to, like, the phase one public input part of the process.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Those feel like the right places to start. And I would just say there's a transition between one and two, which is to articulate the vision and mission. Yeah, which the action plan leads to that. And I think that's embedded, but I wanted to call it out explicitly.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, I think so too. And I think that When we talk about asking the community, I think one of the things about the last strategic plan is it really largely didn't address the mission statement. I went to pull it so that I could put it into this document. I was like, wow, I hate that mission statement just as much now as I ever have because I don't think it resonates. In my vision of what this all looks like when it's done, We as a community need to own the piece that says this is the kind of school system we want to show up for. And then the superintendent and the team has to be able to say, if you want us to do that, this is how we will do that, and this is how we'll get there. But it should be something that resonates with people and makes people think, yeah, I belong here. And I don't think our current mission statement does that at all. A while back when I was like, out trolling strategic plans, I happened upon, I think it was Lexington's and their strategic plan, like, led with, like. their revolutionary spirit, and it was very Lexington. The community jumped off the page at you in terms of how they perceived their schools. And I don't think it's impossible for us to do the same thing. We've never really asked the community these questions, so that's the first step. But I do think Um, you know, sort of focusing some of this public input work on the mission statement, I think could really help frame, like, where are we trying to go? And I think we have, like, so many wildly creative people in our community that. you know, we're not probably going to say it's our revolutionary spirit because that's not who Medford is, but like, there's, there's somebody out there with like the clever, catchy way to help people feel like they belong here. If we can provide like the right, the right sort of source material. Right. So that was like sort of one thing that came to my mind as I was thinking about this phase one is like the output, like I, I do want the output to be, compelling and to make people feel like they want to be part of this district. So that when somebody is like looking to buy a house in Medford and they happen upon the website and they read this, they're like, yeah, that's where I want to send my kid. Um, and I, you know, our current, uh, mission statement certainly does not jump off the page like that. So I think there's like, to me, there's a couple of pieces there's like, what is our mission? And then I think the other part is like, And what would have to happen in the minds of the community for us to say, like, we have arrived at that mission, right? Like, how do we get there? And what are the most pressing things that the community thinks we should be responding to? So those were sort of two things on my mind. The other thing on my mind was, like, how do we move quickly through this phase? I think what I feel from the community is, like, people are interested in action. and impatient when we're in the exploratory stages of things, understandably. So how do we put a sequence of events together and a timeline that then allows us to really come to some of these answers before too long? And that would line up then to all the other things that this sets off from a strategic planning perspective. 1 question I did have, though, I think superintendent, you did a series of entry sessions when you took over as the superintendent and. I don't think we've heard, like, what those results were yet. And I was just, I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that process and maybe some of the things you heard. And I don't know if maybe asking you to, like, put that on the upcoming agenda so that this, like, these things pair off together makes sense. But I was just curious if you could talk a little bit about that, because obviously I don't want to. We don't want to keep doing the same thing over and over. But it would be helpful to know sort of what those were, because I personally wasn't able to attend any of them. So.
[Suzanne Galusi]: No, that absolutely is fair. I actually have it on for the agenda for Monday. Perfect. Coming Monday on the 20th. And absolutely, it's overdue. So I had. over about 30 listening sessions across the district at each relative school, as well as some Zoom sessions. There were survey and input also provided, so I will be kind of detailing some of those broad themes that I heard through all of those sessions. But I also want to be mindful, I think, in this process, one of the things that you'll see in my presentation is I do kind of have a slide about what voices are missing. And I would say that it One of the pieces that I really would like to see this process get to is it did not capture all the voices that make up Medford. And so when we get to that phase two, I think it would be really important to have some of these sessions in the community and not at schools. I do want to be mindful of the place in which we're living and that it also may not be comfortable for people to come out at night to places that aren't schools or aren't safe places but I very much would think that I would like the conversation to also be are there spaces in places of worship or places that families are living, common rooms or common areas that we could hold some of these sessions so that we're getting a greater view and a greater voice. I can kind of go through some of the pieces that I will be sharing about on Monday. But to me, I really wanted to kind of target in on like the stakeholders and how we're going to try and get as many voices as we possibly can. And I would say that that also includes students. especially our secondary students. I'm sure I don't, we haven't really talked about who we would be targeting with the survey, but I think student voice is another one to be captured.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Do you envision Medford community input from people not directly involved in the school system or hypothetically involved in the school system?
[Suzanne Galusi]: I would say, especially right now, since we are in the process, the MSBA process, in building a new high school, and that is an entire community endeavor, especially for our flagship, and the spaces that are encompassed within what those plans look like for the new high school around our early childhood center. We have our pool and our fields. I would say very much that Part of that is all woven into the importance of where we stand right now in that process. And that's for the entire community.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes. I also think that there's a subset of, I see the non-parent caregivers, but of parents slash caregivers who have chosen for whatever reason, not to send their children to Medford public schools. Some of hearing that feedback of what some of them were in Medford public schools and now are not. And some of them never were in the district in Medford public schools. Yeah. to the point of looking to have people who are joining the Medford community broadly see the schools as a place for them?
[Jenny Graham]: Data of any kind about students that are not in MPS. Like, do we have census data about where like how could we invite students that aren't in our row or caregivers?
[Suzanne Galusi]: We do have census data and we also have data that we have to provide the Department of Education around Medford residents that do not attend Medford public schools. And so we do have some data as to where those students are attending in the students attending report.
[Jenny Graham]: And could we, do we have contact information for those families or do we just know where they go to school?
[Suzanne Galusi]: We just know where they go to school, but I think we would need to work with some of our community partners.
[Jenny Graham]: And does that usually go well or and cooperatively or not? I know I've never tried to do that kind of outreach before, so I just wasn't sure.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I only kind of have the anecdotal when I encounter people.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Yeah, and to be fair, and to clarify for anybody listening, the report, we are not reaching out to families. We're reaching out to the schools and the institutions that the students attend. that's where we're getting the data, so.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And I think it may be part of the non-parent caregivers outreach, if it's Medford, the Medford community more broadly, I think it might just be messaging of, we want to hear from you whether or not you have kids in Medford public schools. Also, I think that first bullet point should be community spaces that are not schools. Can just see us looking back at those notes going, what did, what did we say that? Yeah.
