[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: and the meeting is being recorded. Meeting can be viewed live on the Medford Public Schools YouTube channel through Medford Community Media on your local cable channel, Comcast channel nine, eight, or 22, and Verizon channel 43, 45, or 47. Participants can log or call in by using the following Zoom link, and the meeting ID is 918-6452-8392. Member Ruseau, if you don't mind calling the roll, please.
[Paul Ruseau]: There it is. Member Bramley, here. Member Graham, here. Member Intoppa, here. Member Olapade, here. Member Reinfeld, here. Member Ruseau, here. Mayor Landau-Kern.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Present seven, present zero, absent. I don't believe any student reps are on the call just yet, so we'll let you know. And if we all may rise to salute the flag, please.
[Unidentified]: America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: We have executive session pursuant to general law, chapter 30A, section A3. The Medford School Committee will convene an executive session to discuss collective bargaining with Medford Teachers Association, MTA, regarding a grievance stated September 16th, 2025, and the chair so declares. Is there a motion to enter executive session? I move. Member Intoppa, seconded by? Sorry. Member Lopate, roll call, please.
[Paul Ruseau]: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, seven of the affirmative negative motion to enter executive session has been approved. We will be back as close to six as possible. Thanks, John. Welcome, everybody. We have just finished executive session. Sorry for the delay. To the members, I don't know if anybody has anything under good of the order. Hearing and seeing none, I'll go on to the consent agenda. approval of bills and payrolls approval capital purchases approval of donations approved grants approval field trips and approval of the regular meeting minutes from November 17 2020 25 is there a motion on the floor. I remember a party seconded by Member Branley all those in favor of those opposed consent agenda is approved. There's no reports of subcommittees, and there are three reports from our superintendent. First up is our students. So I'll turn over to you, Dr. Galusi for Mustang moment. Thank you very much.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Good evening, I'm so excited for this Mustang moment. So I'm going to ask, we have four, I believe, Roberts writers here, and they're gonna talk to us about the school newspaper. We have teacher and I think advisor, Jen Devlin, and we have principal Cabral, excuse me, principal Crowell, sorry about that. It's been a long day, but I'm gonna ask for, Principal Kroll and Ms. Devlin to come and just tee us up so that we can listen to the students.
[Michelle Crowell]: Great. Thank you for having us here tonight to showcase the work of our young scholars and educators at the Roberts School. This past June, Owen Jetty Walsh submitted a proposal to start a student-run newspaper called the Roberts Rampage. Owen shared with me all of the reasons why we needed a student newspaper. He said, quote, it will teach us to write better, edit and publish our work, develop leadership skills, share school news, strengthen community ties and build school spirit. He even spoke with Ms. Devlin to help with supervision and guidance. He had it all covered. Reporters from the Roberts Rampage are here tonight to highlight their work and share with you their first edition. So speaking tonight, I have our publisher and editor, Owen Jetty Walsh, Mary Massa, Karen Naconear, Naima Ashour. We also have Ruby Gearheart and Hayden Richards, which are our newspaper staff, but they will not be speaking tonight. I would like to introduce you to Jen Devlin, who is their advisor.
[SPEAKER_14]: Thank you. Welcome Ms. Devlin.
[Michelle Crowell]: Hi there.
[SPEAKER_14]: Thank you so much for having us tonight. Owen, I've had the pleasure of having Owen in my class in second grade and in third grade. And literally the last week in third grade, he said, can I hang up this piece of paper in the back of the classroom for a sign up? And I said, sure, what's it for? And he said, I want to start a school newspaper. And I was like, wow, that is an amazing idea. I would love to help you with them. with that. So we wrote a proposal, as Mrs. Crowell said, and we met actually towards the end of the summer together, just Owen and I. We generated some ideas. We worked together for a few days in September, and we put together a first special edition, which I believe that you have a copy of. We've gone through the process of inviting fourth and fifth graders to be part of the staff. We have layout and design team. We have a special features team. We have writers. We have illustrators. And so we're really excited. Our first edition should be coming out any week now. So I'm going to turn it over now to Owen. He's going to come up, the editor-in-chief. And he's going to come up and share a little bit.
[SPEAKER_12]: Hello, everyone. I am Owen Jenny Walsh, and I am the editor-in-chief of the new Robbins Lampage school paper. Thank you for having me. I started thinking about the Lampage last year when I was in third grade because I read a lot of books where schools had student-run papers. I studied the paper on Ms. Devlin this year in fourth grade, and I think it is a fun way for kids to know what's going on in the school. When the first edition came out, I felt kind of cornered when I started and I feel lucky that I have Ms. Devlin to help me. I'm looking forward to seeing it grow over time. I'm hoping other schools do this as well. Again, thank you for having me.
[SPEAKER_18]: Hi, my name is Mary Massa. I am a fourth grader at the Roberts. I joined the Roberts Rampage because I enjoy running. I like my job more because I'm writing for kids. I am able to write about fun stuff that I like too. For the upcoming issue, I'm writing about the student council food drive. I got to interview students and teachers and took photos to go along with my article. This is a really fun experience for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: My name is Kieran Naconeyer. I work for the Roberts Rampage. My job is special features editor. I wanted to be this job because I thought a jokes and riddles page would bring laughter to the school newspaper. It would be a hundred times better. This way it would show information too. This would bring the school together with information and laughter. Thank you for having me.
[Alachie Yeager]: Nice, good job.
[SPEAKER_17]: My name is Naima. I am in fifth grade at the Roberts Elementary School. One reason I joined the newspaper, the Rampage, is to make other students at the school feel like they can do hard things. Even though writing is hard for me, I submitted an application to be part of the paper. I love art, so I put in the application to be on the layout and design team. Ms. Devlin then also asked me if I Wanted to be in charge of the random the random is a section in which teachers show something positive that has been happening in their classes. This is other reason I joined the newspaper. to make students feel included in their community. I can also ask students what they want in the paper so we can include everyone. I'm so happy to be part to be part of the newspaper. I know it will strengthen our school's community.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Great job, everybody. Wow. Impressive.
