[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Oh, God, nice and quiet. Good evening, everybody. The sixth regular meeting of the Medford School Committee will come to order. We have executive session at 6. We should be right back here at 6.15. Tonight's March 16th. We're here in the Alderman Memorial Chambers, Medford City Hall, and this is also remote participation. and we are recording. The meeting can be viewed on the Medford Public Schools YouTube channel through Medford Community Media on your local cable channel, which is Comcast channel 98 or 22 and Verizon channel 43, 45 or 47. Since the meeting is also remote, you can click on the Zoom link and the meeting ID is 980-5992-2000. Member Ruseau, if you could please call the roll. Member Ruseau, Kat, are you in the, oh, here I can. Okay, thanks. It doesn't have the names. It's not working. There you go, Member Ruseau.
[Paul Ruseau]: Thank you. Member Graham. Here. Member Mastroboni. Here. Member Olapade will be here in a moment. Member Parks. Here. Member Reinfeld. Present. Member Ruseau, present. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Present. Six present.
[Paul Ruseau]: And student rep.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: And our student representative. Thank you for being here. Six present, one on the way. Oh, and there's multiple virtual. Thank you. We have multiple student reps on the call tonight. It's a big one. If we can all please rise to salute the flag. 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. We have executive session upon a motion to enter executive session pursuant to generalize 30A, section 21A, Medford School Committee to conduct a strategy session on the basis that an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of the Medford School Committee, specifically the Medford School Committee will be discussing ongoing collective bargaining negotiations with multiple bargaining units, specifically SEIU, Local 88, Medford School, Cafeteria workers their motion to enter a quick executive session by member Reinfeld seconded by member mastermony roll call
[Paul Ruseau]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Mastraboni? Yes. Member Olapade? Still absent. Member Parks? Yes. Member Reinfeld? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Mayor Lungo-Kurt?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes. Executive session? Present. Yes, okay. Seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative. We're going to go into a quick executive session. We'll be right back. Thank you all for being here. There's some more seats up front if anybody wants them in the back. And we'll be right back.
[Unidentified]: and I continue. Mic check. Mic check. Mic check. Chairmen, so their mics are going to be hot.
[Joe Donlon]: Mic check.
[Unidentified]: Mic check. Mic check. Mic check.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thanks for your patience, everybody. Thanks for your patience, everybody. We're just gonna get started. We just met in executive session to ratify the Medford School Cafeteria workers, so congratulations on both sides, and thank you to the negotiating team, member Graham and member Rousseau, and staff, thank you. Superintendent. Next up, consent agenda. We'll do this quick. Approval of bills and payrolls, approval of budget transfers, journal entry 20729, $114,989.57. Journal entry 20730, $447,401.80. Journal Entry 20728, $4,152,943.37. Journal Entry 20721, $2,000. And Journal Entry 20727, $1,000. Approval of donations, Medford High School, Medford Vocational Technical High School, Parent Teacher Organization, $8,000. And Crystal Campbell, Medford Strong Scholarship. and the approval of the meeting minutes from our regular meeting, March 2nd, 2026. Is there a motion on the floor or any description on any of those transfers? Any questions? Motion to approve by Member Ruseau, seconded by Member Olapade. Roll call, Member Ruseau, please.
[Paul Ruseau]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Mastroboni? Yes. Member Olapade? Yes. Member Parks? Yes. Member Brinefield? Yes. Member Ruseau, yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, 70 affirmative, zero in the negative. Motion passes. We have our reports of superintendent, three reports tonight. And first up is our Mustang moment. So I'll turn it over to you, Dr. Galuzzi. Thank you very much.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Hello everybody. Welcome. This is like my favorite part of the school committee meetings is starting with Mustang moment. This meeting we have our winter sport athletes that are going to be rightfully recognized. We have a full chamber of athletes and caregivers and supporters and it's just I don't know, fills my bucket to start this way. So I am going to let our athletic director, Mr. Robert O'Leary, get us started. He's going to give just a brief overview of the winter season and then call up the coaches so that they can rightfully acknowledge their teams. Mr. O'Leary.
[Rob O'Leary]: All right, thank you all for having us this evening. My name is Rob O'Leary. I am the co-curricular director, community schools director for the Medford Public Schools. This evening we have all of our winter sports here. Basically, our winter sports had a fantastic winter. We had three GBL champions. We have over 30 all-stars that you'll get to hear about this evening. We've had some big crowds. We've had some playoff games. We had girls basketball, boys ice hockey, swimming, track, all make the postseason. So it was a great time to be a Mustang and obviously there's a lot of excitement around that. We have we had over 250 kids registered for winter sports and we have almost double that for spring sports. So we are we're heading in the right direction and hopefully we'll get to hear all about it this evening. So without further ado I'm going to turn it over to our GBL coach of the year for swim Miss Mary Judge.
[b-cJrtai7oA_SPEAKER_21]: Thank you very much. This year was a very impressive year. The team was focused and determined to surpass their previous accomplishments. It's taken us 39 years to become GBL champions again, and that's a long time. They worked very hard and practiced and swam strongly in their meets. They went to the next level in competition to push for the win every event and every meet. As far as team leadership, they were supportive to each other. They led. They kept their eye on the goal. They inspired the rest of the team to stay on course. This is a very special and very motivated team. We always talk about the fact that swimming for a team coming in first doesn't really win. The addition to second, third, and fourth, that's what really makes the points. And this team really did that. They came through every single time. So, it was indeed a very special year. That's really all I can say about them, but I'd like to announce all my GBL All-Stars. I'll start with the girls. Captain Sarah Youssef. Captain Zeni Viveris. Mayella Duncan. Sophia Tsao. Alessia Gaglio. And Captain Jaspreet Kaur. Now for the boys. Captain Cole Brenton Green. Matthew Stricker. Leonardo Hernandez. Henry Grieger. Andrew Tran. Captain James Klugisch. Eunice Colon. There are two that weren't able to come. Oliver Crane-Wiley. And Brad DiPlacido. They did very well. Thank you so much. I'd like to send this off to Coach O'Keefe.