[Jenny Graham]: Okay. So. We do have. You know, I think the question about, like, making sure all the voices are heard is an important one. And I think we have, like, our normal ways where we, like, if we're talking about a survey, right, like, we have our normal ways that we are going to push out a survey, and that's going to generate, like, a body of response. I'm wondering if, like, in addition to how we would normally push those things out, like, either from the superintendent's office, or even from the principles, like, are there other targeted ways that we need to reach families? Is there like. messaging that comes from our EL department? Is there messaging that comes from our special ed department? Is there messaging that comes from our athletics department? Like, are there other places that have, like, lots of touch points with families that we would want to say, like, we need you also to push this out so that we can collect additional information? And do we, you know, at the elementary level, do we, like, you know, stuff backpacks with flyers? That doesn't work in middle school or high school. But, you know, I think that's sort of the, like, the reach question. I don't know that we've ever really solved, like, how do we get to those families that we don't hear from so much? And I don't know if you have any thoughts or suggestions about that that we need to be planning for.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I would jump in and say the community liaisons in City Hall have some connection there. And I know they've been developing partnerships with a couple of the elementary schools with McGlynn and Missituk.
[Suzanne Galusi]: So I was just going to say that member Reinfeld, they are wonderful. And in addition, I think some of the PTOs, a lot of them have their own newsletters. And so I think if we're including links in multiple principal newsletters, as well as PTO newsletters, and I think we do have platforms. Like when I think of talking points, that is very helpful for some families because it's like a direct link. Not every caregiver has email, but they do, can receive notifications and even the direct links to the surveys and the newsletters via text. So I think using that platform would be helpful as well. And I know Will, is here and can probably speak to a lot of the other avenues. But I would say the additional messaging from some of the departments that Ms. McNiff can give for EL and Ms. Bowen can give for special education is helpful. Just any additional layer of context for their families is, I think, helpful. I don't know if you wanted to add anything on, Will, for other avenues that I may not have mentioned.
[VUGwCJcKl8M_SPEAKER_00]: No, I mean, I just think trying to meet people where they are when we're trying to talk about the big picture about the schools, I think, is always a good idea. I think if we kind of do some of the ways we do kind of on a consistent basis, we get a lot of the voices that we may have either already heard from or we have heard from a lot throughout the last few kind of weeks and months, but finding new ways, whether it's even just putting like a quick QR code up in like a local business and just saying like Manitoba Public Schools wants to hear from you, like tell us your thoughts and just typing into the communities like someone mentioned earlier, whether it's The athletics or the arts and just kind of already those built in spaces that have that consistent dialogue throughout the school year.
[Jenny Graham]: And it's been a while now, but we did some Zoom focus groups. What was that? I think it was like 21.
[Erika Reinfeld]: COVID? Yeah, it was like 21. There were the COVID ones.
[Jenny Graham]: Right. And I do remember that we had And we had interpreters join us for those meetings to support families. And we actually did have a number of people join us who were able to, like, make use of the interpreter services. And to your point about safety, I do think we probably need to think about a multi-pronged approach. Like, we need to give people the option to come to a Zoom session. And I think we need to give people an option to come, like, whether it's 1 in every school building or. In community spaces, or on zoom, like, I think there do need to be, like, any number of. Sessions, but I, I was also sort of thinking about. Um, whether, like, the meetings and the meetings. if there is a way to, like, sort of use one of their standing times where they have sort of the attention of their respective communities to be able to, you know, hold and host some in-person sessions as well.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Absolutely. Absolutely. I was able to do that for CPAC, LPAC just in recent months. I think that's a little bit more of a challenge. I can speak with Director McNiff, but I think there's a lot of reservations right now. And so I can touch base with her. And I think what we have just seen in the past couple months is that some direct outreach has been more successful than scheduled meetings. I think 100% with their monthly meetings, I don't think that that would be a problem with some pre-planning at all.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I'm also going to put MFN, Medford Family Network, on this list.
[Paul Ruseau]: Yeah, I remember so. Hello, my apologies for being late. That's okay. I'm also going to be in the car for the little bit. Okay.
[Jenny Graham]: We tried to convince him to just come to our meeting, but he's the chair at the shore. So they needed him more than we needed him. Judy calls. Um, okay. So I, with the help of a friend, um, did put together some potential questions we might ask in a written survey. I don't know if you, if, um, We wanna take a look at that. What I'm sort of envisioning in terms of like the report out of this is to be able to say to the school committee, we wanna do a survey and it looks like this and we wanna do these sessions and the sessions look like this and we're working on the schedule and we want you to participate with us to help facilitate these things and we'll show you how to do that. And we'll get the schedule put in place and then we'll release like a A list of opportunities to come join us at these things.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, and that my question was around actually, my question was, if we need an outside facilitator on any of this.
[Jenny Graham]: I think we can script it in a way that we don't. And I actually went back to, I hopped in my time machine from before I was on the school committee, and we held sessions like this right as I was taking office. It was part of the transition planning from the mayor's office. And we held a session at the McGlynn. And I went and found that report and at the end of the report. there was like a page about like, here's what people said about the session. And one of the comments was like, please do more of this. So it was really well-received and I thought people were really excited and energized about it. So I think if we follow that same kind of model, I don't think we have to have an outside facilitator. And I think outside facilitators can be very useful, but I think in the context of, like, the community telling us, like, what kind of schools they want to have, like, that is a community conversation, and I think we could manage it just fine without that, but.
[Suzanne Galusi]: I would say that feedback came up in every single session I had with staff and caregivers, that they very much like to have a forum of discussion.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah. So, we want to look at the survey 1st.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes, and I think I think to be really clear that this is about setting the direction and future looking because. To the, I mean, I think there's a, I saw there's a question about what's not working well, and that's. really important, but making sure people feel safe in providing criticism. I know sometimes people don't feel comfortable talking to the implementers of things, but I think particularly if we can have paired facilitation.
