[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: 6 p.m. will come to order and we are obviously here at the Alden Memorial Chambers. Happy New Year everybody. The first regular meeting of the Medford School Committee will come to order. Today's Monday January 5th 2026 and it is almost 6 p.m. This meeting will be held here at the Alden Memorial Chambers, Medford City Hall, and via remote participation, and this 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 9, 8, or 22. and Verizon channel 43, 45, or 47. Participants can call in or log in using the Zoom link on the two websites, cities and schools. And the meeting ID is 931-8314-0821. Be it resolved, the Medford School Committee will elect its officers for the 2026 and 2027 term at the next scheduled meeting. Be it further resolved that until that election, the officers from the term Ending December 31st, 2025, we'll continue serving. Member Ruseau, if you could call the roll, please.
[Paul Ruseau]: Certainly, and I'm calling the roll not as a secretary at the moment, but as the senior member, which actually is also in the rules. Anyways, Member Graham. As seen. Member Mastroboni. Wait, are we voting?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: What are we voting? Are we saying call the roll? No, call the roll. Oh, I thought you were voting. Oh, we should vote on that. Roll call first, right? Got it. You want to vote on the resolution? Sure. So if you could call the roll for the resolution.
[Paul Ruseau]: The resolution or the roll call? Oh, the roll call is later. You're right. So this is the resolution. Sorry. So that's abstain. Member Mastroglioni? Yes. Yes. Member Olapade?
[Aaron Olapade]: Abstain.
[Paul Ruseau]: Member Parks? Member Reinfeld?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes.
[Paul Ruseau]: Member Ruseau, yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Five in the affirmative, two abstained. Roll call, please. Certainly.
[Paul Ruseau]: Now we're asking if you're here. Member Graham?
[Alachie Yeager]: Here.
[Paul Ruseau]: Member Mastropoulos? You're going to help me with your last name better soon. Member Olapade. Here. Member Parks. Here. Member Reinfeld.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Present.
[Paul Ruseau]: Member Ruseau. Present. Mayor Longo.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Present. Seven present. And thank you to our student rep for joining us tonight. If we all may rise to salute the flag, please. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Do we have any agenda items from anybody on good of the order? Member Graham.
[Jenny Graham]: The reason that I have to abstain from votes tonight, member Lopate is in the same vote as I am, is that we missed the 430 window to come be officially sworn in. So we can be here, we can be present, we can be part of the conversation, we just can't vote. Thank you. Got it. Thank you, member Graham.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Next up is our consent agenda. We have approval of bills and payrolls, approval of capital purchases, approval of donations. approval of grants, approval of field trips, WGI, Toms River, percussion, power, regional field trip, and approval of the meeting minutes from the regular meeting December 15th, 2025. Is there a motion on the floor? Motion to approve. By member Reinfeld, seconded by? Second. Member Mastroboni. All those in favor? Aye. Roll call.
[Paul Ruseau]: Member Graham.
[Jessica Parks]: I abstain.
[Paul Ruseau]: Member Mastrovano. I abstain. Member Olapade. I abstain. Member Parks. Yes. Member Einfeld.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Paul Ruseau]: And Member Ruseau is yes. And Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, five in the affirmative, two abstain, and I think I might have said your name wrong, I'm sorry. Can you? Mastroboni. Mastroboni. Sorry.
[SPEAKER_10]: Mastro.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Mastro. Okay. Sorry about that.
[Paul Ruseau]: Four syllables.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: No reports of subcommittees, and we have three reports of our superintendent, so I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Suzanne Begalusi, our interim superintendent. First up is the interim superintendent's evaluations and goals.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Thank you. Good evening. So over the past year, I've been deeply honored to serve the Medford Public Schools community and to lead the district through a period of rebuilding, renewal, and forward momentum. This has been a truly busy year, but it's been a really meaningful year, focused on restoring clarity, strengthening systems, and laying the foundation for long-term improvement. always centered in a deep commitment in Medford students, educators, families, and community. My belief in this community and what our schools can achieve together remains unwavering and I am profoundly grateful for the trust that you all placed in me during this pivotal time. None of this progress would have been possible without the extraordinary dedication of our staff, our administrators, our educators, central leadership, and just all of Medford Public Schools staff. A strong partnership exists throughout the district and it is in service of students and families. This work is very demanding and it is very complex. and it keeps you on your toes. And it often requires a lot of difficult decisions, long hours and sustained focus. And it is work that you take home with you. Yet it is carried out. in everyday professionalism, care, and an unwavering belief in our students. I'm incredibly proud of the countless ways that our staff go above and beyond their formal roles in support of students and families. Much of this work happens quietly and without recognition, but it's foundational to what we do here today. I'm deeply grateful to the school committee for your support, your guidance, and your partnership throughout this year. Your thoughtful questions, your steady leadership, and your shared commitment to Medford students and community have strengthened our work and helped move the district forward. I'm also very grateful to our Medford families and community partners for their trust, their collaboration, and their support. The partnership has strengthened our decisions and sharpened our vision. Because of this collective effort, I'm deeply hopeful about what lies ahead and confident in the foundation that we are building in Medford Public Schools. I thank you for letting me just start a little bit that way. On the next slide, please. What I have laid out here is what I would probably call like more of a state of the schools. So this slide just gives a snapshot of this past interim year in review. The year started with a little bit of some, as I took over this position, there was a shift in central leadership structure that the previous superintendent had done, and that had me shifting my role, and I was in the assistant superintendent for academics and instruction. During that time, we began to work a lot on our instructional excellence. We were working on creating an instructional vision so that there was a vertical through line throughout the district from kindergarten to postgraduate. That work did start in my previous role and continued during this interim role. You will see here just a reminder of the work of the instructional vision and the aligned practice, which was aligning to Desi's version of an instructional vision. creating an equity statement that grounds our work each and every day, and the creation of core values. It also included bringing in professional development to make sure that our staff was aligned in this work. As I took over, I created a transitional plan that I presented to this body about a month ago. This spoke about the work that I had done really working on the meet and greets, listening to the community, listening to the staff, trying to get a better understanding, even though my whole career has been here for 29 years, that shift in roles, I wanted to make sure that I was providing another opportunity for input and learning. All of that to bring with me to this position. If we could please go to the next slide. This presentation right here on this slide, I am organizing my self-evaluation in the work that we have done this past year. So this work is going to be highlighted in four buckets. I'm going to talk a little bit about the work that I have done collectively with staff and with the community to create stability through shared purpose and vision. I am going to highlight the work of building instructional excellence through leadership and coherence, which is a lot of the instructional work. I'm also going to talk about strengthening operational foundations of Medford Public Schools and the communication and partnership. So to begin, our core values were created while I was in this position as interim superintendent. They evolved in a lot of the work that started previously to this interim position and then really came full circle at the end of last year through that work and the coalescing that we did as an administrative team during our retreat. These core values came from the work of the instructional vision. So there is collaborative effort. and input put into the core values. Next slide, please. Our core values are we believe all students deserve to feel seen, heard, valued, and connected in schools where inclusive, culturally affirming practices allow them to grow, succeed, and fully engage in their learning. We believe all students deserve the opportunities, resources, and support they need to reach their full potential. And we believe every student's success is our shared responsibility. So the pivotal piece first of this work was really to restore clarity. Who are we? How do we lead? What we expect? And how do we communicate? Next slide, please. So first I'm going to discuss stability through shared purpose and vision. When I stepped into the interim superintendent role, a year ago, January 2025, I knew immediately that my first responsibility was to restore a little bit of stability and coherence and a sense of shared purpose across the district. Medford is a system with considerable strengths, but it was also operating with fragmented structures. uneven expectations, inconsistent communication patterns, and operational pressures that demanded clear leadership and alignment. My earliest work centered on creating clarity, clarity of purpose, clarity of expectations, and clarity in how we were going to move forward together. That was the work that really began. It's work that's been ongoing, but really fully began over the summer. When we brought in a new leadership team, we were able to coalesce around our shared purpose, our core values, and grounding the district in belonging. Belonging as the foundational lens for all decisions. This slide talks about that. I've shared this before in many presentations, I feel like, this year, but just to make a point here that part of establishing that clear vision was grounding us all in this central purpose this year, and that was belonging. It guides our instructional coherence and grade-level expectations, data-informed practices, and strengthening classroom experiences across the system. and belonging frames everything from academic discourse to grade level instruction tasks to culturally affirming practices and the rollout of consistent expectations across classrooms. I will be highlighting that work as this presentation evolves. It also really came forward in the intentional elevation of student voice. This is something that is still growing. This is something that we are making sure that we're including when we gather together in spaces. It is the intentional inclusion of the Mustang moment in our agenda, which I also will highlight a little bit further in this presentation, but making sure that we are embedding student perspectives during our leadership retreats. We had student perspectives on our first day of school, our first opening for staff. They spoke at the convocation and really spoke about what belonging means to them and why and what they want their teachers to hear about why it's important. We have student voice in our Mustang moment and we start every school committee meeting that way, so it reminds us as to our why, our collective reason why we're here. We want to make sure we are continuing to provide opportunities so that students are able to speak and lead and inform our practice. I want to extend that just a little bit on an example here where I feel that this kind of aligns all of the work in one perfect example. This year we've done a lot of work, which this body has presented on before, but we had a pretty successful negotiations with the teachers. And that brought, we had that wonderful opportunity because also of the override. And that brought an increased ability and opportunity for us to really be looking at how we're structuring learning every day for students and what that schedule would look like. And part of the alignment of a new middle school schedule provided lots of additional instructional time for students, but it also provided an opportunity for making sure we can target students' needs, whether that's remediation, whether that's acceleration, whether that's enrichment, or all of the above. And so having that first level of work to make sure that we are providing students with what we know they deserve, That work allowed us to put in a challenge course. And so this challenge course provided an opportunity for Director Cieri to bring in a STEM-focused program called Robotics C360. And so every middle school student will have a semester where they are grounded in this STEM work. This also provided a Mustang moment for us, where students, you got to hear from students their perspective of what that class has meant to them, what they're learning from that class, how some of the students are actually hopeful to really see what the engineering program at CTE looks like now based on this experience that they were able to have. It also brought us recognition and a highlight from the Secretary of Education, Dr. Tutwiler, and the Lieutenant Governor, Kim Driscoll, who came to visit our schools during STEM week to see what robotics C360 was all about. And then in continuation to that, it also provided an opportunity for me to present during the MASC, shared conference between the school committees and school leadership, on the program and all of this really highlights the through line of what we're trying to do here in Medford Public Schools. Lastly, the leadership reorganization was really critical for Medford Public Schools. Bringing in a cohesive central administration, bringing together stronger coordination and accountability to our core functions, bringing in a level of expertise to the role has been so impactful. And it is really only been probably a little more than four months. So I do think it's important to note we've had a big reorganization here in leadership, which I'm going to talk about a little bit. My historical component of having my whole career here for 29 years, what's really wonderful about the balance of this new team is that they're from outside of Medford Public Schools. They're bringing with them years of experience and expertise and really able to round out our team in a way that is setting the stage for really great things that are going to happen in Medford Public Schools. With that, I was very intentional. I am in an interim role, but I always want to do what's best for Medford Public Schools. and was very intentional about making sure that these new positions were not tied to my status and that they are permanent for Medford Public Schools. So we brought in Dr. Kim Talbot, Assistant Superintendent for Academics and Instruction in her permanent position. We brought in Mr. Kenneth Lord, Chief Operations Officer, in a permanent position. That's really helped to stabilize the district. It's really helped to move a lot of the work forward. But they also started mid to late August. So we are still in the stages of building what we know we need to do. A tremendous amount of work has been done in these last four months, but there's still a lot more to do. The other pieces, which alludes to what I've been talking about, is improving district-wide systems. So a lot of what I've spoken about, Medford has always been a wonderful school district. But there are pockets of where we're lacking and where we need some further systems to be in place. And so a lot of the work that we are doing, especially now that there is a complete team, is working on setting clear systems and structures specifically in operations but