[CsSw9Cunt1k_SPEAKER_16]: Thank you, everybody. I want to thank the school committee, the mayor, you know, for having this and recognizing all the student athletes, you know, the champs and everyone. I love seeing all the kids come, you know, all-star, not all-star champ. It's respect and being here and I really, as my team, I really appreciate you guys being here. Rob O'Leary, our new athletic director, you know, just came in this year. He's been great. You know, it was a good transition from Bobby to Rob. You know, we get along good. You know, he's there. He's helping us all the time. So things are going well, especially, you know, at the hockey team. We had a good season, had 11 wins, two years in a row, 11 wins. In the greater Boston League, we were, the past two seasons, we're at 12 and 0. Won the GBL last year, won the GBL this year. You know, state tournament qualified both years since I've been the head coach. We've competed. You know, we're building, we had a junior varsity team again this year. First time we brought that back, thanks to Robbie, we incorporated the middle school, which has really helped with the eighth graders, getting them involved and having my guys now talk to them and trying to convince them to come to the high school, which I feel like we're going in the right direction with the hockey team. For All-Stars, we had four graded Boston League All-Stars. We had senior Diego Menes, who was the MVP. Senior Evan Cialoni, who's back here. Senior Gabe Rudolph. And Junior Nolan O'Keefe, also. So thank you, everybody. We had a great season. And I'm going to turn it over to gymnastics, GBL champs, coaches here, Nicole. And Kelly, sorry. Nicole and Kelly, sorry.
[CsSw9Cunt1k_SPEAKER_14]: Thank you. I'm going to keep it short and sweet. The Medford High School girls gymnastics team, we had another wonderful season. We had a great turnout, which was really nice. We had a mostly novice team, but their journey was really nothing short of remarkable. We started the season with 92.9 against Wakefield and increased that to win the GBL of 106.1, which is actually a really big leap. Our captain, Ariana Ramos, did a great job leading the team with our freshman, Dylan, coming in and surprising everybody. They helped lead the way to do that. Thank you. Those are our two all-stars. Short and sweet. Thank you. Up next is Coach Brittany Lanzilli.
[SPEAKER_19]: Hi everyone. I'm Brittany Lanzilli. I'm the girls varsity hockey coach. We do have a co-op with several different, is this loud? Okay. We have a co-op with several different surrounding towns. So as I reflect on this past season, there really is so much to be proud of. These girls showed up every day, worked their hardest, competed at a really high level. and just put their all into it every single day. The season was successful for many reasons. There were a lot of new team records set, individual records set, and honestly, I was just so proud to be able to coach this group. This season, one of our players, Aaron Alves, was nominated and recognized as a Northeastern Hockey League All-Star, an honor selected through nominations and votes from different league coaches. During the selection process, the most notable words about Erin was phenomenal, outstanding, game changer between the pipes. She is the type of player who makes everyone else's job easier and honestly gives our team the ability to compete every single game. In 13 games played, Erin's season stats included 605 shots against 569 saves with a .94 save percentage. Her work ethic and competitiveness sets her apart. She's outstanding in every way and honestly very, very deserving of this award. Congratulations, Erin. And next up, we have Coach Donlan and Coach Murphy with the track team.
[Joe Donlon]: Hi, everybody. Can you hear me OK? So I'm Coach Donlan. This is Coach Murphy. I'm going to first recognize two boys on our team that received League All-Star Awards, and Coach Murphy's going to talk about a couple of the girls on our team that also achieved some pretty high accolades as well. Our two athletes are quite different, but very similar in their leadership qualities. The first athlete was one of our multi-athletes, competed in the pentathlon, almost scoring 3,000 points. which I know many of you aren't really all that familiar with. But it's some of the best all-around athletes in the state. And he qualified in the top 20 of those athletes. So that's the high jump. It's a lot of events. He won most of the events that he competed in at our league meet. So he was selected as an all-star. All around just a great leader, huge role in the team, doing a lot of the events that are some of the most difficult and for years, you know, the thankless events that come up in the field category of track sometimes, and we're going to miss him deeply. The second athlete to recognize is Adam Lewis. Adam's been a staple of our team, running cross country, indoor track, outdoor track, and this year he has really achieved some high marks. He has our school record in the 600, and he's right on the heels of the school record in the mile as well, and we hope he gets that in the spring. So he follows some of the greatest distance athletes that we have ever seen in the city of Medford, and I don't mention that lightly. I've been spending a lot of my career tracking down these old times and records, and Adam is right up there with some of the best in the conversation of being the best. So we really appreciate these two athletes. They are something. Adam also just competed this past weekend at the national meet as well. So they're still doing great things for us, thankfully. Coach Murphy. I just want to say, too.
[SPEAKER_12]: How's it going? Also, the first athlete that Coach was talking about is Cooper. So I just want to make sure his name gets in there. I don't know if he got it in there or not. I think he's playing lacrosse right now. He's always doing something for Medford. Yeah, so Adams and then Cooper, I think is still a lacrosse practice. He's just always doing something from it at all times of the day and night. Yeah, and then on the girls side, we had a ton of success. We came in second in the GBL, which is a big improvement from last year. They actually came in 12th out of 24 at the state meet, which is a huge improvement too. That's really punching above our weight. We're in division one and we're one of the smaller schools, so it was really great to see that. A lot of that success came on the backs of our all-stars. They did a really fantastic job. We had Nora Burson, who broke our school record in the 300 and was part of our 4x200 that broke the school record. We had Isabelle D'Souza-Vieira, who ran the two-mile for us. We had Anecia Pierre and Lena Gomes-McDonald, as well as Oh, and sorry, Sidney Koffel, who's in the back right now, probably about to kill me, who all ran that 4x2 together. They competed all the way till the national meet on last Friday, and they did a fantastic job. So overall, great season for the boys and the girls. We started again today, so we're right back at it. A lot of these kids are taking a week off because they competed all the way till last week, and then they're back at it again. So we're really proud of our girls and our boys, and I think they had a great season. We're going to hand it back to Mr. O'Leary. Take a step forward. Take a step forward.
[Joe Donlon]: OK. Yeah, we'll give it back to Rob over there. Thank you.