[Jenny Graham]: And I think, you know, when we figure out how these groups get organized, we certainly we could take the approach that we want. like, just the school committee to participate in the, like, facilitation role. We could take the approach that we want to just pair, like, we want there to be some pairing off of people so that we don't have administrators on their own without somebody from the school committee. And we may, there just may be topics where we say, like, administrators not on these topics so that people feel Like, they can speak up, like, I've had people say to me, oh, I wanted to say something about this thing, but. I, like, I, I just can't, because I would have to say to this person, and I have too many other things happening with that person right then, you know, right in this moment to, like, add something to the. conversation, you know, with that person. So, you know, we can try to, like, protect those, like, more controversial topics as well if we feel like that is necessary once we look at the agenda. Okay. So I will show you, and I, can you see my screen okay? Paul, I know you can't see it, but. What was the question? Can you see my screen? I can.
[Paul Ruseau]: Okay, perfect and if I don't look at the road, I can read it.
[Jenny Graham]: Okay. Well, do that. Don't do that. So I did make a comment because we. When we did the superintendent search committee. I remember it vividly. Okay, we did take the time to get the demographic questions, right? And it was the source of much discussion. Yes, I have all that still. Okay, great. Because I was like, I'm not going to go like. that far back in my time machine to try to dig up those documents. But I think there are some demographic questions so that we can say, are we there yet? Are we getting feedback that is consistent with who Medford really is? And with the superintendent search, the answer was no. Not even close. It was a big old no.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I saw that data as well. It was not.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah. It was a big old no. I, I am hopeful that this would maybe be a little different and many years have passed since that happened. And we do a lot of surveying now, like, we, as a. you know, society, we do a lot of that now. And certainly as a district, we, we do more of that. So at least that can give us directionally, like, who are we missing so that we can then do some like successive outreach if we need to, which I expect that we will.
[Paul Ruseau]: Okay. Yeah. Sorry, member Graham. Yeah. You know, and also like, unlike with the superintendent search where we, you know, we had like, a deadline and an urgency that was immovable, taking the time to find and get community input is something I think we can do here.
[Jenny Graham]: I agree. So in addition to the demographic information, question one I asked was, what is your connection to Medford Public Schools? So parent or guardian, student, staff member, community member, And question number two, what school or schools are you affiliated with? So I think we can like add to this list here, but just trying to like orient so that we are particularly hearing from students, community members, et cetera.
[Paul Ruseau]: I think you have to define, sorry, go ahead, Paul.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Nevermind, I could, I took a moment to read and I got my answer. I think community member is too vague. Is this a Medford school community member somehow? Is this a Medford resident?
[Paul Ruseau]: Yeah, I would change it to just like Medford resident.
[Erika Reinfeld]: You may also want a field for, we may want alumni, alumna, alum.
[Paul Ruseau]: Whatever that plural or singular is.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I use alum because I don't like the gendered Latin, but.
[Unidentified]: What are we missing?
[Erika Reinfeld]: We won't ding you on the formatting, it's Microsoft Word.
[Jenny Graham]: I'll fix it, but I'm like, why does everything move around so badly? Anyway. Okay, and what schools are you affiliated with? We would obviously have all of our schools listed so that if we're triangulating and we're getting lots of feedback from one school community and not others, we know how to target.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And we're not, I don't know that, I think we're covered with student outside of NPS. Do we want to know if somebody's at a charter school or a parochial school or a private school for those non-NPS schools? Is that relevant data?
[Paul Ruseau]: I think it is. I think it is. I would just put other in a place for people to write it in instead of us trying to divine that lengthy list.
[Suzanne Galusi]: And to remember Reinfeld's point before, you also could have MFN, some affiliation with MFN that's not in our schools yet. Oh, yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Future MPS. Future.
[Jenny Graham]: So the next section, the way I drafted this survey was to try to warm people up to the questions about the mission statement. Because I think if you just go in cold on a mission statement, it's really hard for people to tell you what they like about it. Sort of in the reverse of the way I would do it in person, but or, like, from the top to the bottom, but. You know, what are the top 3 priorities you believe the district should focus on over the next 5 years? Some questions about how important different things are to people and then. in Section 3, what's working well, what needs improvement, what other thoughts do you want to share? So I'll stop there and ask for any questions, comments, etc.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I'm trying to think if it's if there's out of school time, if if that's too broad, because it covers athletics and arts, which also happens in the schools and after school care and and. And how granular. you know, is academic excellence, do we need to get into literacy and STEM and, and?
[Paul Ruseau]: Well, my thoughts on that are that, you know, different people will come at these questions from different backgrounds of knowledge. And so, and different points of what's the word I'm looking for different locus of control, not control, but power, whatever the right word is. So, you know, I think that some people might come at it and be like, obviously, academic excellence, that's the entire point of school to some people. And we want to allow them to express that. And then other people are going to be from, you know, their own experience of special ed or literacy, and going to be like, this is the thing. And so I think it's going to be hard for us to get the questions so that we don't get such a broad set of answers. I think that's going to be challenging. I think in the analysis afterwards, that's going to be a huge lift.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, I'm wondering if there is a starting point here of these are the things Unfortunately, I don't think we can look at the past strategic plans to say these are the things that have been prioritized in Medford schools. How important are these things to you and what's missing? But I want some kind of grounding.
[Jenny Graham]: The other thing that I went back and forth about when I was trying to pull this together just so we had something to talk about. Was this like rate on a scale of one to five? Like you could just say five, everything's important. And that actually, it tells us something, but would it tell us more if we ask people to like, tell us in order of importance how this list shakes out? Yeah.
[Paul Ruseau]: Yeah. Or, or, or make them, pick a top five and not pick the rest because people will you know that everybody picking five for something like the the problem is is that different people will approach that from different with different methodologies and I think the results will then be kind of useless in a way um so you know here's the 20 options what are your top five makes them even if they were going to say they're all their number ones, it makes them decide what's the most important for them. And then that in aggregate across the other people filling out the survey will start to have meaning.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Way to tier things to say this is a top priority, this is a, sorry, Will.
[VUGwCJcKl8M_SPEAKER_00]: No, I was just going to say some of the surveys we've done while we've looked to hire new administrators is we've kind of listed things like this and said, select your top 3. And then people can kind of choose more than 3 if they want to, like, on a Google form, especially, and that was really impactful data that really narrowed, like, as then we would bring the discussions to some of the committee members and be like, this is what the community is kind of prioritizing in this process. So, that's that's just something that we found, especially to serve it. The committees that I served on, it was pretty helpful to at least start the conversation that way.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay. And the question before this is what are your top three, right? Or maybe that's the second question. Yeah. Yeah.