also in academics and across the district. I also think it's important that in this role, I had been a part of negotiations in my previous role for certain units. Now in this role, I've been able to be a part of working with Member Graham and Member Ruseau in all of the bargaining units. There was a significant amount of work done last year. We're still going with some other units. Being there to see a lot of that work come to fruition has been quite rewarding and is setting us off on a great start this school year with new CBAs. So, strengthening operational foundations. What I'm going to highlight in these next few slides is reinforcing operational expectations across departments. For people that do not know, our COO has oversight of facilities, technology, and security. Systematically addressing areas of deferred maintenance, strengthening safety, and looking at our community schools. On the first slide, reinforcing operational expectations across departments was making sure we were establishing clear and calibrated expectations, aligning workflows, and creating predictable systems for communication, for problem solving, and follow through. Some of those examples are the MPS Cybersecurity Incident Response Plan, which Mr. Lord has been working on, and a weekly project facility work order review meeting. So that follow-through piece, that documentation piece, is what Ken is really laying the groundwork for. in the short time he's been here so far. So systematically addressing areas of deferred maintenance. This has been a big area for Medford Public Schools. This has been part of ongoing conversations. Really looking at what the deferred maintenance schedule is, has been, with transparency, understanding, and acknowledging gaps in prior upkeep, and leading the system towards a more productive, sustainable plan. Part of that work is the facilities conditioning assessment. That work was started prior to Mr. Lord coming. The report came as he was here and we were able to really look at what that report entails and it has been woven into our capital plan. Heating and roof leaks. par for the course in the past year. There have been lots of unexpected issues that arise. We have seen the majority of them happening around either heating or roof leaks. Most recently, we had one over the break in Kids' Corner, our municipal daycare. A lot of work went into that to make sure that it was remediated. Carpets shampooed, items replaced, and mattresses replaced and ordered. To make sure that they got here on time, we had to make sure that they were delivered speedily through Amazon. And so John McLaughlin, Ken Lord and myself made sure that we went to the post office and picked up those 16 crib mattresses and delivered them to Kids Corner. But you just don't know what's going to happen. And so part of making sure where our buildings are safe and the upkeep is there, regular maintenance is one of our goals. The other piece here is a complete review of code compliance. Mr. Lord is working on a review of what needs to be done, what may be lacking, what has already been done so that we make sure we're keeping an annual review of code compliance for our buildings. Strengthening safety. So this is one of the things we've heard from our staff loud and clear is about safety. Implementing modern security systems and establishing consistent trained safety practices so every school committee has secure, predictable environments for students and staff to learn and work with confidence. What that has looked like is an update. and an increase in the cameras that we have in our buildings, and keyless entry. This is work that did begin prior to Mr. Lord arriving, but he has seen it through. to mostly fruition. We're in the final stages of it, but part of that keyless entry also was work with staff who voiced concerns or input around what the hours should be set for their ability to come in and out of work. So a lot of that was collaborative conversation. School-based and district-level safety committees. So those have begun. Principals have started school-based safety committees within their schools. And Mr. Lord has started a district-wide safety committee comprised of a variation of stakeholders and school leaders. And I think he had a meeting today. This was something we also heard from staff, especially teachers during joint labor sessions around really wanting more understanding of the I love you guys, which is our security protocol, them wanting some additional training, and all of that is underway. It also included an increase in our door monitor expectations and procedures in which there is a script and a handbook of expectations for door monitors. And then lastly for operations would be community schools. This is an ongoing. area of focus and review. So you hear the word community schools here in Medford Public Schools. That's mostly the rental of our buildings. It also sees our summer programming summer fun. but making sure that we are clarifying rental and program structures so that our buildings can serve as vibrant community spaces, but also ensuring that student and staff needs are adhered to and that proper care and maintenance is going into our buildings. So a review of community schools, both in operation and in finance or budget, has started and is continuing. Mr. Lord, myself, and Mr. O'Leary, who is the athletic director and community schools director, have been spending lots of time together working on creating a clear process and documentation for what it means to rent our facilities. We are guiding on the school committee policy for rentals, but in fairness, we've had to start We've put a communication out to vendors and are setting up, in the process of setting up, we've had a couple of them already, meetings with each and every vendor so that we can have a conversation around the school committee policy and expectations moving forward. That is an area where it wasn't completely streamlined and the system needed additional clarity. I think it's important to note that we want to do right by our community partners. And for them, some of this came as a surprise. So having personal conversations is really key in this area right here. So this has started, but I am quite certain it will be ongoing throughout the year. Next is our bucket of building instructional excellence through leadership. Here I'm going to talk about strengthening grade level access and opportunity, building instructional excellence through leadership, creating coherence through aligned walkthroughs and professional learning, and enhancing data systems for instructional decision making. So as you heard me say earlier our instructional work has really been anchored in a powerful through line. That through line is our shared sense of belonging. It is making sure that students not only feel that they are seen heard and that they belong in their classroom spaces and in all spaces of their school but it is also a sense of belonging for their academic identities so that they are coming into spaces and they feel that they are mathematicians, scientists, writers, readers, that also is a sense of belonging for them. So to strengthen coherence, the next few slides are really going to talk about some of the work that may have begun prior to Dr. Talbot coming here, and then the work that she has initiated and just powered through. So the first is the new schedule that I highlighted a little bit earlier, but I think it was just so critical and so impactful to the work that we're doing that I do just want to call it out, even though some people here have heard it before, I do think it's important to note that we increased the school day by 15 minutes for students. And that 15 minutes was not used for transitional time. It was used for instruction. And so at the elementary level, what that meant is more time in tier one. more time for a whole group time that teachers can use with their students where students are not pulled for services or other things are not coming up where the teacher can have the entire class for additional time. It also makes sure that our multi-tiered system of support is implemented and ensuring that our students are getting what they need. At the middle school level, I highlighted a little bit, but we went from 45 minute running period time, so no transitional time, to 57 minute periods with transitional time and the implementation of the challenge block and still maintaining a win block, which is what individuals need. That is very impactful for the work that is happening at middle school and really needed to happen for time on learning. And at the high school, finally, we were able to create one coherent schedule merging CTE in the vocational schools with the high school schedule so that we are minimizing the barriers that we were unintentionally but creating for our students because we were running on two schedules for one building. And so being able to combine that into one set schedule going from a six day rotation at the academic side to a five day Monday to Friday schedule and adding a seventh period not only finally merged the two buildings and increased opportunity, but it also provided that additional period for students to take advanced courses. dabble in something that they wanted to learn a little bit more of and also provided an opportunity for some students who need to have services and not have it at the expense of an elective or something that they wanted to be able to take. So this schedule has allowed us to be able to really work on our core values and what is the learning we want to see in every space throughout the district. Part of that work is making sure that we are grounded in grade level curriculum, expectations, and aligned tasks. Students have a right and a privilege to make sure that they are educated at grade level standards. And that is work that we have started and we are continuing. Part of that work is making sure that we are expanding access to high quality instructional materials across the district. High quality instructional materials make sure that we are aligning our curriculum with not only state standards and Massachusetts standards, but with the rigor and the representation that students deserve and should see in what they're learning. Next slide. Creating coherence through aligned walkthroughs and professional learning. This is work that Honestly, maybe started to really happen while I was in my previous role as assistant superintendent, but wasn't able to get to the part and the point that we are right now in bringing in a new team and having a clear alignment of what our goals and vision are. We have established district-wide walkthrough rubrics and protocols that are aligned to our instructional vision and at the secondary level gleam so that when school leaders, department leaders, central office leaders are in classrooms, we are all calibrated on what those look-fors are in a district-aligned rubric. We are delivering professional development across our schools on this work and we are making sure that we're focusing again on grade level instruction, evidence based practices, academic discourse and culturally responsive practices. We want to make sure that when we are in classrooms we are seeing students have some cognitive lift here and that they're doing the work. We want to see that students are able to share their brilliant voices, think out loud about what they're learning, because that's what they need to make sure that they're truly understanding and learning. It's that transfer. Part of this professional development is that we have partnered with Lynch Leadership Academy at the secondary level, and they are providing coaching for our secondary leaders. And we have the expanded partnership with Hill for Literacy at the elementary level, who this year are doing walk-throughs with, again, school leaders and department leaders on instructional look-fors around literacy and data meeting support. The other piece is we are enhancing data systems for instructional decision making. So really, I think one of the more profound pieces that I have seen in just the short amount of time with Dr. Talbot is the systems that she has begun to put in place around data. and how we should be using data in real time to make instructional shifts, decisions on what is best for our students. Really looking at what are those datasets and leveraging planning time that school leaders and department leaders have with teachers. So, she has developed and implemented a common K-12 format for data analysis and action planning. She meets regularly with school leaders and with department leaders, and this embedded professional development is ongoing. She has worked with secondary leaders so that there is coherence between what the school leaders and the department leaders are doing with their staff around some of these data sets, especially NWEA map data. That ensures that consistency of language and approach for teachers. They're not hearing different things when they're in their department meetings with directors and something different when they're in their staff meetings with principals. This is ongoing work, but it is laying the groundwork for some very important instructional moves. Elementary leaders, this work began, this work has been ongoing for a while. But our work with DIBLS as our progress monitoring tool and the use of Hill for Literacy's data platform called Continuum. This year is full implementation of progress monitoring. And so every single staff member at the elementary level, educator, is progress monitoring their students. Everyone has a caseload. We are making sure that there is frequent and ongoing progress monitoring of literacy skills. And the use of Continuum has really helped ground that work for school leaders and department leaders and our literacy coaches as they go from school to school and grade level to grade level. Supported data-informed instructional improvement to elevate academic discourse and writing. I spoke about this earlier, but just making sure that we're doing in our data In our data meetings, we're also making sure we're elevating so that the planning is purposeful for teachers around how can we build in those moments of academic discourse for students so that they're engaging with what they're learning and able to articulate that to their peers and to their teachers. Targeted leadership development based on trends emerging from walkthroughs, assessment data, and school level priorities. One of this has been some of my favorite. I know it was on a previous slide, but Dr. Talbot and I started the year twice a week, we spent the mornings going from school to school, walking classrooms. And a lot of that conversation that we're able to have with school leaders, many here tonight and I appreciate that very much, those conversations that come out of what the walkthroughs, what we're seeing, means a lot and helps that shared alignment and shared purpose, but it also helps, much as we want the students to have that discourse in the classroom, we want our leadership to have the same so that they're bringing that back to their work. with teachers in buildings. And then finally, Dr. Talbot is getting OpenArchitects across the finish line. Thank you, thank you, thank you. She's had several meetings with them. OpenArchitects is a data analytics platform or dashboard that image in the top is just a quick snapshot of what the dashboard does look like, one of them. This is a platform that is going to be able to house all of our assessment data. So that way, again, teachers and school leaders, department leaders will have at their fingertips a collection of student data that they can really look at to inform their planning and to inform their practice. On there, for example, we will make sure that we house. MAP, MCAS, DIBLS. We also have flexibility to put in there if there are district owned assessment tools that we want to be factored into the type of data that teachers and administrators can use to manipulate and to sort the data so that they're really making intentional planning and instructional decisions. And then lastly, advancing curriculum coherence and review. So ensuring that our curriculum review process is continuous and anchored to our district core values and state standards. We are launching a comprehensive humanities ELA review this year for grades 6 through 12, but really at first with a focus on grades 6 through 8, the middle school years, as our first priority at making sure we are addressing a core HQIM alignment Right now, at the secondary level, for people maybe listening that aren't aware, all of our materials are self-created. And that is a benefit maybe in some areas or for some. But