[Rob O'Leary]: Our boys basketball coach was unable to be here tonight since lacrosse started this afternoon. He's also our boys lacrosse coach. So I'm going to do the honors of introducing two of our all-stars. For the boys basketball team, boys basketball missed the playoffs by a game this winter. So hoping to improve on that next winter. They had a couple of big wins towards the end of the season and won their last game of the year against Lowell Catholic. So our two all-stars from boys basketball were Tyler Coffield. And Adla Honre. I'm also going to take the pleasure of introducing the girls basketball team as well as our girls basketball coaches at work. Some of these girls are probably still at lacrosse and softball, but the girls basketball team qualified for the state tournament again this year. They had a big win. Big wins against Malden towards the end of the season. They also had wins in the GBL versus Revere. They had a very tough schedule this year, which non-league schedule, which was a little different than what they've played in the past. So they did qualify in the last week of the season, beat Mystic Valley twice, beat Malden, beat Revere to qualify. So they had a very good end of the season. And our three, and our first year coach, Sherrell Sanders, We have three all-stars from the girls basketball team. We have Joy Richley, Sienna Fossey, and Emma Malerbo. That's all of our all-stars for this evening. I just want to say again, thank you for all your support, all the administrators' support at the high school. There was hardly ever a game where we didn't have an assistant principal, associate principal, or principal there. And the kids really like, really love that, and they love all the support they get from the city of Medford, and hopefully we can continue that. Do we want to do pictures now? Okay. So we'll do pictures. We'll start with the swim team. GBL champion and coach of the year.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, swim team, come on up. And congratulations, everybody. OK, next up we have the MCAS Flex Pilot from Medford High School. I'm going to invite up Madhav Kapral, our principal, and David Bloch, our assistant principal. I'll turn it over to Dr. Galussi first.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Thank you so much. As Mr. Blouk transitions from honoring all of his high school athletes, I just want to mention that Assistant Principal Mr. Dave Blouk is here, who will be primarily presenting. We also have Principal Cabral joining us virtually, so she is here as well for any questions. Just a very brief frame before I turn it over to Mr. Blouk. We presented several times to this board last year over the state law now around MCAS requirements no longer being the driver to graduation requirements. So the high school staff administratively have worked very diligently throughout this past year implementing the new graduation requirements and part of what they're here to frame today is a pilot program to make sure that they are doing everything they can, not only implementing the new regulations, but as noted, and just want to frame again, that MCAS may not be a requirement for graduation, but it is still our measure for accountability in this, per the Department of Education. So it does matter how students are performing. It is a good measure for us to determine how grade level standards are being met here for us in Medford Public Schools. And so really to make sure we're putting students at the center, Mr. Blouk and Principal Cabral have a pilot incentive program to discuss with you this evening for your approval.
[FQmLWv7cB1A_SPEAKER_07]: I'm just checking this is on. Thank you so much, Madam Superintendent, Madam Mayor, and the members of the school committee. So we have Ms. Cabral on Zoom as well. I just want to make sure she's able to speak because I may call on her a few moments during my presentation.
[Marta Cabral]: I'm here. Can you hear me?
[FQmLWv7cB1A_SPEAKER_07]: Thank you, Ms. Cabral. So you have the proposal in front of you. I'll read through and give a little added context to some of the items that are on the proposal. So the first thing, just to clarify, this is just for high school. And we're proposing just for the math test, which is coming up on Tuesday, Wednesday, March, I'm sorry, May 19th and 20th. That is a test that's specifically for 10th graders. And what we're hoping to launch is a late entry schedule for non-testing students on these days. And the first proposal is just for those math days coming up in May. And the overall purpose, as Dr. Pelosi mentioned, is to ensure optimal testing conditions, maintain equitable access to instructional time, and support the school-wide operations while we have MCAS occurring. So for a very long time, really since MCAS began, we've done MCAS, we run MCAS, but we also run school. So this is a way of trying to run MCAS and prioritize it and modify the school experience for other students who are not testing in order to optimize the MCAS experience for those who are. So the rationale for it, first bullet is around ensuring a secure, quiet and compliant testing environment. And as you know, there's strict adherence to state testing protocols for MCAS which include minimizing disruptions and maintaining a secure setting. Typically, we take a section of C building and we have that floor sectioned off and we move the classrooms to different areas to reduce traffic. We hold announcements. We try to reduce the number of interruptions. But the idea of the modified day is that there would be fewer interruptions, few to none at all. which really helps ensure that integrity of the testing environment. We may do for a long time, but we're looking to raise it to a point where there's none to begin with and we have a variety of students who are not in the building while testing is occurring, which is the main part of bullet two, maximizing student performance and reducing stress. So as you know, test-taking students really benefit from a very calm and focused environment. If we enter grades 11 and 12 late, which is what we're proposing to do. Those 10th grade students testing are in a much better position to concentrate and manage their testing anxieties and really demonstrate knowledge and skills. And that is in alignment with our commitment to provide all students with those best possible conditions when we have high stakes assessments. This also really helps with efficiency and staffing, where typically what we do now is we take teachers who have students who are taking MCAS, and instead of teaching that day, they proctor MCAS. So 10th grade teachers of an English class, for example, or of integrated math 2 would be the proctors of tests or chemistry or the like. And it does require a substantial number of test proctors. It's becoming a bit of a challenge now. We sometimes have kids in different grades in classes, so we really can't have their teachers proctor if they're, say, our 10th and 11th grade in a class, like, for example, a world language class, some of our math classes. And if you go to a modified day, you really have staff at the ready. And those individuals can really help. They're not rushing between classes. They're just there proctoring. And you know, on, on regular school days, if we keep a regular day, the staffing needs compete with the regular supervision instructional demands of the whole school. So that late entry schedule helps ensure adequate staffing for all rooms, good compliance with required accommodations, and also appropriate monitoring of all the students in the school without compromising the safety and supervision of the, of the broader student body. You know, so fourth sections on students who are not testing during MCAS, as I mentioned a little earlier, they typically have to be relocated, especially if they're in that part of the building where we're doing testing. So they need to be reassigned to different rooms, teachers and students. And there are some disruptions natural to that. Again, we do our very best. We've always made do. But it's something where there is a kind of a natural shortening to their experience or disruption that needs to be managed. That's, you know, again, in a different space. It's not your everyday space. So if you have a planned late entry, that maintains continuity and quality of learning by allowing students to follow a normal schedule once they arrive rather than experiencing potentially fragmented instruction. And the fifth bullet is really, we know this is happening in lots of Massachusetts high schools. And it's something where it's become recognized as effective. And for the bullets mentioned, it's something that we believe is really gonna help us out. So in terms of the implementation plan, I'm gonna go through some of the bullets here, and also in some of these bullets, certainly allow Ms. Cabral to enter into the conversation if there's any specific information that, you know, I don't hit upon, Ms. Cabral. So the details of the implementation plan, you'd have all testing students, so 10th graders, arrive on a regular time and begin MCAS promptly. As, you know, the day begins 745, they would enter into their testing and begin the test. Those who are in grades 10 and 11 would follow a late entry schedule where they arrive at the conclusion of the testing window, which is around 11.27 when we have our first lunch block. And those students in the morning would engage in something that is an asynchronous college or career exploration activity, which to some extent would mirror like what we do on C3 day in the fall, an activity where they do something not in their regular routine in the morning, but something that is still beneficial for them in college and career exploration. Grade nine students will be in the building. The difference for them is that they'll engage in community building, freshman seminar, advisory-like activities that take them through the morning. So they are actually in the building. I didn't mention that earlier, but that's something where they follow a normal schedule but have a modified experience for what they're going to be doing. In terms of transportation, our plan is to work with Mr. Schwartz in the transportation office to come up with a specific plan for how to support getting students to school if they have a late arrival. And as you know about, I mean, 9th and 10th grade are coming on time as usual, but this would be something that could potentially impact 11th and 12th. Ms. Cabral will tend to communication to families, students, and staff well in advance, seeing that we're still about nine weeks out from testing. And our attendance procedures would be adapted to reflect that adjusted schedule. So students would be some process for identifying what they did in the morning and then counting them as present so long as they fulfill that. And also something that's important is that if a student, any student, does not choose into the late entry schedule, we will come up with a contingency plan to allow those students to participate for a full day. And what we hope as outcomes with all this is that we'll see improved testing conditions and improved test performance for all of our students who are testing. We'll see better compliance with MCAS security and administration protocols through that more secure environment. We'll see increased efficiency in staffing assignments. reduce disruptions to the overall school community, and enhance equity in instructional time for non-tested students. So again, we feel this is the best interest of our school, particularly our students who are testing. So we respectfully request your approval on this pilot program. I do wanna see if Ms. Cabral has any additional pieces of information she would like to share.