[Suzanne Galusi]: That's so impressive. Thank you so much. What a wonderful example of why it's so important to have opportunities for student voice and for the adults to really listen to what their students are saying. And it was really great to hear the different roles that you're all taking based on both what you think your strengths are versus where you want to push yourself in areas that you know would be helpful for you. I'm so proud of the work that you're doing. I don't know if anyone has any quick questions for our professional authors and artists. Member Intoppa.
[John Intoppa]: Thank you. I'll keep it brief because I usually ramble about all these things, but I'm at a loss for words at just how beautiful this concept is and the support it has and just the initiative of wanting to start a newspaper in elementary school and having it and be successful and having students actually say, yeah, I want to learn this because I want to do this when I'm older. I want to do this for the next few years to see if I want to try it out. Having that space to just learn of, hey, if I want to do art and graphic design layout or, hey, I want to do this and I want to try writing for the first time, No other word can describe that besides beautiful. So thank you. Thank you for doing all you're doing. Thank you for doing that for your peers and also for yourselves. This is a really cool thing and I hope you take advantage of keeping this going. So thank you.
[Nicole Branley]: Member Brinley. I just want to give a round of applause to Ms. Devlin because without teachers like you, stuff like this does not happen. So thank you for taking the time, going the extra mile for these kids.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Member Reinfeld.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I just want to say thank you to all the Roberts students. Some of you know that I am a Roberts parent. This is my final year, my 10th year at the Roberts School. And one of the most wonderful things that I've seen is the connections between classes and across grades. I actually wrote for the student newspaper when I was in elementary school. I did the advice columnist. But I love the connections here across disciplines and across the community. I have to give a shout out to the RAM page, because I know this school worked really hard to choose their new logo and chose the Robert Rams. And I think it's a great name. And I love seeing what's on the page. The communication is one of the things that I think we've really been working on in Medford and at the Roberts in particular. And seeing the student voice take that on is really special and really exciting. And I'm going to try to sneak copies even after I leave the Roberts. So thank you all. And thanks for being here.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Wonderful, thank you. I'll make sure I don't unsubscribe since my students just left Robert so I can read the newspaper. If you all want to come up, we'll take a picture and highlight the awesome job you've done.
[Unidentified]: Well, I don't know. Not all of them.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, next up we have the McGlynn and Andrews Solar Projects presentation. I know we have Mr. Ken Lord, Chief Operations Officer and Ms. Brenda Pike, our Staff Planner for the City, Climate Policy, Office of Planning, Development and Sustainability. Thank you, Brenda, for joining us. Thank you, Mr. Lord. I'll turn it over to you.
[Brenda Pike]: So the. He's this topic. The last time we were here talking about the Anderson McGlynn HVAC projects, but we have a proposal now to talk with you about. And that's for a power purchase agreement for a 360 kilowatt system that would generate about 48% of the McGlynn's current electricity usage. And that would be at a flat rate of about four and a half cents per kilowatt hour that would be for 20 years no escalation. And we it's projected that we'd be saving about $64,000 in year one from this project. And the installation will start in the fall after the HVAC project and the McGlynn roof refurbishment project is done. But we do have to sign the contract by the end of this year in order to meet federal tax credit requirements. While we won't own the system, the installer would be applying for those tax credits, and that's reflected in the rate that we have. If we didn't get those tax credits, the rate would be about twice as much as is shown right there. we're going to City Council later this month to get their approval because it's a contract longer than three years.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Miss Pike. Member Ruseau.
[Paul Ruseau]: Thank you. This is very, very exciting. The 48% it I am I correct that Actually, how much electricity is the turbine producing? Or is that already kind of being deducted from the current amount?
[Brenda Pike]: I think the turbine is about, when it was first installed, it was about 10% of the school's usage. So it's somewhat less than that now, probably in the 7% to 8% range. And is 48% of the total usage or the?
[Paul Ruseau]: minus that 10% first or whatever it is.
[Brenda Pike]: So it's 48% of the total usage. Oh, wow.
[Paul Ruseau]: We've been over the halfway mark of usage. That's wonderful. Thank you. And when we get to it, I don't know if there's specific language we have to approve. We often have set language for these types of things. I'm sure the city council will have very specific language, but if anybody has that language, when we get to the point where we make a motion,
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Sorry, sorry members so it's hard to hear.
[Paul Ruseau]: Can you hear me now.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yep, little better. Yes.
[Paul Ruseau]: Okay, sorry. I don't know if this was an honor I didn't have a close enough, but I just want to say if there's any specific language that we have to provide approval for. We should get that before the meetings over tonight.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, I believe it's the December 18th meeting that will present this before the city council just for a vote in favor of hopefully allowing us to go out to contract for longer than three years. So I don't know if there's additional language the council will talk about, but please feel free to comment now, although I think it's pretty straightforward. Member Olapade and then member Graham.
[Aaron Olapade]: Thank you. When it comes to the timeline, I know you mentioned fall of 26, is there a general idea about how long this project will take?
[Brenda Pike]: I expect it will probably take two to three months from start to finish.
[Aaron Olapade]: And then is there going to be any, and this is where I'm dealing with this a little bit with HVAC and the roof refurbishing, generally being somewhat during school hours and somewhat being after the fact, is there going to be any type of student impact to classes or things like that, other than just general noise?
[Brenda Pike]: don't expect that it would. And if there are things that would be more impactful, like having a crane, for instance, moving things onto the roof, we would be scheduling that outside of school hours.
[Aaron Olapade]: Thank you.