as I previously said, making sure that we are providing students with high quality instructional materials that are aligned to state standards, that provide a level of representation and rigor is really critical to making sure that we are setting our students up for future success. And then continuing that coordinated review, also on the caseload horizon for Dr. Talbot is looking at the health curriculum. The state has put out new health standards and so we need to do a review now of how what we currently have aligns to the new state standards. Communication and partnership. In this next slide, I'm going to talk about consistent, timely, and transparent communication, personal outreach and visible presence, inclusive caregiver engagement, and restoring and enhancing community collaboration and relationships. On this slide first, consistent, timely, transparent communication. I feel like communication is probably always forever a goal. It's work that ebbs and flows, and I think it always has to be front and center as something that we are reflective on and that we're constantly trying to improve and do better. With that said, that was the mindset I also came in with. And so little small tweaks to making the superintendent weekly memo a little bit more transparent, a little bit more accessible for families was important. expected communication each week is important for the community to see updates and also share some of our celebrations. We also started this year, maybe a couple months ago, an administrative weekly memo. Internally, central office also is now sending out an administrative weekly memo on Sundays just with things that are on the horizon, things to just be mindful of, things to remember. Just as another way, I will always say I try my very best with email, but we know how busy or crazy things can get or how things can just happen that you know, deter you from what you thought the block of time you had was going to be. This allows for making sure we have like a landing place for some critical information and not just rely on email. And then responsiveness to situations. Administrators. Yes, yes. School leaders, department leaders, non-unit leaders. And then responsiveness to situations. As with everything, things come up that you are not planning or expecting, whether it is a roof leak, a water leak, the neurovirus. When things happen, we are trying to be as thoughtful and as responsive as we can be. We know in all of these situations, when the unexpected happens, it can create a level of anxiety, and the absence of information and updates can just increase that. And so we are really trying to be very mindful about our responsiveness to situations as they arrive. The other piece is inclusive caregiver engagement. I also view this as a strength in an area of growth. I have tried really hard to make space for community meet and greets. We have some upcoming forums this month. But I also know, and as I shared in my findings report, the work and the area of improvement is how can I be leveraging these opportunities to make sure we're getting and capturing every voice in Medford. So sometimes at these meet and greets or these in-person opportunities, it is not always the diverse representation that we know Medford to so beautifully be. And so how we can really make sure that we are capturing all voices is an ongoing area of focus and a goal. We are very mindful though of our search committees. So when we have key critical roles in the district that become vacant due to resignations, retirements, we feel very deeply about the level of varied stakeholder input at the table when we're making big decisions for the district. So that is something that we have committed to before this position and absolutely committed to moving forward. And there's the task force committee. So there is the after school task force committee that I committed to in this role as a way to make sure we are having conversation and moving forward with providing a greater level of after school care that families deserve. As you know, that's work that we have a consultant that we are working with. who is going to provide us a report and some input on the best ways to move that forward. I look at Member Parks because she's on that task force. I appreciate the partnership of the caregivers that have given their time and dedication to this important work. It's a committee that some of the caregivers have received the golden ticket of after school care and some have not. So it's important that we hear from from all voices. An upcoming task force is going to be the one that we talked about prior to the holidays around the space utilization study that came out of the enrollment and overcrowding and the variation of enrollment at the elementary level. And so that will interest in caregivers that would like to sit on that task force will be going out very soon so that we can start building that task force. And then through the MSBA and through district-sponsored work, there are a lot of advisory committees, which is another opportunity where we're gathering varied voice and input. MSBA, we have a lot of opportunities coming up in January. And then just like one example of a district-based one is The wellness committee and also the advisory committee around food allergies and food safety. I attended that meeting and that's important to hear directly from the experience that caregivers have and that their children have around issues that impact what their experience is like when they're in school or when they're engaged in after school activities. Personal outreach and visible presence, I would say response to correspondence. I try really hard to respond in a timely manner to correspondence or pick up the phone and have conversations if it warrants that. But in all honesty, it's also an area of growth to be able to keep up with my e-mails in a timely manner that, honestly, caregivers 100 percent deserve, as well as staff. But too often I have to start my e-mails with, I apologize for this delay. So that is ongoing work for myself. But I have really committed to making sure I'm as visible as possible at events. I've attended games, sports activities, performances, presentations, community events. Not only is it great for me and bucket filling for me to be able to see the wide range of ways that the community supports one another, that the community comes out for one another, but also to see from, you know, an inclusive, adaptive performance from Spotlight to the Thanksgiving football game. It's just wonderful to see all of the different ways that we're here for one another. And then lastly, restoring and enhancing community collaboration and relationships. I just want to make sure that I am working to build trust or maintain trust in the community. And that is both from staff as well as it is from the greater community in the work that we're doing here in Medford Public Schools and the work that I've been doing to help both collaborate and lead. Next slide, please. So with all this said, planning for the future. So over the past year, Medford Public Schools has made significant progress in restoring clarity, stabilizing leadership, and rebuilding core systems, creating coherence across instruction, operations, and community engagement. With that work, the next two slides highlight some of the goals. They are goals that we want to maintain. It's work that we have started, established, laid out, but it's critical to maintain it moving forward. And then there are areas of new goals and new focus. So first, our continuing priorities. These priorities represent a multi-year commitment already underway, and they require consistency, coherence, and disciplined implementation. The first one is continuing to strengthen our instructional excellence and coherence. that is continuing the work to ground all of our instructional work in belonging, in grade level expectations, and deepening that coherence so that it is seen and felt in every classroom through walkthroughs, calibrated feedback, high quality materials, targeted professional development, and then strengthening our multi-tiered system of support. So strengthening those supports for students so that they are able to access grade level content and making sure that we are meeting all student needs. And making sure that data cycles and progress monitoring remain central to ensuring that every student receives rigorous and grade level instruction. Also continuing is advancing operational stability and predictable systems. So our focus remains on maintaining consistent operational expectations across facilities, IT, and security. And that work means sustaining predictable workflows and following through on deferred maintenance and capital improvements. Ongoing safety upgrades and established safety committees will ensure that our schools are safe and reliable environments for our students and staff. also is expanding student access and opportunity and voice. So we're going to continue to refine our K-12 schedules. I think that's an important thing to note. So really important the work we did on our schedules but it was also done at the end of last year. And so we didn't have time to kind of build how we want that schedule and those opportunities for students to look. So part of that work is now focused on what what can this schedule really do. And we have the time and space to be a little bit more intentional. And I think each year we're going to be able to leverage that schedule in a more efficient and effective manner. And then strengthening our culturally responsive supports for all learners, and that includes neurodivergent students and LGBTQ plus students, which is essential to everything we do. I did highlight this in my report of interim findings. That was something that came up from a lot of caregivers and a lot of the feedback that I was receiving across the district. So that is part of here in our continued priorities but also in our growth areas. Enhancing communication and community trust. So again really making sure we're looking at our communication structures making sure we are using multiple modes of communication, really looking at how we're engaging, how we can increase our engagement to really capture the diverse voice of Medford. All of that is continuous work. and building the leadership capacity and system alignment, so maintaining strong leadership. We started this year, I have started with the principals, a principal cohort, so I it's important that they have a cohort that provides them with a system of support, embedded professional development, and aligned work. So once a month, a principal will host us for our principal cohort, and we spend time in classrooms, and then we spend time really discussing And, and providing input to the principal for next steps. How they can take this walk through that we went on together as instructional leaders and leverage it when they're meeting with their staff in meeting times. That's work that will be continuing. Schools making sure that they have instructional leadership teams. and how they're working with them. That was another thing that came out of the CBA was an increased opportunity for teacher leadership, which is so important. And we have amazing educators who deserve opportunities to really be able to flex that muscle and show some leadership potential. And our CBA before, did not have any layers of educator leadership. And now it does. And one of those areas, just to name one, is members on an instructional leadership team. And that's a critical role in a school to be working on the instructional work and the teacher being able to work with their peers. That is work that is ongoing for us. Now moving to work that our new goals. And this is kind of the next phase of growth for Metro Public Schools and system building. So these goals represent strategic moves for the district to discuss when we engage in our strategic planning. This does not mean that there are only four areas to discuss when we start working on our strategic plan. But this is just something that has come out of the work that we've been trying to lay for this past year. One is strengthening curriculum and instructional coherence. I talked about that a little bit, but first and foremost is making sure that teachers have available to them HQIM, high quality instructional materials. This not only will assist teachers, but it also will provide them with the time and space to really be focusing their planning on making instruction available effectively and meaningfully for students. That is work that is critical. the implementation of open architects. So as I said, Dr. Talbot has gotten this across the finish line, but this is going to mean this year, for the rest of this school year, some training for our administrators and it will be some training for teachers. And it also will be continued embedded professional development on platforms and HQIM. Secondly is establishing a multi-year operations and capital plan. So Mr. Lord has already started a lot of this work, but making sure that our long-term maintenance standards and timelines and reporting structures. Mr. Lord came into a lot of work and aligning the organization of these three departments into coherence so that the staff at every level understands what is expected and how we are operating is critical. And to that is also developing transparent annual updates for the community on the work that is ongoing. And again, like I spoke about, but like that finalization of the review of community schools is really critical work. Number three, strengthening recruitment, hiring, and retention systems. This is a true goal here. Building a more diverse pipeline for our staff is a huge goal for Metro Public Schools. Quite honestly, it's something we have struggled with a little bit. I think our partnership with City Year has provided one opportunity as a way that we can build that pipeline. We currently have some of our City Year core members as student teachers. And that is wonderful. And I believe all of them are at the McGlynn Middle School. There might be one at the elementary. But having City Year as student teachers and providing that opportunity is one way that we can help diversify our educators. Because our students really should see more representation of themselves in classrooms. The additional part of that is Dr. Talbot is bringing with her a network of secondary education partners. She herself has a close relationship with Salem State University and I think her creative way of working with some higher ed institutions and other networks will help us do that work. But this is this is an area of focus and of need for Medford public schools. And then again making sure that we are finalizing the review that we've been Enhancing our onboarding and exiting processes for staff, that has been ongoing, but making sure we're finalizing that to a clear structure. And then, of course, updating is needed, because that always happens. Once we have a process, we find a way to fine tune and make it better. Four, strengthen community-centered district planning. I spoke about this in terms of capturing the clear, diverse voice of Medford, but I really want to make sure that the strategic plan that we're going to engage in is anchored in the instructional vision and that we are able to bring in varied voices of input during this process. Part of this work for the strategic plan is and has to be expanding equitable after school opportunities for our families and community programming. It's engaging families and stakeholders through the space utilization task force that's upcoming and making some pretty big decisions there. And it's through the MSBA forum. And so all the work that we are doing to build a new high school is massive. We're spending oodles of time making sure that that is, member Graham is going to give us an update, but making sure that we're getting that community voice and input into these forums and building a flagship school that's the pride of the district is critical. And then fifth is building leadership capacity and system alignment. So maintaining our strong leadership development that we have worked on, the principal cohort, I mentioned this before. It is ongoing work but it is also continuous goals making sure that we are providing that clarity in our systems and structures and our communication so that we are maintaining stability throughout the district. And with that I conclude and happy to answer any questions that you may have. And I really thank you and appreciate your time.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Galusi. Very thorough, great presentation. Are there any questions from the body? Member Ruseau?