[Marta Cabral]: No, great job. I'm here to answer any questions.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Any questions? Member Ruseau.
[Paul Ruseau]: Thank you for pretty much answering all the questions in the presentation that I think most of us could come up with. At least I'm speaking for myself. I appreciate what's going on here and I understand why you want to do it and I'm going to support this. But again, I think that it's worth just stating out loud that this is what's wrong. and why MCAS isn't the answer. We're taking away some education from all the students it sounds like except for ninth graders who are going to have some other thing that's not their normal structured learning to accomplish a goal that and won't be used to help guide their own education. The 10th graders will take the test, they'll go to 11th grade, regardless of their performance, and those students will receive no benefit, unlike every test that they're given by their teachers all year long. where they can course correct and actually do something about it. So, I mean, I'm disappointed this is necessary. I appreciate that it's incredibly thorough and that you've really covered all the bases for students that might have to come in anyways. You know, my daughter is in the biotech for the last three periods of the day and she's a senior. She's not coming in at this time to have lunch. She's just not going to go to school. And she's certainly not the only senior who's just not coming to school that day, right? You do know that. Attendance will be terrible for students, especially the seniors, who can sign themselves out or have permission to be let go by their parents already. So I appreciate the thoroughness, and I'll certainly motion to approve. Do we have to vote on this? I'm sorry. I don't know. Do we need to vote on it? Okay. Well, I will motion to approve this with many misgivings, but nothing to do with you or Ms. Cabral. Thank you. Thank you both.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Dr. Lucey and then I saw Member Parks' hand and our student rep would like to speak.
[Suzanne Galusi]: I just didn't know if Principal Cabral wanted to. could you speak about the vision of the freshmen seminar or the role that you want the freshmen to have in your bigger vision for this?
[Marta Cabral]: Yes, so we do want to take advantage of having freshmen that can be together for a few hours. We never have time and whole community with any grades, so we would take the opportunity to hold a seminar with them. where we would focus on healthy decision making, time management strategies and goal setting for their high school career and further. We also would take some time in that time to do MCAS bioprep because they will have MCAS testing in June. So we plan to do a fun interactive Jeopardy game with them. And then community building activities, which I think is so very important, especially for grade nine students as they're forming friendships in a large high school.
[Jessica Parks]: Thank you.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Member Parks.
[Jessica Parks]: I know you said that there's other high schools doing this program currently. Do they have any data on kind of how many students are coming to school at halfway through the day, to member Rousseau's point.
[FQmLWv7cB1A_SPEAKER_07]: I think we can look up and, and report back, if that feels. Yeah, there's nothing to have offhand.
[Marta Cabral]: Yeah, and I do think with messaging and so forth, and we do have a attendance policy per class. So our attendance policy, if you miss a certain class, it counts towards your three absences. So I think just making sure that I'm communicating, making sure that I'm emailing in on announcements for juniors and seniors, because I definitely can see that as a concern, but making sure that I'm communicating what our attendance policy is per class period. I think with having them come in at lunchtime, it's a clean break where they will have a full afternoon to engage in period five, six, and seven. They may not choose to come for lunch, which is okay, but hopefully getting them there for the three periods at the end of the day once school resumes for all students.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Alachi, would you like to come up and then member Master Boney? You can just use Member Graham's microphone or you can...
[Alachie Yeager]: So I just, most of these things are not significant. But I do think that they weren't mentioning. I was just looking through the materials that were provided and in there that's linked to sort of what the activities will be. I can see. I'm being pulled up by now. That just says late activity. I brought this up with Lucy earlier, but it says late activity entries for juniors and seniors, and then also includes freshman information. I don't think that matters very much, but I just want to make sure that that is known. Additionally, I, I want to agree. I think that making sure that this is a really evidence-based approach is important. We wanna look at what other districts are doing. We wanna look at, you know, I definitely agree that there are reasons why this can improve scores, but we wanna make sure that that is actually seen in other districts who adopted this. Because it is a big change and it's not like it requires zero effort to go and do this. So I think that would be something that I would wanna see just in this effort. I don't know if that is, you know, stuff that you've already done, but I just think that that's important. I think that's my major concern.
[FQmLWv7cB1A_SPEAKER_07]: I appreciate that and I agree.
[Mike Mastrobuoni]: Thank you. In the same vein, I'm really interested to hear how this pilot goes in late May or June, what the experience is, specifically to what students are coming in, what students are not, what did we learn. Seems like a great plan. I'm happy to support it. Thank you.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Member Reinfeld?
[Erika Reinfeld]: What are our opt-out rates in 10th grade? I'm wondering what this looks like for students who are not taking the MCAS but are not in 9th grade or 11th and 12th and wondering if there's a component of de-incentivizing taking the MCAS when the alternative is to have a half day do team building. So what does it look like for 10th graders?
[FQmLWv7cB1A_SPEAKER_07]: So there's very few, I mean I think that's also a report back on exact numbers but there are There are none that I, I know of who used, you know, who said they were opting out. I mean, I think we carried a few absences. But I can get the exact information and, and share back.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I mean, mostly I'm wondering what it looks like for those students, regardless of how many there are. Yep.
[FQmLWv7cB1A_SPEAKER_07]: I mean, I think that It's hard to know. I mean, I think, right, just sort of not having done, I may feel a lot comes in doing some good checking with districts who have been doing this for quite some time and seeing what is it that they see and what are the sort of stress points and the like.
[Marta Cabral]: And just to add into that, I think, you know, we had very few if any opt outs last year, but we have worked really closely administration with the grade 10 teachers and really sharing the importance of working hard. and showing your skills at the MCAS, not because it's a graduation requirement. And I think many of us have our own personal opinions about MCAS testing, but really showing where they are and the grow and glow areas for their learning at Medford High School. And I think the more that the teachers have had conversations about that, the more students are understanding why we need them to perform their best. Because like I said, we haven't had any opt-outs as of right now, and we didn't have any last year either.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay. And with the new conditions, do you think there's a change in the pressure being placed on students?