[Jenny Graham]: Member Graham. Thank you. I just had one question about the December 31st, 2026 timeline. So between now and December 31st, We have to vote to approve. The council has to vote to allow you to enter into a longer contract than three years. Are there other steps that have to happen between now and December 31?
[Brenda Pike]: We need to finalize the contract and get the signatures on it. But other than that, that's it.
[Jenny Graham]: OK. And then we haven't talked about it too much in this forum, but we were notified by the MSBA that we got awarded our three statement of interest, statements of interest, I don't exactly know how to make that plural, for roof replacements or refurbishments at Roberts, Missituk, and Brooks in the coming like two years, essentially. And my question is whether, We should be pursuing a power purchase agreement in advance of the December 31 deadline for those three projects as well. Because this like just the savings alone of the rate of 4 cents versus 13 cents is huge savings. And I know we couldn't do it until there's like new roofing in place. But those three projects are all like heading, you know, down the fast path, so to speak, with MSBA providing partial reimbursement.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, there is an installation timeframe for those tax credits, as well as the contract timeframe. So I don't think with the roof refurbishment timelines as they're going to be that it would meet the requirements for those tax credits. But we can take another look at that.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, I think we have some rough timing of what those projects will look like. But I think we also have some like wiggle room in terms of how we sequence those projects out. So if there was an opportunity for us to capitalize on this too, I would just want us to know that so that we can move on that quickly if we need to. So maybe if you can just check and let Ken know, we can figure out like if it lines up, great, because then we can do more than one school at this reduced energy cost.
[Brenda Pike]: Yeah, absolutely. We should talk about that.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah. Okay. I would just on that point, Member Graham, I would just ask the council to maybe take a bee paper or a side vote that if by chance we can enter those contracts that you want us to do that versus having Ms. Pike come back around the holidays when our last meeting is.
[Jenny Graham]: Oh, yeah, yeah, that's totally fine. Yeah. So and just to sort of follow up, there's no, there's no specific language that you need us to vote on to be able to enact this contract. Is that correct?
[Brenda Pike]: My understanding is that we that we don't the only real requirement is that we have approval from from you and the approval from the city council for the three year contract.
[Jenny Graham]: Got it. Yeah. So I'd like to make a motion to approve. entering into this agreement for the McGlynn Solar, and if possible, expanding the scope of this to include our three buildings that are currently in the MSBA roof refurbishment pipeline.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, I just didn't know if we need a clean vote, but I don't think we do. So we'll call the roll on Member Graham's motion and seconded by Member Reinfeld. Who was first? I'm sorry. Member Graham and Member Reinfeld. Thank you. I have a lot of time. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Aye. Motion passes. Thank you, Ms. Pike. Thank you, Mr. Lord. We need your microphone back on. OK, go ahead.
[Brenda Pike]: Sorry, plug. One small plug. There are some differences between municipal and residential solar. So if there's anyone watching from home who's thinking about installing solar on their own home, we have an Electrify Medford program where you can talk to one of our energy coaches one-on-one about your specific situation and get recommendations.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Miss Pike. I actually, my husband and I talked to you and now we have a new heating system, which is environmentally friendly. So we used your service and we got the tax credits just in time. So please call our office if you need that help. Thank you. Next up, I'm going to turn it over to Superintendent Galusi for a community input in space utilization presentation. I think you're going to break down some of the data from the survey that was given a couple of weeks ago. Thank you.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Thank you very much. Yes, so I am going to start the previous school committee meeting. It was discussed by this body to open this up for community input. I'm just going to begin with a little bit of framing as to the work that's been done so far in case there are people listening that might need a little bit of a recap. So during the November 17th meeting, We discussed part of the work that's been done with last year's resolution around overcrowding initiatives at the elementary, which resulted in the space utilization study. So on the slide, you will see the work that we have done so far and a recap of that meeting so. Last summer, the district worked with HMFH architects, and they conducted a space utilization study of the Brooks, the Missituk, the Roberts, the McGlynn, and the Andrews, and they looked at the way that the classrooms have been used, and they identified spaces that could possibly use another view to see how the district is using those. The criteria that they used were classrooms that based on their size, their natural light, their accessibility to pathways of transport within the building. They presented multiple capacity increasing scenarios with a particular focus on the Brooks and the Roberts due to the overcrowding nature of those two schools. The district in response to this study conducted an internal walkthrough of some of the schools, specifically the Andrews. We looked at usable spaces within the schools to see how they were identified in the study how they are currently being used right now versus how they were intended to be used way back when the schools were first opened in 2003. Now, the recommendation that we made during this meeting, MPS, was to review option two a little bit further, just to see the viability. Option two, as communicated to the community, both in the correspondence as well as in a survey, was looking at the viability of having the elementary schools follow a K to four model. making the McGlynn middle school five to six model and the Andrews a grade seven and eight model. Again, no decision has been made. It was just constructing a task force to look further at that option. The reason for the recommendation to review option two further was that it would meet immediate need at the elementaries for overcrowding and some long-term space capacity. It would provide a balanced cost effective and operationally viable solution. and it would enable at the middle school level, it would eliminate the need for a lottery for school assignment. It would address some of the demographic disparities that is happening and real at both of the middle schools, and it would ensure that specialized programming is equitable at both the McGlynn and the Andrews. It was communicated that this view or work through the task force would be to see if this was able to happen. And if it were determined to be, we're not really even looking at it until school year 27, 28. So two weeks ago, we put out a correspondence to the community recapping what happened at the school committee meeting on November 17th, and also attaching a survey for people to provide input. That was one way that we were initiating some community input. To date, and I'm sure maybe since we finalized some of this, there have been more respondents, but to date, 160 people have participated in the survey. The breakdown is 115 caregivers, parents, 44 educators, and one student. The overall themes that emerged from the survey thus far were centered on student experience, program continuity, staffing, and just overall logistics and nuts and bolts of what this would look like. Questions that participants reflected strong interest in understanding how this plan supports students, families, and long-term district goals. All in all, there were about five overarching themes that are represented in this participant breakdown. The first was student transitions and developmental fit. These were all in response to the first question on the survey, which was what topics would you like the task force to focus on as they study the possibility of this plan. We did provide some topics for people to select from. And then the second question was open ended and people could expound upon those topics. introduced their own topics, also introduced questions. So these themes came out of those two questions on the survey. So 85% of the respondents said that they would want the task force to focus on what the transitions would look like in the developmental fit of said plan. 75% of respondents really want the task force to look at the specialized programming. So right now, at the middle school level, we have specialized programming, certain programming at the McGlynn, and certain programming at the Andrews. That's both English learner specialized programming, as well as special education programming. And so 75% of the respondents would want us to really look at what that means for the programming. About 70% of respondents highlighted really making sure we understand what the capacity is of the long-term enrollment and the space. So in actuality, can both the McGlynn Middle School and Andrews Middle School actually handle this? And what would it mean for possible inflections of enrollment? 