[Paul Ruseau]: Thank you. That was a lot. But first off, I want to say I'm thrilled, and this is very loud today. I'm thrilled that it's clear you can walk and chew gum at the same time. I couldn't find a good analogy that was less American sounding, so everybody would understand it. But it's nice to see the number of different things that you are covering. Well, you covered everything it sounded like, frankly. A number of times I was like, oh yeah, we do that too, don't we? So communications is, as you know, is something that is. dramatically better than it was when I started eight years ago and I'm thrilled with the progress we've made. It's one of those things that you're right is never done. I don't know if it's because the audience changes or if maybe it just takes a long time to fully build out a system to kind of get it right all the time. But my daughter was tardy to school today and I want to read the two sentences out of that email we got. I got, we would like to help you and your student in any way we can to alleviate this attendance concern. Anytime a student has tardies, it is a concern to us, since tardies cause a student to miss significant instruction and learning opportunities at school. And I just, I don't know when this changed. I think it might have been this year. But I think it's a very good example of how there's nothing in this entire, there's more to the email, but there's nothing in there about compliance and DESE and getting the, not Attorney General, but who? Commissioner? No, you know if you have too many absences we used to get automatic letters from like the district attorney with legalese Yes, and and so it's it's instead of like a bunch of threats It's like how can we help your student to get their education? That's why we're here. That's what we want. So It seems like a minor thing, but that email is so descriptive of what I've seen as change in the district since you've become the interim superintendent, so that's wonderful.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Can I just highlight that?
[Paul Ruseau]: Yeah.
[Suzanne Galusi]: That is also just an example of that through line of our charge of belonging. Because for a family to receive, sometimes you have to have the conversation about the legal part that is attached to attendance, but receiving it without having a conversation is the piece about how we're communicating. So that we are sharing that sense of belonging. So thank you for that feedback.
[Paul Ruseau]: Really, I just found it to be very descriptive of this, of how I feel about the district since you've taken the helm. There's also, for eight years I have been asking the question, what are the community schools? And I have never gotten, in my opinion, a satisfactory answer. And I feel like I'm starting to get a grasp that it's just a rental company essentially.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Which would also provide summer fun.
[Paul Ruseau]: But it would have really been so much easier to just for me to have heard those words. So now that I have a grasp of what it is I'm very glad to hear that it's getting a lot of focus because I know that there's some people in the community who are not happy with these changes and I think that we have, we can do better but we also have to kind of get a grasp of what are they and what do we want them to be and how do we want to support the community. So I'm very excited that that work is being undertaken. For communications that are around each, around incidents, so the non-standard daily things, do you have an after action review for each of those to figure out like, okay, the communication was not well received or was well received and how can we make sure that the next time there's an incident of an intruder in a building that the communication hits all the notes the right way? Because the barrage of complaints afterwards is, you know, that I don't think there's anything wrong with the barrage of upset people. I just want to make sure like the next time it happens that we kind of do better. We don't necessarily do it right because you kind of, it's like a sort of a practice thing. But do you have an after action review for each of these incident related communications?
[Suzanne Galusi]: We do for most, not all, but I think the ones that warrant that level. So we did for that situation. We had more than one at different levels.
[Paul Ruseau]: Great.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Yes. That is important for us to inform our practice and inform our decision making moving forward.
[Paul Ruseau]: Great. Will we be having another presentation, and maybe we already have one in the fall, forgive me if I forget, on reading and how we're doing on that? Yes. Because I feel like, are we at like year four or three of really revamping that whole thing? And I think that in the first couple of years it was like Understanding how we were doing, well the data wasn't there and it was, you know, there's a tail to that. To that data that makes it hard to understand, but I would like us to see that we're really hitting that one out of the park. Cuz we were ahead of the state for the most part on that and making sure all the kids can read grade level. I don't have to tell you is a critical requirement for everything else we do here. So. Yes. Thank you.
[Suzanne Galusi]: greater data presentation next month.
[Paul Ruseau]: Wonderful. And I will let my colleagues ask questions.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Member Ruseau. Member Graham?
[Jenny Graham]: Thank you. I just wanted to say how much I appreciated that all of your comments about your accomplishments so far and your plans were aligned with what this group and what I think the community is expecting. So I think for too long we had like a superintendent's agenda and a school committee agenda and a community agenda and everyone had a different agenda and we were all sort of like generally operating in a direction but not really. And I think it's important that when you talk about alignment you you can't have your own agenda as the superintendent if it doesn't match. Right. If it's not connected to like sort of what the community expects and what we expect. And so I just really appreciated that even as you were laying out goals you you sort of drew a line of distinction between these are goals we're going to continue to work on because we're not quite there yet. And these are the things that We think are important priorities that are important to you but also that they will be like weight weighed into the strategic planning conversation that is coming and is you know badly needed. So yes I appreciate the connection there. And I guess the other comment is that we have made. a tremendous amount of change in the last year in this district starting with the changes to the schedule. And I don't think it has gone like perfectly. But I also think all things considered it's gone pretty smoothly actually. And I think Having Dr. Galusi at the table from a negotiating perspective was really important because we really talked a lot about the instructional aspects and impact of what we were asking for that may have sounded administrative in nature at the time, but it wasn't. It was like, this enables us to do something different instructionally. So I feel like that's really important, and there's sort of countless ways that the superintendent gets involved behind the scenes and things that the public does not see so directly but gets but but the tail is there eventually and I feel like there's a whole slew of things in that category for me that we are in the middle of. So I don't think we've seen like the best of like middle school programming and challenge classes because it's year one. Right. But to be asked to present at DESE and to have the secretary of education and the lieutenant governor come here and I happen to be able to attend that presentation and talk to them about how we've implemented it here versus how they see it implemented in other communities. It was just like a really thoughtful it was a really thoughtful way to sort of ease into some of the challenge programming and It's just like sort of interesting to see the level of attention that all of that is getting in our first year like in our first outing so hats off to the team that is making. those things happen because you usually don't get credit for implementation until a little bit further down the line. And I just want to comment that this has all come at the hands of a tremendous amount of work, particularly as lots of seats were vacated early in your tenure. There were times that you were the only one in certain places and having to deal with what came and stabilize the district. All of that stabilization feels very far away. Yes, we did it. That was the purpose of the appointment and all of that good stuff. But behind the scenes, what that took to actually stabilize the district was sort of bigger than you can put on a slide. And it seems so far away that I don't think you did it justice in your comments. But I'm happy that it's in the rear view. So thank you.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Thank you. I appreciate that because the first day of my interim appointment was the day of the executive orders. So there was a lot of work right at the beginning and a lot of communication. It's been quite the year. I thank my family for their understanding and support. Not really.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Member Reinfeld and then our student rep.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So thank you for this. This was, as Member Ruseau said, very, very full of things. And as you were going through it, I was just thinking back to that meeting where we very quickly had to appoint an interim and we kind of went around the table and said, what are we looking for? And some people said consistency as we transition into new leadership. And some people said an ability to shake things up. with new leadership, and I think this really reflects both of those pieces, and I appreciate the balance that we're seeing here, but not just the balance of, all right, these are the right proportions, we've got it figured out, and we're just going to keep going. It reflects a lot of continuous reassessment, which is what we need, not just in the situ, situational moments, but really, where are we now as a district? So, I very much appreciate that. I have a little bit of a question, follow up question from member Ruseau about the. So, I think it's important for us to think about that. I think it's important for us to think about that. I think it's important for us to think about that. That reassurance that it happened and that these are the protocols and the clarity around that. So I think that's a piece that is very hard to communicate here but is useful to know about as far as leadership's approach there.
[Suzanne Galusi]: 100% and I think a lot of that presentation can come out of the work that the district safety committee is doing. And a lot of the pieces that we heard from staff members specifically was around the level or lack thereof of professional development that was tied to the I Love You Guys protocol. So that is actually one of the priorities on Mr. Lord's agenda. And I think they tackled a little bit of that in today's meeting so that they are going, at a school level, going to be talking about the training and the resetting of expectations around that protocol. So, yes, there are certain pieces we, for safety reasons, don't want to share with the community, but I think, like, a progress of what those district-level meetings are focusing on and working on is something 100 percent that can be shared.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you. And then one piece I think was missing, I don't think you mentioned it, but the hiring of a transportation manager. I really appreciate how you've been looking at the staffing and people who are doing multiple jobs and how that can be best distributed. You talked about it at central leadership, but I think it's also happening at other levels as well. Oh, yes. I've noticed it and I wanted to comment on it. Thank you for that. So, I will just conclude because I know other people have things to say that seeing these action items and this progress laid out the way it was, I think it really helps to figure out what reports we need as a committee for this next term, what we want to see, what resolutions we need to to work together, so I think your comments about the partnership in the beginning are really appreciated, and I would reflect them back to you, because this was very helpful in understanding what's been going on in front of and behind the scenes, so thank you for this, spending the time. I know this probably took a lot of time to put together on top of all these other things that are actually in here, so thank you very much.