[FQmLWv7cB1A_SPEAKER_07]: So I think So one thing I think is important about our new district policy is that their participation is required. That's a graduation requirement. So basically that you have participated in the test. And we are all encouragement and all prep and trying to boost them to do the very best they can to have the success, to build up their own resumes, to take pride in what they accomplished. I mean, it's a hard question to know exactly what types of pressures they're feeling. I mean, they're certainly not feeling the past pressures where it's sort of, you know, what could really feel like a do or die. So I think we've been able to really, you know, like Marta mentioned, just find ways to get them to give it their absolute all. And what we're hoping here is obviously to clear interference where, you know, that's, I mean, we definitely have seen where there's matters where something is, you know, the more interference, the more difficult it can become, you know, emotionally for the child. And, you know, we're hoping that this approach, you know, really just clears the space, keeps it positive. You know, and I worry less about sort of the opt-outs. It's not something we've really had to, you know, had to deal with in the past. And maybe that was because it was always required and, you know, everyone sort of says the same thing in preparation for it.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Through the chair, could I just extend one thing to that? I know it's been said, but I do want to just echo, and I completely understand the different feelings or beliefs that people bring to this, but we're still a public school system. We are still bound by the Department of Education's regulations, and they are using MCAS as part of our accountability measure. There are many professions in life in which there are regular testing opportunities or requirements in order to keep licenses, in order to qualify for the profession. So I also think, like, even at the younger ages, teaching students, to Mr. Blouk's point, how to persevere and how to have adequate test taking skills is important. I think part of this pilot is to the work that Principal Cabral just talked about that she's doing with the grade 10 team. MCAS is not an organic situation. Students take their tests with teachers. Part of this is having that kind of 360 view for students so that they're not just in a room with a proctor. They're in the room with their teacher or they have eyesight of their teacher who has been the one teaching them through the year in that said content area. And part of that familiarity is we're hoping going to be a little bit more effective in having to do the MCAS for our students. I would say personally, my students did attend a district in which this was used. And so the late entry arrival was something that my own children encountered, but I would say they did not have a freshman seminar. And I think they would have really benefited in their freshman year from some conversations around decision-making, executive functioning skills, team building. Freshman year brings a lot of developmental issues and insecurities. And I think having space for just freshmen to come and be able to work with staff and one another is just going to benefit them. throughout the high school trajectory. But we are happy to provide not only the data from other districts around the effectiveness, but to remember Master Boney's comment, too, about what's the data for that lived experience after the fact.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Oh, I was just going to say yes. And I appreciate how thoughtful this is, and I support piloting it. And with any pilot initiative, I want to hear how it goes after the fact. But I know my colleagues have a couple more comments and questions.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Member Graham and then Alecci.
[Jenny Graham]: Thank you. I am just connecting all this to a presentation that Dr. Talbot gave us a few weeks ago, actually. She is the first person who has made MCAS sound relevant to me in all of these years. And for those of you who don't remember what she was talking about, she talked about MCAS as an important way to understand grade level performance versus like how you are doing in your class so that we're not we're not inflating our our thoughts about how we're doing right because we're sort of creating our own tests and we're giving our own tests and we know the kids and so all of those like biases come in with teachers right and it's natural and they care about their kid the kids in their class And so this happens. And MCAS gives you like sort of contrasting data that says we may all be getting A's but are we on grade level. Right. And that's like the first time anyone has said anything compelling in all the years to me about MCAS. Having said that, I also, I had a conversation with a parent just yesterday who was saying, we were talking about SATs, to your point about like testing, right? And like, how is my student, a straight A student, but can't crack a certain place on the SATs? There's grade inflation happening that is making us artificially believe that this student is somewhere that maybe they're not. And the standardized test sort of like lays that out, right? So all that to say, MCAS is what it is. We have to do it. I'm totally fine with that. I'm totally fine with late entry. The last kind of connecting piece for me is several years ago, we asked for a list of the testing and the preparation for testing. And I want us to revisit the excessive preparation for testing. So if what we care about is our students on grade level, we should be able to assess that whenever it is. We shouldn't need 27 practice tests. We shouldn't need an MCAS prep class. We shouldn't need, you know, and then we have like MAP and this and that. And like from May until June, nothing happens in school but testing. Testing, like prep, testing, recovery from. rinse, repeat for like two months. And that's like every level. And it's just, it's too much. And so every time we call a snow day, I've started to think to myself, well, shoot, we just stole another day from kids because they would have learned something in January. And as my seventh grade nephews will tell me about Plymouth, we're not gonna learn anything in June. We're just gonna watch a movie. And not to say that we're watching movies, but the value is not the same, right? like having a day in January and having a day in June especially because in June all the testing is done so we're done like everyone is out right checked out so I'm totally supportive of this I think it operationally makes sense and I think that has to unfortunately like play a role in how we like manage school but I would And I can even get on board with MCAS as a measure of how we are comparing ourselves. But I would really like us in the next year or so to revisit the excessive preparation and let us stop teaching to the test, because I think we now have permission to not teach to the test. in many ways that we didn't have before, and instead say, like, let's let the test tell us really what's happening, not how are we preparing kids. So I would just like to see us, like, rationalize that piece of it, because I think kids would be happier in school, and I think teachers would be happier in school if they weren't, you know, filling out bubble charts of, you know, multiple choice questions and all that good stuff. So maybe there's some happy medium there that we can get to.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Yep, Dr. Lucey. I just want to make one quick comment. I do think that shift, we will absolutely get that data, but that shift has already happened in terms of not having the prep. I think you may see a few days before some test taking strategies, but we're not, we haven't completely moving away from teaching to the test. I love to hear that.
[Marta Cabral]: Thank you. I can definitely second that is there is a directive as to we are not teaching to the test and that we're using our grade level curriculums to for for pacing and for sequencing. And we use map data to inform us as to like where there are areas for growth. But no, there should be no MCAS prep every single day. We do do some testing strategies because it's helpful the first couple days before the test. But yes, I do not expect going into a classroom and seeing a day of MCAS prep. I sure hope not.
[Suzanne Galusi]: And please know that's district wide. Love that. Not just high school.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Alachi and then member Olapade.