[Suzanne Galusi]: I would say a lot of this overlaps with the data that I will be presenting on Monday. The only one that really stands out to me as like a continuous theme that's not explicitly called out here is just communication overall. Communication, communication methods,
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[Jenny Graham]: And then. The Section 4 is sort of my attempt to start to, like, open people up around the mission statement. I had to, like, go find it because I was like, nobody's going to know what it is. So that—so I put that in here. And the first question is, are you familiar—do you know about this? Like, was today the first day you learned about our mission statement? Because that says—that says something right there. The next question, do you connect with this mission statement? Does it speak to you in a positive way? In your own words, what does this mission statement mean to you? And the mission statement reflects the kind of school I want to send my children slash the children of Medford to. Like an agree, strongly agree kind of situation. So that was just like me trying to and then what suggestions do you have for improving or updating the mission statement? So that was sort of my attempt to like pick at like, like starting to open up like, this doesn't resonate with me at all. Maybe that's just me and everyone else is like, Jenny, this is fine. And we don't need to be revolutionary in our spirit or in our mission statement. And if that's the case, then maybe that's the case. But I would just sort of be interested in starting to pick at, like, how people, like, react to this as an input to the series of sessions we want to hold.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, so this feels like slightly too many questions about this statement that we think we're going to be rewriting. I think interrogating it is a good thing, but I'm wondering if it's similar to the last bit. What about this statement resonates with you? Where is it lacking?
[Paul Ruseau]: I know you're not asking me, but the 21st century education thing has got to go.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And this mission state, I do like that reflects the kind of school I want to send It could also be this strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree. And, oh, I lost the follow on to that. Send my children to, I have to come back to that, sorry. Someone else was talking, so go ahead.
[Jenny Graham]: So I was thinking like maybe we could remove this question this current number 10, so what does this mission statement mean to you? And just say, do you know about it? Does this speak to you in a positive way? And maybe we don't need that question. This mission statement reflects the kind of school I want to send my children to, and what suggestions do you have? It could be just that simple. Where's the cell phone on my page?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Do we care if people are familiar with this statement? That speaks to how well we've communicated it out or not. I'm not sure that feels like a looking back question. Can you tell me more about why that was important to ask?
[Jenny Graham]: I guess for me, You don't want to assume that, like, maybe it's just like, no, I've never heard of this, but it sounds good. I like it. Even the 21st century part, right? Like, versus, oh, yeah, I see that on the walls of the high school and I roll my eyes every time. Like, those are two different, like, ways to, like, come at, like, familiarity, right? Like, So I think it's just, and it's a yes, no, try to keep some of those questions super simple. So it's like, don't overthink it. After you do or you don't, and then move along. So that was my thinking when I put it together, but to other suggestions.
[Suzanne Galusi]: The only thing I wonder about is maybe like the format of it, too. Are you familiar? Read through the whole thing? Yes, no. I think some of that you're going to probably capture in nine. Like in the following question. I do think that the most, like just the data that is gonna be really important, that's gonna drive a lot of the work ahead would be what is now on this as 9, 11, and 12. And I'm really hoping we get people to fill in 12. Yeah.
[Jenny Graham]: Well, we could say, Something like we are considering. And then you could just That could be just like a statement that leads in to these three questions.
[Suzanne Galusi]: I think that's a bit cleaner.
[ewRLf8jM8M0_SPEAKER_18]: But something like suggested themes or items instead of suggestions or... Because that could give them a little... Instead of them trying to write a new mission, with their ideas or adjustments or something like that.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Is the question for improving or is the question to say what would make you agree more strongly in question 11? Is it to say what, would you change about this mission statement for it to yeah what additional elements would make you feel more positive or something like that yeah well not even just i'm not looking for additions i also want you know i want to have them the pauls who say 21st century feels outdated that i don't this yeah I think we can tweak the wording a little bit but. And please don't forget to hit save. I don't know if you've done that or not.
[Jenny Graham]: Transcript, I think I'm on auto save, so OK, just good. We've all been burned. So I can clean this up and. Ask members so to add the demographic questions and. Um, would be happy to collect any other input once you see the cleaned up version, and then we can plan to share it on the agenda. Um, for the committee to provide their input to on.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Monday, yeah, I think question 4 is going to need some cleaning up. I think. Yeah, we need to find the right balance between laundry list and. Hitting all the vertical categories. Yeah. Yeah. We'll take a crack at it and let you know. And I can think, although I guess open meeting law, we can't both.
[Jenny Graham]: Is there anything that you're thinking about right now?
[Erika Reinfeld]: For this list?
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Paul Ruseau]: What about belonging? Or some way to say that.
[Suzanne Galusi]: I love that.
[Paul Ruseau]: There's some signs around that have something to do with that. Is safety on there?
[Suzanne Galusi]: Not explicitly. Facilities and infrastructure are. Yeah.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, but safety is both physical safety and correct emotional.
[Paul Ruseau]: Yeah, it's a hard one, because what do we mean? How do we interpret it?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Where does this particular data, what's going to happen with the feedback to this question? Is this where our pillars and values come? Is this where our priorities come out? Where are we trying to go with this question?
[Jenny Graham]: I think for me, it's an input. potentially to some of the in-person sessions just to aid in our preparation. But also, not everybody's going to take the time to come to something in person. And I want to give people the space to say, I'm not going to come to anything because I can't. or I won't, or I don't want to, or I'm not comfortable, but I do wanna tell you that the single most important thing to me is this. And these things matter to me. I am paying attention even if I can't be physically present. So it's sort of a way to give people a little bit of an opening to participate in this process.
[Paul Ruseau]: So the person I was just giving a ride home to, from my shore meeting, actually was a researcher in surveys and stuff, and she's not in the car anymore, but she did mention that having, whether it's, you know, gift cards or Medford swag, drawings, and then, you know, publicizing that each time we, you know, to, you know, Sarah S. from West Medford won this for filling out this survey. that those things can drive responses quite heavily, even though it won't cost much. So that's just, I think, you know, I know like with the superintendent search, we, I think we didn't do that. And I think we relied heavily on, I don't wanna say guilt, but frankly that's, you know, one interpretation of the, do you feel responsible to having input to this? And I worry about, and I think the results there kind of highlighted the inequitable use of that approach. So just a thought that I thought I should transmit because I don't know how much Bedford SWAG would cost, how many drawings we would do, but I think that if we could do something like that that kind of is a hook to get people to fill it out, that might be helpful.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, I was going to mention that that's what we do in surveys across
[Jenny Graham]: She also mentioned something else.