60% of respondents really talked about the logistical pieces. So what will this mean for transportation? Will we look at the eligibility of transportation and the walk to school ratios, mileage capacity? Will we look at changing and staggering start times so that families if they want to be transporting their students to elementary as well as 5, 6, 7, 8 in high school. And then they also want to know what we would be doing for after school care, specifically for fifth grade and sixth grade. This last section was not one of the listed topic areas, but it emerged in a number of respondent input. So we have it here as equity, community, and ending the lottery. So 10% of respondents, there was a range in terms of their responding, in terms of their input, but it all fell within this category. Some examples were, really happy about ending a lottery and the stress and anxiety that it causes students and family, but also wanting to maintain the identity of school communities and PTO organizations and making sure that we're mindful of that. And then the equity part of resourcing both middle schools the same, because there's a feeling that right now it is not. Diving a little bit deeper into these five categories on the next slide, these are just some highlights that came out of survey results. So under student transitions and developmental fit, a lot of the pieces talked about how will additional school transitions impact student belonging, their mental health, and their learning, they want the task force to really be answering that question, as well as what will fifth grade look like if we were to move it to the McGlynn Middle School. what would it look like academically and socially? Specifically, they spoke about would it be homeroom based? Would it be interdepartmental? That's something for the task force, as well as just overall the developmentally appropriate piece of moving fifth grade from elementary to a different setting. And then there were a couple comments about making sure that we are looking at what are the transitional supports that will be needed for students? If we go over to special education, EL and specialized programs, specifically the pieces that emerged that they want the task force to look at is the need to understand how the specialized programs will function in both separate models, as well as the need to account for space, staffing, and program continuity if a program is to exist in both schools. And based on enrollment, that is definitely going to be an area that the task force will need to look into. Moving to space capacity and long-term enrollment, some of the pieces that really resonated to have the task force look into are questions about whether the Andrews can actually truly house all 7th and 8th graders for the district with full programming and influx in enrollment capacity. The desire for clear long term enrollment projections, especially with potential new housing developments in the city of Medford. We know that there are some potentially maybe coming to Wellington and that surfaced in this survey, as well as what are the staffing implications for doing something like this. The logistical pieces around transportation, start times, and afterschool opportunities. The specific questions were, will the start times be staggered to assist families? Bus routes and eligibility for younger fifth and sixth graders and families having to get to two or three schools. Really looking at what the eligibility will and can be. And then, will there be afterschool options? that we can provide for especially fifth and sixth graders. And then under the equity community and ending the lottery, the specific pieces that were mentioned were opportunity to eliminate the middle school lottery, which was viewed as a stressful and socially disruptive to students and families. Stakeholders want both middle schools to be equitably resourced and demographically balanced. And then as previously said, desire to preserve a sense of community and the strength of the PTO at each level. So that brings us to this opportunity for public comment. This evening, I just recapped the findings briefly that were discussed at the November 17th meeting, identified those key areas that the survey has yielded thus far for the task force. And just as a reminder, this task force is just going to view the viability of it and recommend a plan, if possible, with a potential start of anything in the 27-28 school year. And then all I did on this slide was list these were the topics that were suggested in the survey that people were responding, they could click all that apply. And then the second question was open ended for people to put in additional topics of interest as well as any questions that they have that they want the task force to be responding to. So this is the part for public comment in which I'm going to be actively listening so that the information that we have from the survey around topics and questions that people would like the task force to entertain and really dig into. I will be making note of that. Ms. Allen will help me make note of that so that we can add it to the data that we already have been compiling.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Dr. Galussi. Very good presentation. I love hearing what the data showed. I think we had 170 respondents, like you said, or so, which is great. And the task force will be created in January, and I'm assuming start meetings sometime in the February time range. I don't see anybody in the audience that is here to comment. I'm not sure if anybody's online, but I think this is a great start exploring this option. So thank you for the presentation. If there's no comments from the school committee members, we can move on to the agenda. No, not that I can see. Member Reinfeld?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you for this and thanks for summarizing the data I just wanted to add to this, that I definitely saw in the data, a request that the task force look at some case studies of other schools that have made similar transitions I know Boston was mentioned. Arlington, Salem, and Andover, I think, were the ones that I saw or heard from people. So making sure that that's part of it. And then really looking at some of the through lines across these buckets. I appreciate these buckets in the summary, but things around continuity around student development and continuity for like the special programs. So could an IEP team or support team move with the students across the schools to help ease that transition in the middle? So things like that. And then I would just also encourage the task force to look at multiple sides of the coins of a lot of these questions. So an example that I would give there the opportunity to eliminate the lottery I know there was some eagerness to eliminate the lottery, so that social groups would not be broken up, but I also know plenty of kids for whom breaking up the social group was actually a chance for a fresh start and new friends. And so I think a lot of the questions that people are asking have those have both of those sides, and to consider and I know in going through data like this, it's a fantastic spreadsheet I'm so grateful to everyone who responded that questions that people are asking are so thoughtful and so important. But to really encourage the task force, not just to gravitate to the things that confirm what they think should happen. So just watching out for that confirmation bias, I think is going to be really important. And, and these questions of, you know, the lottery solved a very specific problem that we had in the district, and it did a great job of that but it introduced these other concerns and so really trying to work through those, you know, are we passing on the overcrowding to a middle school scenario what what new factors are being introduced and what new opportunities and just to be doing this in parallel with the strategic planning that's going to be happening, certainly what's happening around looking at enrollment with potential new housing. any of that. So that alignment I think is really important. And just looking. And I'm really glad to see these buckets because there was a comment that said, you know, a lot of the factors that we gave people were very, very operational. And those questions are really concrete and in many ways a lot easier to answer than some of the cultural questions. And so really making sure that we get into those and talk to students, potentially older students of what's been happening and then coming back to those case studies of what's happened in districts and what were the intended and unintended consequences of those changes. But I think this is a really great foundation to build on. I'm excited to get a report hopefully in the spring from this task force to say, what could we do? What should we do? Because those are different questions. Just because we can do something doesn't mean it's the thing to do. But I think there's a lot of possibility here. And I am excited to hear what the task force recommends.