[Alachie Yeager]: I just want to say firstly, thank you to member Graham. That was a lot of what I wanted to say. So I really, really appreciate that. I do think like depending on the class, like I have three days left of Spanish class this quarter. Why is that? Because we have, we have Apple testing, we have national Spanish exam, we have MCAS, right? We barely closed grades for progress reports, right? So I think that we definitely see that. I believe that a large portion of our curriculum in teaching time in these last two years are taken up by not only testing but test preparation. You know, I know that you said I, I'd hate to see a, walk into a class and see test prep periods, but unfortunately that is what's happening. And I'm not saying that that's a bad thing. Maybe we do need to be doing that. But I don't think that anyone is going to say that if you walk into a school and I don't think that we, any of us would be surprised, at least any of our students would be surprised if you were to walk into one of our classes and see a test prep period. I had two, yes, two today. Right? So that's definitely not the case. I, I do think that, you know, these tests do have, like you were saying, they do have value as an objective metric. They do have value as a test taking metric, because unfortunately a lot of the things that people are talking about, I know that we mentioned the SATs. You know, they are testing your content area knowledge, but they're also testing your test taking capabilities. And a lot of these tests do a good job of training us for that, right? Especially since MCAS isn't necessarily a strict requirement anymore. That, that's a good spot to start with that. I also think that math testing provides an important sort of pulse on student proficiency in a lot of different areas. But I do think that a large portion of the second half of the school year is consumed by testing and testing preparation. I think it is disingenuous to say that you, you, that we wouldn't see test prep periods because, like I said, I had two today and, you know. on Friday, I believe I also had two. So we definitely, it is definitely prevalent.
[Marta Cabral]: And just to clarify, there is ELA MCAS coming up on March 23rd and 24th. So I would expect some test prep to be happening these few days leading up to it.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Member Lopate, then Member Parks.
[Aaron Olapade]: Thank you. It's two kind of questions. And I know that the superintendent mentioned it about the way that we interact with the state and the recommendations and proper adherence. Have we consulted with DESE about general guidelines or best practices regarding this late entry? I know that it's mentioned, I think, in bullet point five that many other districts around the state have been doing this already. And so I just want to make sure that we're properly aligning our inclusion of this program with what the state recommends.
[Marta Cabral]: I have not.
[FQmLWv7cB1A_SPEAKER_07]: Go ahead, David. I have not, but again, I think this seems to be a common thread through many of the comments, too. We know what's happening, but to learn more about the specifics and the sort of do's and don'ts that have played out well, the best practices, knowing it's in existence, but getting it beyond the anecdotal seems like feel the right thing to do is stay from here. Thank you.
[Aaron Olapade]: And then the other question it's more just an observation. I know that some community members are rightfully so concerned about safety and security of the schools when people are entering or exiting based off the time of day. Generally speaking with students all entering at the same time there's consideration from professional staff about watching doors and the security of that, with students entering the building at a different time, is there any consideration, and again, I know we're talking about this as a pilot, so we're gonna be considering this, about making sure that we are being careful about the folks who are walking in the building, making sure that they're who they're supposed to be.
[FQmLWv7cB1A_SPEAKER_07]: Again, I'm very glad you brought that up, as we need to look at that 11-27 as another start. on, on these days and to, you know, line up security and administration accordingly. So, no, I appreciate, I appreciate that and, and I'm right there with you. Absolutely. Thank you so much. Thank you.
[Suzanne Galusi]: I just want to know, Marta, if you want, Principal Cabral, if you want to comment on that. I do know the arrival every day, the administration leverages the administrative assistants in the office and they are in the lobby present for when students come in. I'm assuming that that is a similar process that they would follow on this day.
[Marta Cabral]: Yes. So we would only have one entrance into the building. Normally we have several doors open in the mornings before school starts. So they would all enter through the main lobby where we would have to track their attendance for the day by our administrative assistants.
[Aaron Olapade]: Wonderful. Thank you.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Member Parks.
[Jessica Parks]: Just a quick question. The yellow school bus late arrival, is that something that is feasible? Has that been explored? And then go ahead.
[Marta Cabral]: So I had, sorry, being on Zoom is just weird. I apologize for interrupting. I had spoke with our transportation manager before I had even written this proposal because I thought that there was no point if I hadn't. And he said that that shouldn't be a problem because all the other school buses would have already done their drop-offs. We still have logistics to this before any messaging goes out to any caregivers. We would make sure that we do have secured the yellow bus for our students. And we are working with the MBTA as well to see if they'd be able to do what they normally do and drive up to the high school to do the drop-off. If not, there is drop-off at the bottom of the street.
[Jessica Parks]: Perfect. And I just want to say this was laid out so clearly and easy to understand. And as a nervous test taker, it's an awesome proposal. So thanks. Appreciate that. Thank you.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. I think we have a motion on the floor by Member Ruseau. Is there a second? Okay, Alachi?
[Alachie Yeager]: One thing was that I just wanted to emphasize that when I said earlier that we should collect, we should look at the data for other districts and see if it's improved. I believe that that is something that should be looked at before. This note, we agree on passing this motion because I think that we do not wanna, you know, pass something like this and then go back afterwards and see, hey, you know, this doesn't, this doesn't necessarily cause meaningful improvement. I don't think we're gonna see that it's detrimental necessarily given that it's so widely prevalent, but I, I do think that it's an important consideration before necessarily this gets vote on. One of our other student reps was saying that they personally feel that A lot of the fact that we administer so many tests and the fact that it calls attention a bit to the fact that MCAS doesn't necessarily matter as a graduation requirement. Like I think they said that maybe people feel a bit tired, especially just because they're being tested so much. And like a lot of the AP tests, for example, you only really start reviewing a couple, like a week or two or three before the actual test, right? There isn't this sort of constant Let's write an MCAS practice essay in December sort of situation. I believe that that is it as of this point.
[Suzanne Galusi]: The only thing that I would say it's a very valid point but there is also a lot of planning regarding the transportation piece. I did want to mention that Mr. Evans Schwartz who was our former transportation manager has left the district and relocated. So we have gone through a search process. Ms. Ina Williams has been hired. She has extensive experience in this transportation field. She has worked for two to three other school districts. I believe she's starting Monday the 23rd, so we will make sure that we introduce her to this body and to the community. She will take over a lot of this work that Mr. Evan Schwartz has done. So there is a little bit of that overlap in terms of making sure that she's brought up to speed, having conversations with both Eastern Bus as well as the MBTA. And I think we were very intentional on calling this a pilot. We're asking for your approval for a pilot program, not for something that is permanent. We want to see how this could potentially work to benefit our students. We are happy to keep regular data and evolve and adapt this. as we gather that data. But I would ask that we do motion so that we can begin planning and we don't have a short runway to just make sure that this could be an effective pilot. But I'm definitely happy to bring back to this body the data from the lived experience at the end of the year.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Member Reinfeld and then we'll call the roll.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I think there's a motion on the table. I think we can potentially make the motion to authorize the Central and High School Administration to take the steps necessary to implement this pilot. And that is pending, the actual administering of the pilot can be pending those arrangements and that data. I think we can authorize you to take the steps needed to implement and implement once the pieces are in place. Does that seem reasonable?