[SPEAKER_10]: Thank you.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Member Reinfeld-Alachi, and then I think we have Member Olapade and Member Prox.
[Alachie Yeager]: Thank you. I know my fellow committee members already mentioned it, but it was very impressive. I think that you stayed on task, you stayed on all of these myriad of different topics for so long. want to give you a bit of applause there. I have a few questions, but I want to be really quick because I know other members still want to go. So I know that some of my other members were talking about the Humanities and Health Curriculum Review. Who is sort of in charge of the review process for that?
[Suzanne Galusi]: Sure, so Dr. Kim Talbot is the assistant superintendent for athletics, excuse me, for academics and instruction. New title there, right? She would help lead that work, but the director of physical education and health is Rachel Perry, and so the two of them would be leading that work.
[Alachie Yeager]: Great, thank you. And I don't know exactly what slide it was. I believe it was the enhancing data systems for instructional decision making. You said that this sort of data that you'd be collecting through this new analytics sort of platform and stuff would be sort of used in real time to advise for instruction and whatnot. I guess, could you give an example of how you want this or how it is being implemented?
[Suzanne Galusi]: Sure, are you talking, I'm so sorry, Lachi, because with the heating system, I want to make sure I hear you correctly. Are you talking about the open architects?
[Alachie Yeager]: Yeah, I just remember you saying, or in my notes, you were saying that some of this data would be used in real time. That just stuck out to me, so I was just wondering if you could provide an example.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Sure, absolutely. So real time might not necessarily be in the middle of a lesson. It could be. But the real-time part is we don't have to wait for an end-of-unit assessment. We don't have to wait for mid-year, beginning of the year, end-of-year large benchmarks. Real-time means teachers will have, through the use of these dashboards, the Hill for Literacy one, also this Open Architects platform, they will have at their fingertips data that they're using consistently that can inform their planning and their instruction from day to day or from week to week. So when they're sitting out planning for the week, when they're sitting out planning for the day, they have accessible to them different modes of data. And some of that is also data that teachers collect just by student responses, just by exit tickets, like there's a myriad of ways that teachers are using data that they can bring into real time that's going to impact their planning and their teaching.
[Alachie Yeager]: Do you envision it more on like a class level where these teachers are seeing this data and they're, you know, could advise sort of what they need to spend more curriculum time on, or is it on a specific student level where they might see that a student is struggling, they want to reach out, or maybe both? Like, what is... All of the above. Great.
[Suzanne Galusi]: So it's at the student level, it's at the class level, it's at the department level, it's at the grade level, it's at the school level. It's all of the above because teachers doing it on their own to make sure they're meeting students' needs, but also working together with their peers to work on grade level data or department data, school leaders, department leaders working with teachers on a greater scale. It's really for all the levels.
[Alachie Yeager]: Great, that sounds amazing from a teacher, educator perspective. Sir, for DIBELS, I'm so sorry, there's so many on this slide. You just said that they, it is historically sort of like helped ground educators in the district. So is that sort of a similar thing where you're talking about using the data from the system to advise their curriculum. Oh, DIBLS, thank you.
[Suzanne Galusi]: DIBLS, yes. Thank you. Yes, so DIBLS is used to assess students' reading level and reading ability. So it looks different. K to two as it does three to five it also looks different per each student and what their own independent reading level is. Dibbles is given as both a benchmark and progress monitoring. So as a benchmark it's given to every student beginning of the year middle of the year and end of the year. That's tracked in a way, and that's data that's used to inform. But then some students require progress monitoring. Not all do, but students that are below grade level, they require progress monitoring. Some students, they may have to be monitored every two weeks, every four weeks. Other students might be only every six or eight weeks, so it depends on the level of need. And then this Dibbles is a quick screener, it's like one minute. That's also used for progress monitoring, so teachers can track at those intervals what the progress has been, what the growth has been, so that they can really target their instruction. What's awesome about the Hill for Literacy platform that we use called Continuum is that all of this data is put in that platform. And not only do teachers have access to what the data is, but it will help them provide what the instructional focus should be for that specific student. So then teachers have that at the student level. And then they can use that data to group students by the needs that they have, and really target their instruction during small group time.
[Alachie Yeager]: Great. Thank you. I'm sorry, just one more. And if you don't know this off the top of your head, that's totally fine, but what has been the cost profile monetarily of open architects compared to previous systems, or if this is a new sort of... That's a very good question.
[Suzanne Galusi]: First, I want to start, though, only because you asked about Dibbles, and I think Dibbles is key because Dibbles is only like a dollar a student. You're really just paying for the platform, so it's very, very, very cost efficient. Open Architects, seven? Oh, 20. $20,000 for district wide access. So that would be all staff though, all educators, teachers and administrators will have access to that platform.
[Alachie Yeager]: Understood. Thank you. And again, that was very impressive.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Thank you, Elachi. Thank you. Member Lopare, then Member Parks.
[Aaron Olapade]: Thank you. I just want to say how much I appreciate, I think, full in-depth explanation you kind of gave us. I think you covered quite a bit in a really short amount of time. Something that I really appreciated from the beginning of your term or your tenure is the collective charge of belonging. And I find that that's underscoring, I think, a lot of what you detailed here. The conversation about communication and partnership, the inclusion of caregiver engagement, I think, is incredibly important. A lot of the parents that I've communicated with in the public in the last handful of months have communicated both the excitement that they've been seeing from their students coming home from class Acknowledging that it's becoming more and more challenging to be a fully, you know, involved parent because of the cost of living, for example, you know, scheduling difficulties. So a lot of the time we're sending our students to school each and every day and not being as engaged as we want to be. And so having this, I think, increased communication with always room for improvement, as you mentioned, I think has been a huge benefit to the public and the general student population to understand more about what's going on. And I think I just want to be able to acknowledge that this belonging as we continue into the next, the remaining two quarters or trimesters for one of our schools, and then the next academic year as well, is that to maintain that belonging. I think emphasis that you've been really highlighting, so I just want to appreciate it. Thank you.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Thank you, Member Olapade. Member Parks.
[Jessica Parks]: Thank you. A lot has been done and I will be looking closely at everything some more. I'm learning a lot more about it. One of my questions though is how do you collect feedback. I know a lot has been mentioned about. You know, things like going well and some things don't go as well, maybe the schedule or even how do you collect feedback on open architects or some of the other PD programs and know that they're working or people are embracing them or whether it be students or teachers or anyone really.
[Suzanne Galusi]: That's a great question. Oh, I'm not near the microphone. That's a great question. I would say there's When we have meetings when we have professional development there's always an exit ticket. And we really are using that data to structure and refine the next session and we're being very intentional. about how we are honoring that feedback in the shifts that we're making to the format of how we're doing things. I think we have given a lot of surveys. I think this speaks to part of my and our ongoing look at how we are collecting data. the, you know, we're getting responses from surveys, but it's not always capturing the full essence of Medford. And so that is ongoing work for us. There's always also, too, a level of street data. So when you bump into people at When I bump into people at the outings, when we're doing walkthroughs in schools, when we're showing up at meetings, there's also that level of feedback that's given. One of the things that we've really been doing as a leadership team, a central leadership team, is trying to create landing pages and spreadsheets so that it provides us opportunities to kind of input that data. Especially Dr. Talbot and I, we have a running one so that when we're hearing these things or when something pops up, we have a place that we are recording that so that we can go back. Very similar to what the administration to or like creating like landing spaces for people so that they know where they can go to kind of get some of that information. But I would say part of that is also our continuous work that we're doing. And I think the upcoming forums is another place to be gathering real feedback and input from people in person. I know a survey will go out as well, but I gathered a lot of very important data during the meet and greets. and when we participate in the committees and the task force. But again, it's really just that piece of how we're making sure it's all voices. And that's the work that is still needed.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Does that answer your question? Yeah. OK. Thank you. Member Mastroboni and then Member Graham, then Member Reinfeld.
[Mike Mastrobuoni]: Thank you. Briefly, Superintendent. great first meeting for myself and I'm really happy to get caught up on all the work that you and especially the leadership team have been doing. Three things that jumped out to me, it's clear you're doing a lot of organizational change and organizational improvement. That's hard work that takes a long time and it's really great to see So that reflected so much in the work that you want to share with us. Second, the idea of curriculum development support, helping our educators not have to take the time to develop the curriculum, but really focus on how they present it and try and make that connection. That's a real force multiplier. And again, something that I really want to give you credit for and give your team credit for. That's fantastic stuff. And finally, something near and dear to my heart is community schools. It's such a community resource. And as the managers and stewards of those places, I think we have to strike a balance between the generational equity of allowing supporting the users right now and being able to maintain those assets for users in the future 10, 20, 30 years from now. So I'm really looking forward to what your team is going to bring to us to talk about what the future of community schools looks like. But thank you so much for the presentation.
[SPEAKER_10]: Thank you. Happy to partner with you in that work too. Sounds like you might have some good ideas. Member Graham.
[Jenny Graham]: Thank you. I just before we move off of this topic wanted to make sure that for the community we're clear about what the next steps are in terms of the superintendent's evaluation. So I'll let member Olapade tell us that. But I think my question. for like also for like planning purposes around MSBA stuff is are we still like on track to have an evaluation to review together on the meeting on the 26th? And do you need help from this committee?
[Aaron Olapade]: That's a great question. That's going to come out to the members that we spoke about. So I'm a forum member in Tapa. I'm a forum member at Branley. not newest members of the committee. That will come out tomorrow morning for each of us to, now that we've had the evaluation from the superintendent, we'll be able to each compile our thoughts and our wants for the community to be known. And then I will take that data, compile that into a succinct messaging. I want that to be clear to the public that what I will be reading out is a coalescing of all the thoughts and reviewing opinions from the, Established members from the previous meeting so it will not be verbatim from each member unless a member feels like there needs to be something said but in general that's not this that's not the standard or that's not the Model that we follow but that will be ready for the 26th. I think is the meeting
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: If I may from the chair, just to piggyback, we'll get it tomorrow morning and then how long, when should we have it back to you for compilation?
[Aaron Olapade]: Preferably, that'll, I'll have that before Sunday, Sunday the 18th?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Okay.