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Great. Thank you very much, Member Reinfeld.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Thank you for that. Can I add on? Yes, Dr. Galussi. So I'm glad you brought up the point about the research. So thank you. I have already reached out to the districts that were, most of them, not all of them, but the districts that were mentioned so that we make sure we have that data for when the task force does the work. So thank you for that.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Galussi. Okay, we'll move on. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. We look forward to hearing more. There are no presentations of the public nor the council. Continued business. I'm going to turn it over to Member Graham for an MSBA update. Member Graham.
[Jenny Graham]: Thank you. I am excited to update you all. As you know, SMMA was selected via the MSBA designer selection panel process back in October to be our designer. At our meeting last week, the school building committee approved the contract with SMMA, and that was subsequently signed by the mayor last week. We have an official kickoff meeting with MSBA. Tomorrow, in fact, although the work has already begun. And I just want to give you a little bit of an update on like what you can expect in the coming couple of months. So, we have, we are in the throes of what they call educational visioning, which is a process where we get to say what should be happening in the building, and how should it happen in the building that work is underway right now, primarily by educators who work at Medford High School department heads and that kind of thing. There'll be two visioning sessions upcoming in the next two weeks where that group will expand slightly to include folks from the community who applied and expressed interest who work in other districts or have served on MSBA related projects in the past. So all of that will wrap up before the holiday break in December. And we will also be putting out a call probably tomorrow to form what we're calling advisory teams. And these teams will be people from the community ideally have specific skill sets, for example, sustainability and mechanical, electrical, power, things all together right as one group. I will not be on the on that group. But there's there's four so one is interior and exterior design, one is site safety and security, one is educational planning, and the other is the mechanical electrical, maybe plumbing is the other P is the P. and sustainability. So those advisory groups, the ask is for people who have maybe particular skill sets in those areas to join us for one meeting in December, a meeting in January, and then a meeting to be scheduled in March and in September. So we'll be looking for community input that way. There will be a building committee meeting in December and then there will be several building committee meetings between January and February because our first deliverable to MSBA will be due at the end of February. So during that time, we will see things like a big behemoth spreadsheet that says this is how many classrooms we need of all of these different types and sorts. And we'll start to sort of marry our educational Our educational enrollment which certified at 1395 for the high school which is about 200 students more than we have today. To the space programming that will happen so that when they start thinking about what does the building look like they know that they need X number of classrooms and they need you know. this many vocational spaces that look like these particular shops and meet certain requirements. And that all helps inform things like how big is the building? Is it bigger than it is right now? Is it smaller than it is right now? All of those things are driven out of the formulas that are created by this like master spreadsheet. But the more exciting news is that in January, we will start to see two dimensional ideas of what this building could look like. And it's still coming into focus for me like what that visual thing will be. But what they talked about is when we think about the high school property, there's many places where a building could go on that property because there's 30 acres. So it could be a set of like, here are, you know, here are 15 options of how we might situate different configurations of this building, so that then they can get feedback from the building committee, from the community who attends the meetings, so that the cost estimators start to work from those like 2D sketches on like what would these different buildings look like from a cost estimating perspective because all that is due by the end of February. There will be a meeting, there will be two meetings where we will review the educational plan here with this committee. So the school building committee will sign off on the deliverable at the end of February. The school committee signs off on the educational plan because the school committee retains the authority over the actual educational plan that will get executed in the building. So at the end of January, we'll see a draft of that. And then at the beginning of February, we'll be asked to vote on that. And all of that will feed the deliverable, which they call it the preferred preliminary design plan, preliminary design plan, PDP, PDP, right? And there's two deliverables, both that start with P that keep tripping me up, but they, thank you, Ken. Yes, thank you PSR comes next. So, the, the idea in February is that we can paint a clear enough picture for MSBA about what the education will look like in the building and what we are pursuing from a more in depth feasibility analysis, including whether we're looking at what they call a code update, which is a requirement to look at under MSBA, which is they'll just bring the building up to code and call it a day. I don't think any high school has ever gone down that road because it would essentially not really be eligible for MSBA funding at that point anymore. Then there's like many iterations of like reno slash add reno and then there's new buildings and so in January we will start to see what those options look like and the public is welcome to join us as we as we start to have those conversations. So we're deep in the throes of planning what those community engagement meetings will look like and how they fit with the strategic planning conversations that also are happening in that same timeline. So it's a we're trying to put the puzzle together so that people can participate in lots of things and not get exhausted by the amount of feedback that we're asking people for. But all of that will happen in January and in February in advance of this deliverable. And then between February and June, we will take what might be many options in February and we will ultimately narrow down to one option. And that is what will be submitted at the end of June to MSBA. And that is the one we'll go forward with to like really dive deep go through all the ins and outs, really start talking about schematic design and the real cost estimation around that one choice that we make at the June deliverable. And MSBA will agree with that and then we'll move forward. So there's like a lot happening between now and June. Many opportunities for input and be on the lookout for the call for the advisory teams. And then there'll be a series of public meetings and places where we'll be asking the the combined team to go and demonstrate, particularly as we get closer to June, what that option looks like to collect input from people and feedback about what they like and what they don't like about what they're seeing. So things are moving incredibly fast and I thank the team that is working with us because we've given them a really demanding charge and we are working through it together. So we are we are moving like lightning fast and all these pieces are falling into place so that we can start to give people a little bit of advance notice.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Great, thank you so much member Graham and I think our next meeting is. I must be able is that.