[Paul Ruseau]: Yeah, she mentioned something else that actually I didn't understand until just a second about, you know, getting people to fill it out early means they'll be in that drawing longer and have a better chance of winning. So, you know, so that's just, I was a little confused when she said that, but now I understand.
[Jenny Graham]: Every week we'll have five lucky winners, so register early. for more chances to win.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay, any other thoughts or questions? Yeah, so the thing that we haven't talked about yet that came up in in the resolution to prompt this meeting is questions around the leader, the district leadership to provide that basis for. appointments and the mandate for the person in the superintendent role to really feel guided by the community and supported by the community in that. So I'm not sure if that's coming up or if that's part of but we have tied this opportunity as a chance for the community to weigh in both on what the mission and milestones are for the district, but also for what they're looking for in district leadership.
[Jenny Graham]: I think we would want to Provide some context for the survey, right? Include the presentation from the superintendent that she's going to share with us on Monday.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And I will just note as you're typing that, right, some of this behind the resolution is in speaking with the Massachusetts Association of School Committees and talking about what happens when when appointments happen very quickly, as they did in this case, and being able to ground the work in a community process. And that this is often a good opportunity for the district to articulate values, which in our conversation, my conversation with our mask representative was saying, she said to me, well, when was the last time the community weighed in on this? And I said, well, it's long overdue. And so being able to articulate that. And I will acknowledge the awkwardness of this conversation, given who is in the room right now, but I think it's really important to note that this is quite a bigger process.
[Suzanne Galusi]: And quite fair.
[Jenny Graham]: Erica, do you have thoughts on what those questions might be?
[Erika Reinfeld]: So what I'm trying to do is not, I want this, I want it to be forward looking and not necessarily what has worked and not worked in the past with leadership. And so, I think. Some of it is similar to what we've done in our hiring of other leadership roles of right. What are the things that are most important? The core if we as a district have these core values. This is what that looks like in practice. This is. This is how I feel supported as a staff member. This is how I feel supported as a family. I think it's a little bit challenging because many people don't fully understand what the role is. But I think I do. want to know, the most upfront question is, what are you looking for in a leadership? Possibly these are the qualities that are most important to me.
[Paul Ruseau]: Can I jump in? Please. So I really appreciate you got to where you did on this, because I was going to jump in and say, but most people don't know what these jobs are, even if you were to give the job description, they really don't know what they are. And, you know, one of the things that I am always uncomfortable with is, you know, it'd be like saying the teachers are the only ones who can hire the directors that they will work for, too, or the principals they'll work for. or the only people who can hire the superintendent are the people who work for the superintendent. And because they're the only ones who will actually know what that person does day to day for real or what they want them to do. And it's a lot like, what do you want in your primary care doctor versus what do you want in your surgeon? And I want my primary care doctor to have exceptional bedside manners and to be passionate And I don't care if my surgeon is a psychopath. Are they a good surgeon is the only qualification. So I think that's what makes me nervous about asking people, what do you want in this leader of this particular kind, considering the vast majority of the people at Medford will not be educators themselves. I think the educators answering this question will have a very good and interesting set of answers, which I think are very worthy of culling and separating and being like, okay, this is what we're hearing from the educators. I think that is super meaningful. And I think the non-educators, I'm not saying their opinion won't matter, but I think it has a different, I don't wanna say weighting, a different value, not more or less, just a different value. And, you know, this is one of those things. It's like, like the surgeon versus the primary care doctor, you know, like people might say they want to have a friendly surgeon, but it turns out they don't. So this is really a really hard area to nail down because also like, people's experiences with district leadership, whether as students or parents or employees in other places or with previous superintendents, will have a big effect, I think, on what they want. You know, when we had the gun clip thing, I remember Glenn Kuchar said, a third of the people are there for the reason that you're holding this event. A third are there to air grievances that may have nothing to do with anybody even in the room. And I don't want to repeat what he said the other third quarter for, but you know, I don't, our current superintendent, a future superintendent, like they're not the superintendents that the kids who have kids, the people who have kids in Medford now experienced. And so it's just very, very challenging for me to understand what we get in that regard. That's useful because this is going to be a lot of data to not data, it's going to be qualitative stuff that has to be mulled over and understood and interpreted.
[Jenny Graham]: I just pulled some questions with the help of co-pilot and no pride of authorship of any of these questions. But now we have something to react to. So I'm curious what you think about these.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And I was pulling up the last set of questions, which, you know, it was significant or current issues, which is actually what this is asking here.
[Jenny Graham]: I feel a little on the fence about this question. I'm not sure I want a bad answer to this question.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I don't know. I just think it's important in the Medford community is the Medford community. Yeah, exactly. We want someone who can work with the Medford community.
[Jenny Graham]: About this number, so.
[Paul Ruseau]: Do you need us to read you the questions? No, I'm just sitting down in my home office. So I don't have a chance to see it yet, but give me a moment.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I'm looking at the past that at the last Superintendent search. There's a question. What are the strengths of the district that you want to see continued by the new Superintendent? I think that's a really strong question that taps into both of these. Points and potentially. What are the? What are the areas? That. you feel that the new superintendent most needs to address, although I think you've... And what are the most urgent areas for improvement? Maybe there might be a better phrasing than that, but... It's kind of a different version of what's most important to you.
[Jenny Graham]: I feel like this question is maybe a little too in the weeds, personally. It's fine. It's sort of innocuous, but I don't think it
[Erika Reinfeld]: Tells us so much. I think to Dr. Galussi's point about communication being important. Good point. I think this isn't quite the question, but I think it's a good point that.
[Jenny Graham]: I mean, it's a select all that apply, so.
[Suzanne Galusi]: I would agree. That was the feedback. Just from the pieces that I heard, people like to have the options of the follow-up even to the regular correspondence via email. People really liked having the forum to be able to have discussion. So I think it's important for data.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Oh, there it is. OK.