[Aaron Olapade]: Yes, that gives me about, that gives me about a week's worth of time to compile all the information. I don't want to push it any further because we want to have that finalized, that review finalized in public before MSBA in the next step, so.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Sounds great. Thank you very much. Thank you for the presentation. And I agree with my colleagues. Did you want to say a few words? Name and address for the record, please.
[WaNbAOKeDiY_SPEAKER_18]: Thank you, Simon Alcindor, 44 Tainter Street. I was just wondering, because you did mention how you're strengthening existing modes of communication, especially to parents. I was wondering what work has been done with diversifying communication, especially, because I was curious, so I did take a look online, and there isn't really much outside of the school's website in terms of just like forward-facing communication.
[Suzanne Galusi]: That's a great question. So a lot of this is in partnership with my communications director, Will Pippicelli. So we do maintain the website. We have updated our website. We are continuing to update our website to make sure that it is providing families in the community with updated information as best as possible. When we send something out, we are sending out our communications through the platform that the website is on called FinalSight. That automatically translates communications for families. We also use an app called Talking Points that is like a texting app, so caregivers can get it directly on their phones or their devices that also automatically translates any documentation that they need. We do also have a Facebook, Medford Public Schools Facebook page, and that's, Ms. DiPipaselli updates that regularly. And then, I send out a weekly communication, and the school leaders, the principals also send out either weekly, bi-weekly, monthly newsletters to their communities.
[WaNbAOKeDiY_SPEAKER_18]: All right. Thank you.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Yeah.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Great question. Thank you. Yeah, and your newsletter translates as well. Automatically through the site. Yep. Great. Thank you. Member Ruseau, and then we're going to move on to the school calendar.
[Paul Ruseau]: Thank you. That was a question, though, that is, you know, With the end of newspapers, there's no one place that everybody goes to anymore. And it's like if you go to Facebook, Medford Politics has 2,000 people, most of whom probably live in Medford. And you could believe that you're communicating with Medford when you're in there, and you are communicating with some of Medford. And I think it's a challenge that is, I think there are whole sections of the city for which there is no communication path other than knocking on their door or mailing them something. both of which are wildly expensive, obviously. And I do think it's a sad situation we're in, especially when we talk about a new high school. When we talk about a new high school, it's going to be, you know, we're not going to be able to publish op-eds in newspapers and think we're hitting most of the voters. So it's a real challenge of our time. And I don't envy our communications group. So thank you for that question. That's really important.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Member Ruseau. And thank you again, Dr. Galusi. Next up, we have our recommendation to approve the school year 26-27 district calendar. I'll turn it over to you, Dr. Galusi.
[Suzanne Galusi]: So I don't know, Mr. Pippicelli, are you? He's so good. Thank you. So we spent some time talking about the calendar for next year. What we are here to put forward for recommendation is this option for the school calendar next year. A few things to note as I'm framing this for school year 26-27, Labor Day is very late. Labor Day, as you can see on this right here, is September 7th, which means per contracts, come back to school the week before. That's really for next year, the first week of September. Typically in a year, that return week is the last week of August. Next year, it would be the first week of September. Additionally, the primary voting day is Tuesday, September 1st. So what we are providing here is just a recommendation to pretty much follow the same structure that we have this year so that teachers would return and have their professional development days, the launch on Monday, August 31st and September 1st, and we're welcoming students on grades one through 12 on September 2nd. This does make, without snow days, the last day of school as June 23rd. So if we do have a snow day, we would have to tack it on to after June 23rd. I also do want to be very transparent, as we've kind of discussed. Last year when the calendar was presented, because of the way some of the holidays fell, there was a recommendation to honor the high holy holidays for religious purposes, but have, I don't wanna say lesser, but for absence of a better word, not as high holy days to be in attendance. That we are taking a similar approach to that for next year. But I do want to note that historically up until this year, Medford Public Schools has had Good Friday off. And so this is the first year. that it is a day of school and not a day off. And so this calendar proposal for next year also has Good Friday as being a day that school is in session. I'm hoping we will be fine, but we also haven't like experienced that day yet. And so I'm hoping that we're not going to encumber like a staffing issue. I just want to be very fully transparent that this calendar is being proposed but may potentially warrant a further conversation at some point down the road after we see what happens with that day this year. And then other than that, the only piece with this is that there's a, a DESI regulation around when graduation can be and the distance between the high school graduation and the last day of school for the district. And it can't be more than 12. So this means next year, for the class of 2027, the graduation, the earliest it could be would be Friday, June 4th. So we would have to move it from the Wednesday to the Friday in compliance with the DESI regulations. Other than that, we're following pretty much the same structure as we are this year. This was reviewed with the teacher's union during joint labor. And I did have a discussion with union president Anthony Guillen today. And this option is in full compliance with the CBA, so they of course are in support of it.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Dr. Galussi. And I think we've read today that you do want to have one more input session. So are you asking for a vote to table or you're looking for approval? No, I'm looking for approval. Okay. I had a conversation. Member Ruseau, then Member Graham.
[Paul Ruseau]: Thank you. I just want to say that we passed this policy in 2020, and this is the first year when the calendar was presented that it was accurate, so I want to thank you. It is not an easy task to actually, because you're like, you know, I want to look at the dates for 2026, and it's like, oh, but I need 2027 for some of them, but 2026 for the ones that are after September 1st, so it is a little, tedious and confusing sometimes. And I take the, our policy and I take the proposed calendar and I go through and I, you know, ask Chat GPT when the date is on that year. And even I, after going through it, had a couple mistakes and I almost sent you a text saying, it's not right again. But I didn't, cuz then I realized I was looking at the wrong year. So I do appreciate that that is correct. And, I mean, we really, frankly, got very lucky this year around a lot of holidays were on Saturday, a lot of religious holidays that we have no school for were Saturday or, well, frankly, a lot of Saturday and Sunday ones. So, from a school day's perspective, we got very lucky. Last year, we got very unlucky. So, I'm glad we didn't have to do that. Was there anything else I wanted to say about this? No, I just wanted to make a motion to approve option A as presented.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Motion for approval by Member Ruseau. Member Graham?
[Jenny Graham]: I just had a quick question. So the end of the last day of school being on June 23rd, am I correct that DESE requires us to have space for five snow days and so we are in compliance here?
[Jessica Parks]: Yes.
[Jenny Graham]: Okay.
[Jessica Parks]: Okay, thank you. Yep.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Is there a motion for approval by Member Ruseau, seconded by Member Reinfeld? A roll call, please, as I know two have to abstain. All right. Because they're going to get sworn in tomorrow, officially.
[Paul Ruseau]: Member Graham? Member Mastropoli? No, sorry. Member Olapade?
[Aaron Olapade]: Abstain.
[Paul Ruseau]: Member Parks? No. Member Reinfeld? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, five in the affirmative, two having to abstain. A motion is approved. Calendar option A has been adopted for the 2026-2027 school year. Thank you for the copy. It goes right in my book. Next up we have the update from Member Graham, MCHSBC Chair, an update on the Medford Comprehensive High School Building Committee. Member Graham.
[Jenny Graham]: Thank you. I'm going to try to move quickly, but there has been lots going on. So I just wanted to take a minute and give this group an update on some of the work that's been happening and to lay out some of the timeline, particularly around votes and decisions of this body that will have to happen in the coming months. So as you all know, back in October, SMMA was selected as our architect. We formally signed the contract right before Thanksgiving after a vote of the building committee. But they already were on board and working. And that part of what has been happening in the last couple of months is this like massive getting to know you phase essentially so that the team at SMMA can And so, you know, I think it's important for us to be able to do that. And I think it's important for us to be able to do that. on the part of the architects to really get to know everything about what they call existing conditions, right? So what happens today? How does it happen? Where is the ledge? Where is the playing field? How does traffic flow? Where are the challenges? And all of that good stuff. So all of that work has been going on, including, like, having to And I think that's a really good question. I think that's a really good question. And like an extensive amount of surveying work, particularly because we're surrounded by the Fells. So they've been doing all of that work. They're sort of more on campus right now than they are like, you know, sort of out on Winthrop Street and that kind of thing. So, you know, the community probably isn't seeing as much of that, but it's still very much going on. They're drilling holes to find out where the ledge is and that kind of thing right now. There's plenty of rock there, so I'm sure they'll be finding it all over the place. All of that work has been going on to get to know this space. At the same time, they have been working to get to know what we do inside the building from an educational perspective. That work has been really interesting to watch. So it started with them having what they called programming meetings. So they sat with heads of all of the various different departments that operate in the high school. And I think there were like 60 meetings that happened across a whole variety of topics. And so they had meetings with each and every one of those departments to understand, you know, or departments, teams, teachers, et cetera. What do you do? How do you do it? Where do you do it? All of that good stuff. So all of that happened. That was like the initial sort of like big, like casting a wide net opportunity. Then at our request, they brought on board an educational consultant to help assist us with what has to be submitted called the educational plan. So it is essentially like, how do we plan to educate kids in the building when it exists? So it's very educationally focused. It's things like, are we having a house model or are we having grade level model or are we having some other kind of model that is going to drive how space is created in the building. So this educational planning consultant has been wonderful and really thoughtful and gave us a recommendation about how to go about crafting all of that. It started with a shadow day and Administrators and folks from SMMA and folks from the educational planner followed students around for a day. Arrival, lunch, passing periods. like all of it. Right. So you know various students in sort of various like grade levels and programming were followed by some number of people for for an entire day. He also took a core team on an extended field trip one day. I think they saw four schools in a day. Is that right. To help our team understand what's possible. Right. Because many people have worked almost their entire career in that building or in the district. So even understanding what is possible is a really important thing to do at this point in time. So the building committee has done some of that touring, some of that touring with that educational plan focus in mind has happened with Mike's leadership. Then he held a two-day session where he convened primarily educators, and students, as well as administrators, and then a handful of folks from the building committee. And I got to be part of that two-day session. And I'm a huge critic of those kinds of sessions, because that's what I do for a living. And I was just waiting for an opportunity to be like, he could have done this differently. And I didn't come up with a single thing that did not go exactly as he intended. So he was super skillful and artful. just had a really like amazing approach to making sure that any question he was asking was grounded in listening to students. So on the first day I sat with a vocational teacher and an administrator and a student and we spent like the entire day together. So anytime we would be given an exercise it was like The first step of the exercise is to have the student tell you about this thing that we're asking you about and then for the rest of you to ask questions about that experience right so like. what are the things that make you feel like you belong here, and what are the things that make you feel like you don't? And it was really just fascinating to be part of that. And then the second day was a little bit more moving around, so we didn't get to stick in a particular group on the second day. But the entire point of the exercise was to start to articulate What are we going to do in the building? And how are we going to do it? And then he finally, at the very end, allowed us to talk about space. And it sort of became a running joke that we had these multiple days of sessions, and what we were not allowed to talk about for about a day and a half was space. Is it in a classroom or is it in a hallway? And is it an open space or a closed space? That came at the very end of the two days of work in December, because what he wanted to do was to hear from everybody what we're trying to do, so that when you ask somebody about space, they have two days of talking about how it could be different before they answer the question about space, because envisioning is a space that you're going to go to and work in every day that's different than the one you have is really hard if you don't believe that anything about your day is going to change. Like why do