[Suzanne Galusi]: So I just want to make sure we know the date. So then you would want us to have all that data at a May meeting prior to the testing? Because I would just need to know.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Well, I think to implement once those steps have been taken, I think. implement contingent on. This is similar to the middle school study, which is the intent is to implement this unless it is found that it cannot be implemented.
[Jenny Graham]: Mayor. Member Graham. I'm fine with the motion as it was originally written. I don't want to like over complicate this pilot. So I just I want to and I don't like to tell people like go prepare to do work and then we might like yank out from underneath you the ability to like carry it through. So I think this is like a really low stakes. pilot situation, so I would not be in favor of that amendment, but I'm happy to vote on whichever motion comes to the floor.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I was looking for compromise. I am also comfortable with the pilot as written, so. Alachi?
[Alachie Yeager]: I do want to agree with Member Reinfeld. I do agree that it does make implementation more difficult. I do agree that we do not necessarily want to pull the rug out from anyone, like you were saying. I do think that the main issue that Dr. Galusi brought up was that is the timeline, right? We want to make sure that we start moving on this so that it can be as good as possible of a pilot. I do think I still, again, harbor concerns that we came up here and we are proposing this without showing, oh, you know, like this has had a meaningful improvement in other districts. Because I do not wanna come up here and say that this is a free thing to do. I don't think it's, I don't think it's low stakes. I think that there's a lot of logistics and stuff that needs to happen in order for this to, to occur, right? This is a big change from protocol we've done previously. It involves, you know, maybe extra security, involves transportation, involves a lot of areas of the school. So I, I, I don't agree that this is something that is easily changed. And that's part of the reason why we need to start on it earlier, necessarily. But I, I, I do think that what, I do agree that it is more complicated, but in my opinion, what Member Reinfeld proposed would allow for us to start on the implementation as soon as possible to ensure a better pilot program while also leaving room for if we feel that, you know, maybe there's unforeseen consequences later down the pipeline. It doesn't really hurt us much to do this. I do agree that it does make it more complicated though.
[Paul Ruseau]: Thank you. Is there a second? Yes. Is there a second?
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Original motion. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes. Thank you everybody. Thank you Mr. Paul.
[Marta Cabral]: Thank you.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Assistant Principal Blough, and thank you, Principal Cabral. Next up, we have our report on enrollment and revenue estimates for the fiscal year 27 budget. I'll invite Noelle Velez, Director of Finance, and Gerry McCue, our Financial Analysts, up. And I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Galusi to start us off. Thank you.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Thank you so much. I just wanted to provide a little bit of context and thanks to Budget Analyst, Mr. Gerry McCue. finance director, Mr. Noel Velez. They've done a lot of work and had several meetings. There are still many more to come, but I do want to just say thank you to them for their leadership and their collaborative work they've had. Lots of discussion and meetings with school leaders, department leaders, central leaders. It's been a real partnership and a collaboration. And tonight's presentation is the first of a series as we have here in Medford that you're going to see that's going to ultimately lead to the district's formal budget proposal. Our goal this evening is to just begin laying the foundation to this work by providing a conversation for everyone around the key factors and things that are leading into our budget development. And I just wanted to make sure that I said thank you. It's a lot of work and a lot of meetings, and I greatly appreciate it. So thank you.
[Noel Velez]: Oh, thank you very much, Superintendent. Thank you everyone for attending today. I know I'm very excited to get this. All this hard work put in a presentation, sometimes it doesn't fully come through, so we're gonna try our best here both by presenting, having what we feel are transparent slides, and of course, answering any and all questions y'all have. Today we'll be going over enrollment, enrollment projections, format for public schools, our Chapter 70, special revenue funds, grants at both the federal, state, and private level. revenue fundings, where we are currently sitting in some of our revenue balances, net school spending, and just a preview of new spending, which will be part of our next presentation of Committee of the Whole. And with all that being said, I'm going to turn it over to Jerry right now, who will go over the enrollment and how we came to this process.
[Gerry McCue]: Thank you, Noel, and thank you for making the time for this meeting. This kind of follows a practice we've been utilizing over the last three years to talk about the kind of the external factors that influence our budget development. I'd also like to thank our principals and directors throughout the district who have participated in many meetings and have come prepared to describe their needs and kind of working with us, will continue to work with us as we develop a final recommendation from the superintendent. So the first thing we do is when there's a, every school district files quarterly enrollment reports. We look at the October 1 report because that That report is the foundation of the foundation budget development, which is part of the Chapter 70 program. One thing we're looking at is The births that are associated with the birth year that's associated with the students entering kindergarten next year, the births are down from the prior year by 110. I will say that we, just as a general comment on enrollment, began to see a trend in 2024 that influenced us to think about that we were on kind of an upward trajectory with enrollment, particularly in the low grades, and that trajectory appears to have peaked off. For some of our schools, the kindergarten enrollment that we predicted did not materialize. So as we do every year, we get a fresh set of enrollment numbers on October 1, and we recalibrate our model to account for that new enrollment. So we're using 50% of the births five years ago to predict the total kindergarten enrollment. And then this year, we did an analysis of how many kindergarten students does each school take out of that total enrollment. So for instance, the Brooks typically gets about a third of the total number of kindergarten students that come into our kindergarten in any given year. So we are forecasting kindergarten enrollment of 295 for next year, and that's 40 students less than what we predicted. in FY26 and it's 17 students less than the actual number of kindergartners that we had in October 1. So these next couple of slides will give you what our projections are for each grade level. And you could see something we've talked about the last couple of budgets where we kind of have this pattern of we have a low kindergarten and then we have a high kindergarten and then the next year we have a low kindergarten. So you see those numbers bear out as those grades start to move up. So on the next slide, we'll see the grade six through 12 enrollment, and I think what we might see for the next couple of years is the enrollment in the middle schools trending higher a little bit because there were some above average enrollments in FY23, FY24 in the elementary grades, and those grades are starting to hit the middle school grades now. And then these slides will be the same data, although by school. So we can see some in those two schools that are going down, the McGlynn and the Roberts, are really due to lower than expected kindergarten classes versus what we predicted in FY26. And then you see the middle schools trending up a little bit, and Medford High School just has a net loss. And that's oftentimes what happens is that the eighth grade is lower than the 12th grade going out. Curtis Tufts is fairly stable. But you can see on this, the total enrollment, you can see that we are trending down slightly in overall enrollment. And then we do have some preliminary class sizes and this is an area that we're still working on for the total, for the budget proposal. But the two numbers represent what the class size is for regular ed classes. And then the second number is an assumption that any student in special needs subseparate classes or newcomer classes when they go to specialists, the goal is to have those students included with the regular ed students. And so this suggests that if the maximum amount of students went into those specialist classes, what would the class size look like from the specialist perspectives? And you can see the differential for the three schools that have the newcomers program. because that's a little bit larger population. Those class schools have the greatest differential between regular teachers and specialists. But it's something that we keep an eye on. We don't want them to get too low. We certainly don't want them to get high. We're cognizant of the maximum class sizes in the collective bargaining agreement. So all that is looked at as we go forward. And then it's a good time, too, to look at charter school enrollment. And you just want to be confident that we're not losing an excessive number of students to charter schools. And for some reason, if the trend reversed and we were getting a lot of schools into the Medford district, we'd certainly want to know about that for staffing purposes. But the good news here is that The charter enrollment is fairly stable and is trending down over the last two years, so that means more money stays within the Medford School District. Then choice enrollment is another feature. Some school districts will open up their enrollment to other districts and that's called the school choice program. a couple of students at the Essex Agricultural School, and of course Minuteman is tuitioned out. That's not really choice, but, well, it's a form of choice. But what was interesting here is that there are two statewide virtual schools that serve K through 12, and the enrollment there has really dropped off significantly. You know, the virtual schools at one time, you know, were more in favor with parents, you know, that wanted their students to be taught at home. And it looks like they're maybe falling out of favor now. Okay.