[Paul Ruseau]: Yeah, what was your question? You had for me Jenny?
[Jenny Graham]: Did you have it? Do you have any thoughts about these questions?
[Paul Ruseau]: No, I think I mean. Question above the current question 1, I thought resolved my concern that nobody knew what the superintendent did. Um, because I, I think that that. It's not open ended, so I like, I like that.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And I would swap your second two and I would put strengths and urgent areas. Back to back and put the communication after. To the point, is there another? Is there a specific question for educators? And it doesn't necessarily have to be a branching survey, but if you are an MPS educator. Because I do agree that's feedback that's really important.
[Jenny Graham]: Well, I would expect that they would answer these two questions.
[Suzanne Galusi]: And then at the top, though, we're identifying what role they are when they're completing the survey.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, and we said. Student staff member resident. Are there questions about that?
[Erika Reinfeld]: So, for the focus groups, just 1 more, I know member Ruseau, you're going to go back. You're going to pull the demographics. Is that. This question of the graduate of Medford Public Schools, parent guardian at this school, that school, all the other schools, English. We also have had questions about parent guardian of a child in the English language learners receiving 504 accommodations. Yeah, all of those. All of those. Those are the demographics we're talking about, not the... Oh, you're muted.
[Paul Ruseau]: Well, can't you read lips? Just kidding. I'm looking at them right now. And no, we don't ask those questions in the demographics.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I'm looking at the superintendent search demographics and it includes things like. parent or guardian of a child receiving special education supports and services, 504, participating in athletic, yeah, there's a whole, this question six. I want to say it's from SurveyMonkey.
[Paul Ruseau]: The question six I have is your combined household income.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay. I can send you this as well. Can you just send those to me, and I will include them? Yeah, because it's got education professional, educator in Medford Public Schools, Medford residents with no children in Medford, anyway.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, if you send those to me, I can add those in. OK.
[Paul Ruseau]: Yeah, I think I'm looking at just the straight demographics like the federal government would have.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, and then I have this.
[Paul Ruseau]: What neighborhood?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I am less concerned about that. Yeah, there's a there are a bunch of demographics language you speak at home. How many children. I'm not sure we need this quite this level of detail. But, oh yeah, there's neighborhood.
[Paul Ruseau]: These were based off of. I think we should keep this because then we can use them to compare across other surveys we do. And these are best practice, at least at the time of writing this, which, you know.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, this is from 2018. Great, I will send that after this meeting. Let's keep moving.
[Jenny Graham]: Okay. Okay, so I also put together an agenda. It's a 2 hour session. And I can sort of walk you through it at a high level. So we're to, like. wordsmith every like little piece of this, but essentially, um, we would welcome people and we would use, you know, we would kick it off and give some, um, some framing, right? Like this is part of a multi-phase process. We want to focus first on what we want our district to look like and what our goals are. And then we'll, you know, talk about, um, you know, how we will like make progress towards those goals. Um, We'll introduce the facilitation team, whoever that is, and we'll spend some time talking about the mission statement. So we'll talk about, like, here's the mission statement. Tell us what you think about it. Like, what are your reactions to the mission statement? And we will ask people to, like, write down their thoughts on stickies, and we'll have people in groups. They'll write down their thoughts, and we'll, like, organize, like, What are the positive thoughts? What are the negative thoughts? And then we will have people work in small groups to say, like, go ahead and discuss and, like, tell us what a compelling mission statement would sound like to you. So we start to generate some, like, creativity and some ideas and that kind of thing.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Distinguishing between mission statement and vision statement, I just do notice that a lot of the other district strategic plans kind of have both. I think the vision comes out of the conversation and the mission is more of a respond to, but.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, I think those are like, I always find it hard to keep people in 1 bucket or the other. And I think the answer is both of those things are going to happen at the same time. And that's OK. You can sort of collect all that information and then be like, OK, now what part of this is the mission? What part of this is the vision? But being sort of pressed for time, you would have to sort of have the time to step people through what goes where if you wanted to get to that level of detail, which I felt like we're It's pretty packed as it is with two hours. So then we'll switch gears and we'll ask everybody to take a few minutes and to think about what are five things we would need to do well in order to realize the mission statements that we were just talking about and working on together. Everyone will write them down on their sticky notes. They will come up to like a big whiteboard essentially and put up their sticky notes and then we will ask the whole group. Maybe there's 2 groups, depending on how many people are in the room. But then we'll ask the whole group to work together quietly, silently, to categorize the sticking notes, which is a process where everyone is at the board. Everyone is moving things around. Everyone is saying, like, this goes here, this goes here. But we're doing it quietly so that people are having to really engage with the process instead of getting sort of distracted in the chatter. The last, we'll be like, step back and take a look at it. see everything that's there. We'll facilitate like a walkthrough of that information. We'll give everyone a break. And then what we'll do during the break is we'll set up these groupings in different areas around the room. So if there is a grouping that is like after school, we'll take all of the after school stickies and off they will go to the after school sticky group. And when people come back from break, we'll ask them to like, pick a spot to go sort of check in on and work with. And we'll dive a little bit deeper into that topic around like, what is it that, you know, what don't they see that maybe they were surprised they didn't see? What surprised them about what they see? And ask each group to give us a little bit more input on, like, why this thing is so important to them. Like, why do they, if they're at the afterschool, like, board, why are they there? Like, what is it that has to work for them in order for them to feel like we're achieving the mission statements that we were talking about, whatever that ultimately becomes. And specifically about afterschool, so that there's, like, some richer data there than just, like, a bunch of sticky notes about things that people wish we could do and don't do. And then that's, like, that's the end. So two hours, everyone, and we're done, and everyone goes home. The idea then would be, like, hosting several of these sessions around the community and being able to, like, aggregate all of that information And potentially, like, ask some of the, like, most engaged people to work with us to help us author, like, this setup to the strategic plan around what is our mission statement and how do we start to clearly talk about that and bring that back forward to the community. So that's the premise, is that this is, like, a collection, input collection opportunity. for the community to be part of this process. And then once we get through this, we get to phase two. Now we're talking about, okay, like, how would we do, how would we do this? Like, if this is where we want to go and these are the priorities, how, what is the actual plan that would take us from where we are to this place that we've described? And that's the work that comes in that is like less about the community telling us what, how to do that and more about the superintendent telling us how to do that. So we're, so we get to, so we, as the community are clearly saying, here are our priorities and here's our, here are our goals. And now superintendent, you tell us, like, how are we going to make that happen? And what do we need to do to line up to that vision? So that's the idea.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Can you scroll up a little bit to the, I guess it's the sorting. This is a very awkward place for the need to do well. Because a piece that I had been thinking about of to say, if these are our, if this is our vision, if these are our values and our priorities, what does that look like? Paint a picture for me of what that looks like. I think that's a slightly different approach than what's described here. Got a mission statement. We need to do these things well. I think my concern is I'm not sure, depending on the group that this is, they may or may not know what it is that needs to be done to get there. I'm wondering if it's jumping a little bit too far into well, what does a school district do? What does the administration do? Or maybe that's just the phrase, maybe that's a different way of phrasing what I'm saying of what does this look like in your daily life? And actually, let me step back a bit and ask, are these focus, do we envision these focus groups as being demographic specific that we've got all educators in the room doing this, or is it going to be a mix of caregivers and educators, recognizing of course, that some of our educators are also Medford caregivers, but are we, are the focus groups focused around who's in the room as well?