[Jenny Graham]: The 22nd 22nd and that meeting will be virtual only. The other thing that we will do is put out some clear information about the January meetings about whether not that we wouldn't host the virtual meeting in addition to an in person meeting, but whether the content being covered in those meetings really lends itself to participating virtually or if you really want to be able to see you know, whatever the 9, 10, 15, however many options they're putting in front of us, whether that is recommended to be in person or not. So a little bit more to come about like the best ways to engage in those future meetings.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, absolutely. Makes sense. Member Reinfeld?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you. Couple questions so the advisory teams, is that an MSBA requirement or is that an architect, is that an SMMA process what that's an SMMA process, and it is not an MSBA requirement, but they.
[Jenny Graham]: They have been working with us to sort of scope out what those groups would do. And what they said is they find that it is another helpful point of input for the building committee to hear from different groups of people with particular special needs.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Because that was definitely something that we discussed when we first approved the building committee's creation. And we're thinking about who was on it and saying there would be this opportunity for advisory. So is there potentially an opportunity For other other groups are these are you listed for I can see right educational planning that's a huge thing we definitely wanted to have some representation for. groups with disabilities for special needs yeah that kind of.
[Jenny Graham]: Accessibility there. So those are the four that they needed us to move on urgently so that their input can be part of these like 2D designs and to help inform like where those things go. Having said that, once we get through this phase and we move into the next phase where we're narrowing down, there certainly could be another set of advisory teams that are looking at something on these teams, because I can see that place there.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And then the other question I have is when When will the community have an opportunity to learn about some of those constraints that MSBA does put on things because I know people have questions about things like the pool and how big an auditorium can be and all of these things that we would love to have complete control over and, but it will qualify or disqualify us for certain aspects of funding.
[Jenny Graham]: My best guess is that that will start to unfold as we are talking about these 2D designs, because people will say things like, well, that theater is not big enough because the whole school can't go in there. And then SMMA will quickly sort of educate in that moment about what the rules are, which is that you cannot build a theater bigger than 1,000 student capacity. in this project with MSBA, period. Even if we were willing to pay for it, it cannot be part of this project.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So those are the things that I think people really need to know as we think about what we're asking the taxpayers to fund.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, so I think there'll be a number of layers of information like that, but the list of rules is so long that I think it would be really hard to make that resonate for people. until they start seeing something or having particular questions. When we view the ed plan here in January and then are asked to vote on it in February, that's potentially another time to be asking some of those questions because there will be some there will be parameters of like how big something can be that will be informing the that big master spreadsheet that they're having to create. So all of that is going to like unfold over time. And then I think where it will really happen is when we start narrowing down on options where we're not talking about nine or 10 or 15 or 18 options, but we're talking about, do we like option one or two or three? That's where those conversations I think will be most impactful because that's where you'll be able to see something a little bit more three-dimensional in the process. Great, thank you. I'm sure I have a million more questions, but that should do it for now. Me too. I'm learning something new every day. Great, great. Thank you. Member Intoppa?
[John Intoppa]: Thank you. Sorry, Member Redfield. This meant FAQ sheet. We need some kind of key for this. Not that your microphone was too high. So thank you. So I'm really excited to hear that we're entering the iterative phase so quickly. Come January, the iterative phase being the 2D thumbnail sketches. of you know what's happening and for those who don't know and those who haven't you know worked in that creative iterative process behind those 15 or thousands of other thumbnail sketches that come into what this looks like and considering the plot of land we have I'm assuming the number is in 2000. My question is those out of those the iterative process with those two-dimensional sketches is it 15 of a new building or is it like 10 new building 5 Reno or is it like
[Jenny Graham]: It could be any mix. So there's no formula in that particular part that I'm aware of, at least at the moment.