you need a new space, right? So it was a really interesting conversation and I think enlightening for all the participants. And the teachers in the room commented about how much they enjoyed the students being there. And I do think it set the tone for the conversation in a very different way, which was super fascinating. And so we have more work to do coming out of that to say, OK, we have all of these hopes and dreams documented in work that we've been doing in preparation for this. And then we have this set of sessions. And now what do we do with all of this to create a cohesive picture of what we will do to educate students in this building? And I think a good example of something that came out of that is one of the students that sat at my table, she said something kind of innocuous, like, I take a break during every class. And She's like, I don't really have to go to the bathroom, but I take a break in every class. And somebody asked her why, and she's like, well, I just need a break. And we're like, fair, right? Like fair, when I need a break at home and I'm working, I get to do that when I need a break. But then she went on to say, but I would never do that in my CTE rotation. And we were like, why? Why wouldn't you do it there? And she's like, I don't want to miss anything. And so one of the things that came out really strongly was students telling us, maybe not shockingly, but yet we don't do it, that they want to understand and own their learning. Like the students want to know like, why am I learning this thing, right? I mean, do you remember saying that to your parents? Like, I don't know when I'm gonna ever use this thing in math in my whole life, right? And so there was definitely like, I guess I felt like maybe not so old because that, like condition of being a student a high school student like still the same right but it was really interesting because it did create conversation around like what should we be doing differently and and why are there things that are succeeding in certain programs that are not happening in other programs and it also opened the door for us as a district to say do we have to wait for a new building to do some of these things? And the answer is like, absolutely not. Like many, many, many of these things could be enacted or changed in advance of a new building, but there will be like an upper limit of what can be done while we wait for a new building. So out of all of that will come an educational plan. And that plan will come before this body first on the 26th in our meeting. So we'll be introducing it then. So SMMA will be here with us. We'll invite the council to join us at that meeting if they would like to, to hear about it. But the absolute thing that this body must do after hearing about the educational plan on the 26th, is in our meeting on our following meeting on February 2nd, we will have to approve that educational plan. Without our approval that the educational plan can't be submitted. And the goal to submit that is February 28th or 27th. So that's our first big gate in the feasibility study is what they call the preliminary design report. Preliminary design plan. And that PDP includes the educational plan. That's sort of the realm of this group that we will have to sign off on that. And then the other piece of that deliverable will be an initial set of space concepts, I'll call them, that we're going to explore more fully and use that as the basis of determining what is feasible, which one we will do. That work is for the building committee to do. So the building committee will have its own set of requirements between now and the end of January. But I did want to tee up that the ed plan will come here. So in our meetings on the 26th and February 2, we'll have some dedicated time to talk about the ed plan, answer questions. And that will really be largely the superintendent and her team with support from Hopefully our educational planner and SMMA as well. The building committee simultaneously has a series of activities happening because we are finally at the point where we can talk about the things people want to talk about. Where will the building go and what will it look like? Will it move on the, will we like renovate it where it is or will we move it on the property, right? So all of those are questions that are gonna start to become discussed in the coming weeks. So in advance of all of that, on Wednesday of this week at 6.30, we have a Zoom webinar session where we will lay out sort of the process, what's happened and what people can expect in these like next handful of months. so that people know how to get involved if they want to, right? So there'll be lots of opportunity at the building committee meetings in particular to look at, you know, maybe there's like 20 designs, and we're going to look at 20 designs and say, no, absolutely we hate number five, six, and seven, and the rest of them, like, we like enough to move on. And that's going to inform, like, how they then go do some initial cost estimations, and then we're going to review that, and then we'll, like, whittle that down. lots of chances for community input in those sessions. So on Wednesday night, we'll have like a primer for that so that people understand what has happened so far so that they can come if they want to to the building committee meetings on the 14th and then in February to provide their input and their reaction to some of the things that they're seeing. And we didn't want those meetings to happen without that primer and that context happening first. So on Wednesday, we'll do that primer. Translation services will be available. We actually spoke to our community liaisons earlier today about supporting that meeting in multiple languages. They've offered to help push out information to their networks so that folks Who may or may not be on the MPS mailing list will get to know about those sessions as well and that there are services available for translation. And so that initial meeting, we're expecting that to really be information sharing, probably like a light, I'll call it a process-oriented Q&A. We'll collect a lot of questions. We'll answer the process ones probably on Wednesday night. And then, you know, if we can pull off like a QR code so people can tell us about their hopes and dreams for the high school, that's like a great time to start like sort of thinking about that and articulating those things. And then we'll create space in the building committee meeting in January and then in February so that when we're rolling out these initial designs, the building committee will be able to like see these designs and think about them. And there'll be a place for public input. And we talked with the community liaisons today about how to make sure that our communities that require translation services also can be part of that process. We're working on plans for that. Whether they choose to participate via Zoom or in person, there'll be a translator available and equipment if they need it in person to listen to the translator who is going to translate in live time. So all of that will start to happen in our meeting in January at the building committee. And the sort of the visual excitement of like what I've been told are like circles on a map, right? Like the building could be here, it could be there. That's all informed by this sort of monster spreadsheet that articulates what do we have. So every single nook and cranny of the building, how big is it? How many classrooms is it? that kind of thing, and then there's like another section that says like what will the building, what might the building look like, what do we need, and that's sort of a compilation of like what the MSBA will allow in terms of space, what DESE requires in terms of CTE space, And then what we uniquely need in Medford to educate kids according to our educational plans. That's why the ed plan is so important. So this big spreadsheet has been evolving over time and it's super interesting and enlightening. And one of the like factoids like I feel like we've been hearing for years that our CTEs are going to get smaller through this project because the MSBA will never pay for spaces as big as we have. And that's false. It's almost completely false. I think there's one program where that is true. And it's like a marginal change. In all other instances, our programs are operating in space that is too small according to DESI's guidelines. So that changes the conversation around preservation of spaces versus doing something different or new. It significantly unconstrains the site in an important way, but that space plan is the place where we get to like do some myth busting, right? One myth that is actually a fact is that the MSBA will not pay for a pool. They will share in the renovation of a pool, which we would need a renovation somewhat urgently, but also that our gym spaces are quite large, and those would get smaller, in fact, if we were to build new ones. And so right off the bat, they're saying, MSBA, sorry, SMMA is saying that we should be looking to preserve not just the pool, but the field house, which includes like the gymnastics room and the batting cages and a couple, a handful of other like specialty spaces. What's the other one? Fitness center. So, and it's not like marginally bigger. What we have is dramatically bigger than what they would allow. So that's like a really important, that's actually like a fact that's a fact instead of a fact that's a myth. So all of these like fun little nuggets come out of this process and there's so much information that I think part of what we're trying to do is figure out how to distill it so that people can get the information that they need out of the process instead of being overwhelmed by things that don't matter to them. But we'll try to tee all of that up in our meeting on Wednesday so that the community understands what has been happening because it's been paperwork. It's been a lot of really not glorious, And definitely not glamorous behind the scenes back and forth around like things that are really meaningful, but only when you get to like, see what they produce not the actual space, you know, nobody cares that our classrooms are 745 square feet or 600 square feet. They care that like how many classrooms are we going to have in the future or how big does our space get to get and all of that stuff. So we're sort of in that process that will inform some of the design choices. But I think they have enough information that they're already working through that because we will be seeing some of those early designs on the 14th of this month. So I did wanna make sure that this group knew sort of all of that going on. So I'm gonna like sequentially read these meetings off to you so that it's clear like how all of these things link together if my phone will cooperate. Let's see, where'd it go? Okay, so on Wednesday the 7th at 630, Zoom only is this community input session. I did get a couple of questions about why it was Zoom only. And it is Zoom only because the goal, there are two goals. One is to make sure that we could provide translation services. And this was the most seamless way to do that the most quickly, which was important because this is a time sensitive meeting. And to create a higher quality, video production leave behind than can be had in a hybrid setting that is not frankly wired. None of our spaces are wired for good lasting recordings of things and we think that's going to be important because maybe you don't want to come on the 7th but you're interested in what's happening a week from now. So we want that to be able to live a little bit longer than the moment that it is delivered. On Wednesday the 14th at 6.30 in the MHS library and on Zoom will be a regularly scheduled building committee meeting. This is where we're going to start to see concepts. This is where we will direct the architects on which ones we want to see fleshed out in further detail around cost. And then we will Then move on to January 26, which is a regularly scheduled school committee meeting. That time does shift a little bit, but sometime after 6 p.m. we'll have a regularly scheduled meeting. The team will be here to present to us not just what they've been up to, but also that educational plan for review and input. We'll invite the council to join us on February 2nd. Also, a regularly scheduled school committee meeting. This body will vote on the educational plan that will be submitted to the MSBA. On Wednesday, February 11th at 630 there will be in the MHS library a building committee meeting and that's where we'll look at not just the concepts but also the initial draft from the estimators that will help inform us on what we want to submit as those things we're going to study in more detail to the MSBA. On Monday the 23rd, we will have another building committee meeting where we will finalize our submission. So that's the ed plan, that's the space summary, that's the concepts that we want to study, et cetera. All of that becomes the PDP that gets submitted and reviewed by MSBA. There's no board meeting at that point from MSBA, so they'll provide feedback, but it's like written feedback. And then from there we'll move into what is called the preferred schematic report. That is where we will go from, let's say we have 10 options before us in February. By June we will have one. So that preferred schematic report timeline will help establish How do we go from 10 to 1 essentially? So obviously lots of like continuing feedback from Desi and others as we do that. But what we'll submit in terms of options to be studied will then go into another community input meeting where we'll be explicitly saying to the community, here are the 10 options we're talking about. Tell us what you think about them. So that's scheduled for Thursday, March 5th in the MHS library. And then we'll shift into a regular building committee meeting at the end of March on the 23rd. where we'll get an update and we'll continue talking. So that's the next three months of this project. So really by the end of March, we'll be deep in the throes of whatever those options are that we're studying, really doing the work to do the cost estimation to understand in more detail, what does this building look like? No longer circles on a map, but actual visual details. and cost. So all of that will be happening really pretty quickly now that we have come out of the holidays. We certainly timing wise didn't we we prioritized doing the work that we did over the holiday, which was very brutal for the people involved behind the scenes, so that we had the community's full attention before everyone checks out for summer. There's this magic window, I think, of community engagement from January to May or June that we want to capitalize on and the timeline helped us do that. There will certainly be more to come about the second half of the year of 2026 in terms of this project. But I just wanted to lay all of that out and field any questions because I think there's a lot of questions in the community and I think we're finally at a point where there's answers and not just questions. So I'm looking forward to providing people some answers as we go here. But I'm happy to answer any questions that you all have about the process next steps that kind of thing.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld. Thank you. This is super exciting. Yes, finally. Yes. I'm very excited about this. Well, my first question is, can we borrow some of that visioning session for our strategic planning meetings? Because that sounds amazing.