[Jenny Graham]: I think they, I think they could be organized like in subsections. Like if for, if there's a focus group that we see like lots of, um, educators at, like, we could group people, right? Like, we could group educators and caregivers separately. Some of that, like, really, you sort of have to respond in the moment who shows up to say, like, okay, this is how we're going to, like, deal with the crowd that we have. And some, if it's like a big session where you have lots of input, it does make sense to sort of like group people. But you may have a really small session where everybody working together is like, has its own value, right?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah. And just thinking academic excellence maybe looks different to someone who's in the classroom every day than it does to the parent.
[Suzanne Galusi]: I would say to inform this work, we would need a cross section of stakeholder involvement here. And, you know, depending on, to Member Graham's point, like who's showing up, I think there are other opportunities that we are going to be capturing voice, because I also think students have a stake in this as well. And I thought I remembered earlier on there, there being a line about examples to like, uh, was there, there's something in here that stated about, um, examples from other districts.
[Jenny Graham]: Yes.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Um, where did I put that? Just to your point, member Graham, I think depending on where people are coming from, um, an exemplar is always Excuse me, good to have on hand.
[Jenny Graham]: It's right here when when people break into their groups. Oops. Sorry. People break into their groups.
[Paul Ruseau]: I mean, I think it would be ideal if we had different groupings, but I think the challenges is the timing, you know, who's available when is just not going to. you know, we'd have to have so many more sessions if it's at an educator's set of times and a parent, caregiver set of times. And it's just, I think we will have to discuss how we're going to handle non-English speakers. We want to make sure that they get support, but we can't have an army of interpreters there in case somebody shows up because that's going to be very expensive. So, um,
[Erika Reinfeld]: Well, that's, that's an accommodation question. That is, and yes, people are welcome to drop in, but if there's anything we can do to make this session more accessible, whether it's gluten free food or yeah. Yeah. Language translation or 100%.
[Suzanne Galusi]: And I also think that where we're going to have this in-person session matters. And I think, um, Member Graham, I don't know you had mentioned zoom, but I think that. A zoom option might be beneficial and. for some of this work. And I think we can talk about, we've done it a couple of ways in terms of having people here for interpretation live and in the moment, and also in like separate breakout groups where the whole thing can just be in their native language. So I think I would like to make sure that I'm having those conversations with Ms. McNiff and our community liaisons to see what the best approach would be to gather that input.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, and I do think this isn't just one session. I think this is several sessions, right? Like how we do this, like, you know, some people are like, have this stuff on the weekend because that's when I can go. And other people are like, do not have this stuff on the weekend because that is when I cannot go, right? And everything in between, like it's, you know, it's sort of a challenge. Um, I was thinking we would want to have, like, 5 or 6 sessions. I don't know how that number feels to all of you. But.
[Paul Ruseau]: I, I mean, it seems small to me that number. I know it's a lot of work, but. I don't know. I mean, maybe we do five or six to start, and then like at three, we get together and decide, do we need to add more? I don't know. I mean, we also have to acknowledge that like, if we get excellent participation, we're going to need, the analysis is going to be a massive task.
[Jenny Graham]: when AI policy allows us to expedite that work.
[Erika Reinfeld]: There's, I think there's one of the things we also find in surveys is there, you do hit a point when you start getting the same answers over and over. And I don't know how many sessions of this it takes to get there. I, I'm not sure five and six is too few. I think we may see similar pieces. I also think that maybe the Zoom focus groups, if this is very sticky note, and I love sticky notes, if this is very sticky note based, the Zoom sessions might be about just going deeper into specific priorities that came out of the larger survey or that came out of these sessions is to say, everyone prior everyone said this is important, but they didn't want to work on it. And so that's where we're having, we're going to have a conversation about this topic that that came up that needs more fleshing out. So I think the zoom sessions are potentially different than this, that they're about say more, than was on the survey. This is your chance to go deep and engage with other people and have a conversation and hear what it means to them. And does that change how you see this priority?
[Suzanne Galusi]: I would just respectfully ask for one, for at least a small number to be just Zoom, because I think we may have, I really want very much to try to capture as many voices as we can. And I do think we have, in light of the current context, some people that may not feel comfortable participating if these sessions are in the evening. And I think Zoom is an option that I'm hoping we can get some voices to participate if they're able to do it from home.
[Paul Ruseau]: I also think, and I don't, forgive me if I miss this because in my transition out of the car, but it would be helpful to get the demographic survey results for folks at these as well. Um, because, um, Erica's point about, you know, we start getting the same results, um, is important, but if we're getting the same results, and it's. Because we're getting the same people same demographically, the same people that doesn't mean it's time to stop.
[Erika Reinfeld]: That means it's time to shift and talk to different people. Absolutely.