[John Intoppa]: I was just curious to see if it would be like, all right, we have 15 completely renovated. Because sometimes they'll do that where it's like, all right, we've done 5, 5, 5. We have 5 completely renovation, 5 bring up to code and then five, you know, Reno had destroyed. So if we don't know, we don't know, but still that's great to hear that we're getting into that phase so quickly because it takes a while.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, and I should mention that they, you know, they talked about like the getting to know you phase and I think they have gotten to know us very rapidly. They have already completed more than 60 meetings with various departments at the high school in like a few short weeks. They are, they are really working quickly every department. I happen to see them at yeah I happen to see them at the bistro and I was peppering our lead architect with questions about a particular space and he was like right there with me so they really have done their due diligence to understand. what we do in the building and they followed students around for a day to understand like how students experience the building and they really got a lot out of that too. There's some visits to other schools happening on Friday and then the visioning sessions start next week where all of this input that they've been collecting starts to come out in what will we look like in this future building, which is exciting.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: That's great. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is our, offered by member Reinfeld, 2025-27, which is the second reading of the AI use of generated AI in Medford Public Schools. Motion to waive the reading and for all the members, the changes since the first reading are indicated in bold. Maybe I'll just go over those changes. If you go to page four, member, motion to waive the reading by member Reinfeld, seconded by? You pick member Ruseau. All those in favor of those opposed motion to waive the reading is approved. So I'll just go over the changes on the second page of the policy. the paragraph in bold, all gen AI use must be linked to one or more specific educational relevant objectives and take into account current research about the impact of such tools on critical thinking, cognitive loss and the natural environment. That's a good one, thank you. And now on the third page of the policy, all AI generated content should be checked by both students and teachers for accuracy. I think that needs to be changed to for, Yep, for accuracy bias misinformation and potentially negative content. Students should understand the limitations of AI generated information, the importance of using trusted sources for information verification and the impact that AI tools can have on cognitive development and critical thinking skills. Page four of the policy, all Gen AI content should be critically reviewed before use. All AI generated content should be checked by both students and teachers for accuracy, bias, misinformation, and potentially negative content. And students should also consider the impact of AI tools in the natural environment. Next page. Teachers must allow the limited use of generated AI on entire assignments or parts of assignments. Educators should identify when and how gen AI can be used and why, and discuss with students the impact of AI tools on cognitive development and critical thinking skills. And added a sentence, under ethical use, educational staff should also consider the impact of AI tools on the national environment. And then the last page of the policy, in addition, MPS staff will consider the impact on the national environment before employing AI tools. Same in the last paragraph of the policy, where you added in the latest research into how AI tools impact student learning, cognitive development, and the natural environment. Member Reinfeld.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So we had a very long discussion about the policy last meeting. This is taking in, this is adding in the requested changes from students and others about natural environment, cognitive loss, and and the checking that it is both the students and the teachers responsibility to check this content. There will continue to be follow up with students and educators and caregivers. I think that rollout plan is going to be kicking off next week. I think there's a meeting to discuss and then from there we'll it'll be integrated into appropriate meetings from there. So this is taking into account the requested changes and happy to answer questions, but this tried to. Thank you. Incorporate the feedback we got last time.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: No, we appreciate that. And I know in the policy, it also says, which is part of it, and I know I didn't read the whole policy, but important for me is students should not use any generative gen AI tools without prior approval from educators or educational teams, and students must also properly cite all AI-generated content. So I just wanted to point that out. Member Intoppa.
[John Intoppa]: Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate, again, I just want to reiterate, I appreciate all the work that has gone into writing this policy, all the various meetings, the changes, but I personally still can't get behind this. We talk about, I'll say it again, like I said a few weeks ago, citing an AI search is the same thing as I was told going through the Medford Public Schools, you can't cite Google. You have to do an in-depth research on Chicago MLA formatting and all this and that. And AI formatting is just your prompt and the machine learning tool. It gives no credit to anyone who's done any of the actual work behind the scenes. And a lot of this, you know, the goal is to teach processes and critical thinking, and this helps promote shortcuts that may build unhealthy habits. I see the only way, and I've said this in the meeting and I said it online when I talked about it, and I've spoken to people about it, the only ethical way I see generative AI being used is to teach people how to identify it, to make sure they are not swayed with misinformation, to make sure it is not used in a malicious way. I have never seen it used in an ethical way in the arts. I refuse to admit that, I refuse to acknowledge generative AI in the arts. I think that it is, Not stealing like an artist in terms of the terms when we talk about, you know, how we take inspiration, how we do things. You know, not comparing this to other things, you know, not comparing to, I don't even know, like microwaves taking over the culinary industry, you know, AI is taking people's jobs. It is a threat to my field of work, and it will always be a threat to my field of work. We talked about the iterative process a moment ago, and it is being used in the iterative process in my line of study to steal my job or to steal the job of others. And we talk a lot about ethics. We talk a lot about what we see in values. And I understand that this is still giving the power to the people. This policy could pass, and no faculty member could ever use generative AI in the classroom. That's entirely possible. It's entirely possible that that happens. And that's a world that I would love. And I trust that our faculty and staff will, you know, do the right thing. But to me, this is the district promoting this tool. And I don't really see that as a tool that belongs in the classroom as a part of the learning process. I don't see a way that it works. I'm looking at to make sure I'm not forgetting anything in terms of citing sources, in terms of, you know, I'm happy to see that we're talking about the, aspect of it impacting critical thinking. But the fact that it's written in the policy that says, hey, man, this might negatively impact cognitive development, or this might impact the environment. It's like, how do we do that? We just sit here and we go, OK, my search is going to negatively impact the environment. But that doesn't undo the harm that happens. And while it may be minuscule, we're talking about going to nuclear power. But right now, we're not at nuclear power. And it may be like, oh, it's only half a water bottle. Or hey, it's only like 10 milliliters of water. it's still using energy. And nevermind the energy that it takes to generate this, it's also using energy to cool it. And that's the whole part that we talk about is when we talk about the negative impact, it's like, how can a Google search or how can a JAT GBT search impact the environment? We have huge data centers that need to be cooled via water and hydration. We're talking about, you know, going to a net zero high school, net zero, is that the correct phrase? But we're not accounting for the fact that we're putting forward policies that kind of promote behavior that would be against it. So maybe my tinfoil hat is a little too tight when it comes to generative AI. It's a sensitive topic because I represent a lot of artists and designers. And I went to art and design school. And I acknowledge my own implicit bias and an implicit bias system. But I just want my sort of warnings and my cautionary tale and my thoughts to be heard with the committee when we take a vote on this to become policy. Because while a lot of these things are great, AI is plagiarism. We're talking about the academic honesty panel using it without consent. I just don't think it should be used in the classroom to begin with. So I'll yield my time if anybody has any other questions. I don't want to drag things out and keep talking in circles like I already am. But thank you.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: You're fine. No, we appreciate your comments. Thank you. Member Ruseau.