[Jenny Graham]: It was really wonderful. And I think some people in the room were like, we need to do this with all the teachers in the high school. And so there was a lot of energy around what could happen. And I think one of the recognitions and Mike, who is the head of the organization, said, you know, when you hear stories about schools that built something and then they don't use it, right? You hear that all the time. And he said that happens because people make a list of their hopes and dreams and their wishes. And they're like, it's gonna be so great if we can have these things. And then everybody closes up the list of hopes and dreams and wishes and waits for the building to come. and sort of hopes that the building is going to transform them. And the building is not going to do that. The transformation has to happen by people, because the things that have to change actually are the people, right? So we did talk a bit about Once we have this like initial ed plan developed, what kind of professional development opportunities and collaboration sessions should be happening to really start to collaboratively unfold? What can we do before, you know, whenever this building opens? And when can we do those things? and what supports are needed. And that is other work that this team at the educational planner does do. And certainly was like, I'm happy to give you suggestions. I'm happy to tell you how to do this yourself. I'm happy to help you do it. But yeah, I think to the point, like the work that he did to sort of unposition everybody from whatever it is that they thought that they were coming in to tell us, is important, and it's skillful work, so really thinking about the next steps I think is important. I think we'll use a lot of the same techniques in our strategic planning sessions, albeit we have a little bit less of a controlled audience, so we'll navigate for that.
[Erika Reinfeld]: That was quite curated.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, yes. Yeah, and so I think when you have a curated audience, you can really direct, and we're also gonna try to do our strategic planning sessions in two hours, We had two days. So we're gonna we're gonna have to like move a little differently, but many of the same like Concepts will apply for sure. Yeah, I wish there a way that people could that we could capture that and share that in vignettes somehow Yeah, and I think to your point like one of the things that we can talk about is how do we capture that because I think it was really very cool like what happened and I think there is maybe an opportunity to do that that we can talk about.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah I mean I'm just thinking I got so my my children weren't in that but I I've been getting texts from today it was the the high school is colder than outside and the other day it was I taught an architect how to French braid so So, it's really wonderful to see this student centering. So, I think most of my other questions now are around this communication out to the community. I'm actually really glad that Simon brought up this idea, this question of communicating with people beyond the school community. We have a lot of strategies for doing this, and I would actually love it I would love to get this information out about the forum, whether it's through talking points or through emails through the schools. I know that doesn't necessarily go to the broader Medford community, but I'm thinking about, I'm looking at all the elementary principals here in the audience, but these are the students who are going to be living in this building and middle school as well. So it would be great to get that notice out in advance of Wednesday, but I'm wondering if we can put together some sort of backpack flyer on these dates with the disclaimer of, subject to New England weather and whatnot, and here's how to subscribe, if there's a newsletter going out, here's how to stay informed about this project, if we could get something physical out to families soon, that would be really
[Jenny Graham]: Yes, so a couple of things that are also brewing there. We'll send a reminder. Will's been in touch with Steve in the mayor's office to do a blast about this meeting. Great. The community liaisons will be communicating about this meeting to their communities who need translation services. And then as we talk about important dates, the other thing we talked about with the community liaisons today was like giving people just that exact list of like here's what's coming. So when we put that together, we can do any number of things with it, including we could stuff some flyers and backpacks. So the communication about the meeting has gone out in a couple of different ways. We'll send a reminder, but then we can put this like, like Trail of Breadcrumbs sort of meeting schedule out to people in backpacks for our elementary students and like push that out through all of these channels as well.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Because I think getting that in a school-based way may engage some of our families who with all due respect may not follow the weekly memo quite as closely.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah. I think the other thing that we will be talking about is how to create a mailing list newsletter that can be used for broader communications outside of the school community so that those folks in the community who want to be explicitly notified about things on the building committee that will do that. So we have a whole bunch of communication oriented things that we'll start to like get going so that we can create this like bigger base of people who are informed.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Great. And I just and I think that my final question was around that. I know when you started there was a communications and community engagement subcommittee and just making sure that's still active and robust. And if there's anything that this body I know half of A good half of the people, well, more people in this room are on that committee than not. You've been on multiple building committees in Somerville and you're a facilities project manager. I think I'm the only person here who isn't involved in building work. But whatever we can do to support that committee in getting the word out.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah. That subcommittee has not met in a bit because we've been turning our attention to all of the existing condition work. But I think there is an opportunity to reconvene that team and I will talk to the members of that team about doing something that can push out like maybe a monthly newsletter or something that can be authored by a subset of the building committee. So we'll talk about that.
[Erika Reinfeld]: That would be great. My goal here is that nobody should be surprised when debt exclusion shows up. Oh, absolutely. Sorry. Fair point. We're going to try really hard to get everybody. Or when they're surprised that they can figure out where to go to learn more. So thank you for all the work. And thank you to everyone who has been doing this work, because I know it's a lot. And I'm just, I'm so excited.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. You have to say a few words.
[WaNbAOKeDiY_SPEAKER_18]: Thank you again, Simon Alcindor, 44 Tainter Street. I just had a couple of quick questions. First of all, I know you briefly touched on transportation when you were talking about the exploratory phase of this. Do you have any more details on what they've been doing exactly, especially when it comes to traffic with it being a sort of isolated place? I'm kind of interested in that.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, so that's come up in a couple of different ways. In addition to all the things that I talked about, I forgot to mention that we have four advisory committees. There's like 70 or so people across the four committees talking about who are community members who are joining us in a targeted capacity. And one of those subcommittees is about site safety and security. And transportation came up in that meeting just before the holiday break. And so the conversations that we're having about transportation are a few things. One is about the like one way in and one way out nature of where our school is. And talking about, we heard from the chief, the police chief in particular, that like emergency access is something we need to explore, and the team is talking about that. We are also talking about creating better flow of traffic around the building, wherever that building sort of becomes situated. So one of the things that the architects commented on is that The way the property is laid out now, it prioritizes parking lots over flow. A lot of the problems that we have can be alleviated with an attention to flow around the property. The example that came up in our visioning session was students were saying, I try to leave my last class a few minutes early because I have to get to the bus and it's across the school building and if I don't get there, then I don't get a seat or I can't get on the bus because it's crowded, right? And they're like, and by the way, that's the same, everybody leaves out of that same exit, right? So if you're getting picked up in a car, if you're getting picked up on a bus, if you're walking home, everyone leaves through the same exit. It's madness, right? And so they were like, can the buses be somewhere else? That was like the students ask. Can we just put the buses somewhere else? And kind of the answer on our current property is like, not really. But in a new building where we're thinking about, OK, how do people arrive at this school? Like, they arrive on foot. By the way, it's a very steep pitch, right? So if you're going to arrive on bike, like, it's a very steep pitch to get up that hill. And I'm not a biker, but I couldn't do it. So, you know, how many people are we deterring? Because there's a very steep pitch, and is there an answer for that? But also, like, how do we make it so that we're not, like, everybody convening into the same, like, choke point, essentially, which is what happens today? So all of that is being discussed and even things have come up like we probably do need to talk to the MBTA about the timing of the buses and is there a shift there that can be made to create better access. And you know when you start talking about those kinds of things students rightfully will say there's no late bus. So if I try one of the students said to me I try hard to stay to not stay after school because if I stay after school I have to walk two miles home. and it takes me an hour. So because there's no late bus. So that sort of, like a lot of things come up in these sessions that don't have, like a late bus has nothing to do with whether this building is old or new, but is coming up in the context of like the collective problem that we need to solve. So yes, very much lots of conversation around transportation is happening and I'm excited to see like the flow. Every time I go around the back corner of that hairpin turn, I'm like, Who did this? Why is it so tight? I can barely get my giant car around there, much less two cars. So those are the kinds of things. And then if you think about if you're going... It does, it does.
[Mike Mastrobuoni]: Those bus darts can work a miracle.
[Jenny Graham]: But if you go around the back of the building to drop a kid off at the field, you have to turn around and go back the way that you came. So those are the kinds of flow conversations that I'm really hopeful will be alleviated in a significant way when we start talking about how could this new building be laid out.
[WaNbAOKeDiY_SPEAKER_18]: And then just like separately, like is this going to be on like, are the meetings for like the committee going to be on like the city events calendar and that? Yes. Because I did notice that they're, at least not the one on Wednesday, is it?
[Jenny Graham]: Correct. Not yet. It's a work in progress. So the holiday has sort of gotten our way. Will has been putting all those things on the calendar, on the MPS calendar and has shared it with the city so that they can be there too.
[WaNbAOKeDiY_SPEAKER_18]: Okay. Thank you.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah. Anytime.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you very much. Thank you, Member Graham, for the update. And we'll work on putting this in the city newsletter and robocall as well. We do not have any presentations of the Student Advisory Council or presentations of the public. We gonna skip also continue business, new business, reports requested, and I'm gonna go right to condolences. The members. Do you want to just say that so the public can hear? Thanks.
[Alachie Yeager]: Yes. We meet after school at the high school, and so I know that some members have expressed interest in sitting in on some of our meetings. We'll get back to you on that. But again, if any of you, want to express concerns or sort of want an avenue through which to sample a specific concern you have, especially in the high school community, come to us. We'd be happy to help. And yeah.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Great. Thank you. Thank you so much. So I'll read the condolences. The members of the Medford School Committee express their sincerest condolences to the family of Robert S. Bloch, Medford High School assistant principal David Bloch's father. The members of the Medford School Committee express their sincerest condolences to the family of Rose Marie Heinig, Medford High School English language arts teacher and the Medford's third poet laureate currently. That's Max Heining's mother. The members of the Medford School Committee express their sincerest condolences to the family of Robert F. McCarthy, McGlynn Middle School social studies teacher, Ryan McCarthy's father. And the members of the Medford School Committee express their sincerest condolences to the family of Herbert Wells, Jr., former Medford Public Schools teacher. If we all may rise for a moment of silence, please. Thank you. Next week, we have our retreat. We've secured a location. And our next regularly scheduled meeting is January 26th, 2026 and the Alden Memorial Chambers, Medford City Hall, in addition to Zoom. Motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn by Member Reinfeld, seconded by... Thank you. Member Mastroboni. Roll call, please.
[Paul Ruseau]: Member Mastroboni. Member Olapade. Member Parks. Member Reinfeld. Member, say yes, Marilyn O'Kern.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, five in the affirmative, two abstaining. Please get sworn in this week before our next meeting. And this meeting is adjourned.
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