[Paul Ruseau]: Yeah, but don't keep having the same conversations. I agree that that's, you know, there's only so many hours in the day.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah. Okay. So, to your point, I think this is a, this is a useful framework and. who engages with it will inform what happens next. And because where, again, this is leading is that synthesis transition between what you initially described as stage one of engaging the community and phase two of creating an action plan. That synthesis comes out of this. It comes out of the survey and it comes out of the Zoom focus groups that won't have, I mean, I guess there's jam boards and educators can tell us all about how to engage people on Zoom in this interactive way. But I think also technology challenges can be a barrier as well. Yeah, for sure. It's about the conversation and either the targeted questions or the tell me more. that you couldn't put in writing. That's an important component. This, what you've described here is the doing the work. And I think I just want to make sure the Zoom component as well is about hearing more voices. There's hearing what people have to say and there's doing the work of turning it into that mission, that vision, that action.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah. And I think what I'm envisioning is that we would hold these sessions and then we would have another subcommittee to like, get that parsed and into some sort of like a working draft that could then go back to the school committee.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Is that a natural transition to start talking about timeline, timing? Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Um, I will also say that I. We'll have more information coming soon about the timeline for. Community sessions around the high school project. Um, but I think. The January deliverable is primarily about work that is happening. Inside the district with the plan, so I'm not anticipating. Tons of community oriented meetings between now and the end of January, although I could be wrong about the high school project for the high school. And I do think timing wise trying to. Uh. Collect this input and feedback between now and the end of January is the right timing. If what we're endeavoring to do is like, have a productive conversation in the lead into decisions about a permanent superintendent on July 1. And a strategic plan that doesn't take another 5 years to build.
[ewRLf8jM8M0_SPEAKER_18]: I would anticipate you can have visioning sessions for the project in the next few months.
[Jenny Graham]: For the community?
[ewRLf8jM8M0_SPEAKER_18]: Yes, community stakeholders, parents. Okay. Some sort of a vision. I mean, this is how the other projects have been on run. Okay. Visioning sessions where they grab a bunch of people together and a couple sessions and they will show you different designs, different things. And you kind of put your posted note or your color stickers on what you like and gather information and stuff like that.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I had thought that that ran kind of parallel with feasibility studies. Am I. Yeah, it's starting in January is certainly the timeline that was presented to us.
[Jenny Graham]: Well, there there's 2 deliverables that are part of the feasibility study. 1 is the. Plan and the other is the. I'm going to get it wrong preferred schematic. Design so the plan is like, what are we going to do in the building that is due in January? What what do we prefer the building to look like in order to do that is I think June.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So, okay, so that visioning does sound. Important for community input. So, I really am also really concerned here. About people's. fatigue in providing input as much as everyone wants to. Yeah.
[ewRLf8jM8M0_SPEAKER_18]: It could come early or later in the feasibility study process. Depends on how they run it. It could strictly focus on, you know, because you have to do a lot of work on the number of spaces and the size and square footage and all that kind of stuff. And then building placements and, you know, differentiating between, you know, renovation and new building and repair only options and stuff like that. And then they may flip the design. I've seen it done the other way they do it first, but it's going to be interesting where the architect is just coming on board and we're kind of already moving forward to see how they structure it.
[Jenny Graham]: Um, we have a meeting with the architects later this week, and we could certainly ask the OPM this question. So, by Monday, I can have some answers about, like, what we anticipate that looking like.
[Paul Ruseau]: Yeah, we want to. The fatigue thing is a.
[Erika Reinfeld]: It's real, but I don't want that to be an excuse for not engaging people and have people say, but I wasn't, you know, I didn't have a chance to, to weigh in on the high school and on the strategic plan.
[ewRLf8jM8M0_SPEAKER_18]: And that's the matter of scheduling it.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah. So I everyone's favorite thing is scheduling. Yeah. That actually raises one point that also came up in the resolution is how things like the educational vision and the instructional vision, this work that has been done that feeds into strategic planning, how this comes into community input. I think, you know, if you have a focus group around, if we say, oh yes, academic excellence is the priority, well, how does the instructional vision align? the process for bringing those pieces that already exist, right? We're doing some focus work around this mission statement that exists that we know needs to be updated. But what about these other pieces that exist? There's a capital planning conversation around the facilities and infrastructure. And maybe that's a little more phase two But I do want to acknowledge that those pieces exist and there has been some work done there as well.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah. I do think that part does start to, like, those puzzle pieces start to come together in phase two. And I think, frankly, like, wherever we, like, leave a draft of the mission statement, like, I think even that is going to be continuously fine-tuned while the strategic plan is created. I don't think that we should expect that there's not any change that happens there. I think that will certainly be tweaked and adjusted as we go. But we want to have enough of an anchor that it can guide instead of follow. Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: All right, so I just moved us away and now I'll move us back to the scheduling. So it sounds like we need some more input. We need to know what the high school community schedule it looks like in order to. Yeah. And I think we can, I'm sorry, I would just say in that meeting, can you ask what the flexibility is? Because I would love to know if they say, oh, no, we want to do it this way. But if we did it this other way, this is what it would look like if we say, well, we need to do this community input 1st. Is that even an option?
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, we can find out. Thank you. And then I can. look at the calendar and maybe, like, try to propose some dates for the school committee to think about. And then we would have to, like, think about locations and things like that. But with the holidays coming up, it is, like, a little bit sticky, maybe a lot sticky.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And of course, I will note that there's also a question of whether the composition of the school committee stays the same or not, which can influence.
[Unidentified]: That is true.
[Jenny Graham]: So I don't think we can, I think we just have to move forward. But yeah, we could.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Change, I don't know, so we're reporting out on this Monday Monday. I don't think we have motions to.
[Jenny Graham]: I think we need a motion that. I will, like, get this cleaned up and prepared for Monday.
[Paul Ruseau]: So, and clean this up and get it ready for presentation on Monday to the school committee.
[Jenny Graham]: And 2nd, if I remember, Reinfeld will call the role member. So, yes. Member Reinfeld. Yes. Yes. So, I will clean it up and get it ready. For Thursday.
[Paul Ruseau]: Thank you for all the work. Sorry, I wasn't here early.
[Unidentified]: That's okay.
[Jenny Graham]: Sorry, my sister's dog came in and she's sniffing furiously behind me and making a lot of noise. So it's very distracting.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Are we at motion two? 15 minutes early motion to adjourn 15.
[Jenny Graham]: Motion adjourned by member, I felt seconded by members. So, uh, member, I felt yes. Remember, so and yes, uh, 3 in the affirmative 0 in the negative motion.
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