[Paul Ruseau]: Thank you. I was going to make a motion to approve amended with the fix from or accuracy to for accuracy to change the first adopted to December 1st, 2025 last amended to NA and next review to be December 2026. But obviously there's other people who want to talk. So I make that motion.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: And if you could just repeat the motion one more time approval of the second reading.
[Paul Ruseau]: Yep, motion to approve the policy, fixing that or accuracy to before accuracy and then the rest of it is just the metadata at the bottom. When it was adopted, etc.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, and accepting all the updates from member Reinfeld. Motion on the floor by Member Ruseau, seconded by Member Graham. Oh, Elijah, yes, please. Oh, just give it one second. And thank you.
[Alachie Yeager]: Yeah, sorry. We did a secondary review of the policy last meeting, I believe. And one of the things that I wanted to just quickly bring up was there's a clause in the ethical use section under students. It says users may not use, sorry, any form of communication with or through AI tools, including chatbots or virtual assistants, must adhere to the same standards of respect expected in human interactions. I think that as these are statistical algorithms that are going to sort of attempt to predict future speech based off of correlation between texts that they've observed in their training, I think that it's a harmful sentiment to normalize the personification of these models. I think that we've talked a lot about in this policy that about the dangers and all of the disparities between these systems and real authentic human beings. And I think that it's problematic at a societal level to try and... I think that the personification of these agents can do nothing but harm to ethical use if that's what we're aiming for in this proposal.
[Unidentified]: Thank you.
[Paul Ruseau]: Well, the students can't make amendments.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Is there a specific amendment requested? Oh, suggested, of course. Requested, suggested.
[Alachie Yeager]: Oh, sorry. Yeah, I think a lot of the other content in this section is very helpful. We don't want students to use AI to disseminate harmful content. We don't want students to sort of use these platforms by proxy, as it seems to be insinuated. But I think that this particular section is harmful in of itself. And I don't see a lot of other utility other than it seems pretty singular in its intent.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: So is that a suggestion to remove the whole paragraph?
[Alachie Yeager]: No, just that sentence. The other parts about dissemination of harmful content is, in my opinion, aligns with the goals outlined by the proposal.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Member Reinfeld.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Comfortable removing it, having this body do that removal simply because this was language that was given to us specifically by teachers in the working group in regards to how they, which AI tools they thought students would be using or likely to use. However, I would like to bring that back to the staff and the technology, the head of technology who worked on this.
[Alachie Yeager]: Just wanted to raise the concern.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And I appreciate that. Thank you.
[Alachie Yeager]: Thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So is that a motion to table? Well, I think our student members can't actually formally amend things. So I just wanted to hear what the recommendation was or what the suggestion was. And I appreciate it. And I would like to bring that to Director Layden and the rest of the team, but I would like to keep this as written because this did come out of this group of educators that specifically wanted these tools included.
[SPEAKER_06]: Understood. Do you want to bring that to them and then vote for the second reading at the next meeting?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I think given that this is likely to be amendments after these focus groups happen, I think doing those all together makes sense if we're looking at a one-year review policy. I would like us to vote on this tonight. Sorry, yes. I don't think we should push this to another meeting. I think we should.
[Alachie Yeager]: Can I ask a quick question about the process for this proposal going forward? I know that you said that you're breaking out into focus groups. after this vote after this vote is that correct.
[Erika Reinfeld]: If that is, that is the plan that is what the so the task force so I mentioned this when we did the first reading the task force said that they were, this was moving. This was moving into the handbooks, which have been approved, and this language, the same language is in the handbooks, and then that they wanted to set up focus groups with educators in department meetings, also talk to the student council, partly at your recommendation, or a larger group that the student council brings together, and also do conversations with caregivers, and then also talking about what training is needed for educators to really bring make wise decisions.
[Alachie Yeager]: I think that the sentiment expressed is very valuable there. I don't want to get too far into the questions, because I know we're a little deep. But is there a particular reason why you prioritized doing these work groups after the approval of the proposal?
[Erika Reinfeld]: So this, I'll just say it. I was surprised that this went into the handbook as soon as it did. And I thought once it was in the handbook, we needed to codify it. in a public forum. So I think, I can't speak to the exact timing.
[Alachie Yeager]: And with that in mind, you still want to vote on it tonight, correct? Yes. Great, thank you.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Just remind me who motioned for approval and then seconded. Okay, is all those in favor?
[Unidentified]: Aye.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: All those opposed? Aye. Nay. Roll call has been requested.
[Paul Ruseau]: Member Branley? Yes. Member Graham? Yes. Member Intoppa? No. One second. Member Olapade? Yes. Member Reinfeld? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Mayor Longovern?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, although I wish from the chair that the student's request could be looked into before we moved approval, but I understand we'll be re-looking at that paragraph. So yes, that's six in the affirmative, one in the negative, motion passes. We do not have any new business or reports requested, but we do have to condolences unfortunately, members of the Medford school committee, express their sincerest condolences, the family of Anna M front a vendor retired Medford public school teacher who started her career at the Forest Park School in Medford. and the members of the Medford School Committee express their sincerest condolences to the family of Janice Rumley-Ahearn, mother of Kelly Molloy, computer teacher at the Roberts Elementary School. If we all might rise for a moment of silence, please. Thank you. Wednesday night is the winter extravaganza here at City Hall. All are welcome. That's 4.30 to 6.30. And our next regular meeting is December 15th here in the Chambers, Medford City Hall, in addition to Zoom. Is there a motion to adjourn? I move to adjourn. I, member Intoppa, seconded by? Second. Member Branley? That's the loudest voice I heard. All those in favor?
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