[Noel Velez]: Thank you very much, Jerry, for all that information. Next up, we're going to talk a little bit about our Chapter 70 spending. regarding our foundation enrollment, foundation budget, required district contribution, Chapter 78 and required net school spending. If we can go to the next slide. So here, as Jerry was talking about earlier, where our enrollment is Slowly declining, we're looking at a difference of 25 students total from fiscal year 25 to fiscal year 26 based on our October 1 reports and what we're projecting for kindergarten and our graduating class. Our foundation budget, as you can see, is up 3.4 million. Our required district contribution is up 3.3 million, and our Chapter 70 state aid is only up $336,000. Required net school spending, which is something that we do, we as a school district have to spend. this amount of money at minimum required as a state as a whole for us to keep to be DESE compliant. And we do this through our end of year reporting where we show DESE that we have met these needs through making sure every penny that we do have is spent properly for all of our student needs. And next year we're projecting $83 million. So a difference of 3.6 million from what we'll be reporting this October when fiscal year 26 funding numbers will be uploaded into the DESE portal.
[Gerry McCue]: I just want to make one comment on foundation enrollment. Foundation enrollment includes all students from Medford, including charter school students and choice students. The earliest slides on enrollment is just our district, so you may notice that there's some differences between this enrollment total and the district enrollment, and that's what accounts for it.
[Noel Velez]: Thank you for that, Jerry. On the next slide, I just want to remind everyone about our Stabilization Fund Utilization Plan. the funding given to us by the great voters here in Medford. So right now, in this fiscal year, we'll be adding approximately $1,085,000 into our budget, which will give our total budget fiscal year 26 of $86,575,549. and will give us an extra $750,000 for next year's budget. And the last piece of it will go into fiscal year 28 of $350,000. But this is just something to keep in mind as our base budget continues to grow and how we're going to continue to utilize the stabilization funds regarding our teacher steps and lane increases and also some of the new stipends that we added to our CBAs. Next up we're going to go over some special revenue fund accounts. These are accounts that. that we keep track of, that we report to DESE, but are not part of our general ledger. So we have IDEA, which is part of the special education program. Currently, we were awarded 1.3 million within this budget. We have some staff, 1.75 to be exact. We keep out-of-district tuition here, collaborative and non-collaborative schools. We use this grant also to pay a lot of those tuitions, which is very helpful. We have our course, our ESSA, titles one, two, three, and four, which came in at just over a million dollars. We have a lot of our title one reading teachers on this grant. We also provide supplies and materials that the superintendent and Dr. Talbot deem best qualified to help support Medford Public Schools throughout this fiscal year. We've got, of course, our Perkins CTE grant, which is overseen by Chad and Susan Callahan, came in at just over half a million. We do not put any salaries towards this, as this is mainly used for our skills grants, which we buy supplies depending on each program. This year, Chad has been using that for our sheet metal and our automotive program to update a lot of their equipment. And we also put in, hoping to get back some information soon from DESE, we put in for next fiscal year a new Perkins expansion grant for $2.2 million, which we're hoping will fund a new plumbing program. that we believe will not only get our enrollment up, but also keep some of our students who were not able to get first choice in other programs such as electricity and carpentry, which we know are at full capacity right now. So we're hoping that with this grant gets through, we'll have a new plumbing program to provide for our students and also other funding opportunities for the CTE to continue to grow as we're looking forward to the expansion of the program as a whole with the new school being built. Next up, we got a couple other small federal grants that we got. We got a special support earmark grant, which we bought a vehicle for the Curtis Tufts, and we also bought some sound equipment. We have our McKinney-Vento homeless education, which is used to support any student who is homeless for anything that is not deemed within the school district. So any type of after school transportation, after school programming, tutoring, things of that nature, we can support them to continue to make sure that they are still included in the community, even though they may not live here for the moment. And of course, we have our last, we have our world language proficiency, which is we use for our French, Italian, and Spanish students to take their biliteracy exams and also support them in other areas as they continue to gain their language proficiency. Next up, we go over, we got some state grants, of course. We've got Circuit Breaker, which is our reimbursement for anything that DESE deems special education reimbursable, whether it's through our transportation funding or services we provide for special education. So this is kind of a almost as a reimbursement where we put in, Joan does a fantastic job of uploading all the data. Once they receive it, they spit it out, and they give us a certain percentage back. So we got back 3.1 million, which Joan and myself used to support any expenses that we either are not projecting we did not budget for because we had a late move in or we had a student who went to another collaborative or even a private school which was a tuition may have been higher than we originally budgeted for. And same thing we got our homeless transportation reimbursement which we use to supplement some of our budget. Continuing, we got a comprehensive school health service grant, which is overseen by Jen Silva. With this grant, she purchases a lot of what are called big ticket items that are not one-time use. So she uses it to... to help out the nursing program and continue to buy certain materials for the nursing program. Not as band-aids, but more like AEDs and things of that nature that can be used multiple times. She also keeps a salary in there to support the nursing program. We've got a few other, we've got a new grant that just came in this year, our supervising clinic incentive grant. We have our cyber security grant overseen by Molly. And of course we have our CFCE grant, which is $180,000, which sadly will be going away at the end of this fiscal year. So that is something that we are keeping tabs on and trying to figure out what would be best, what would be the next best moves from every public schools as we lose a big chunk of that money. Next up, we have a few private grants that are overseen in the business office by myself, Gerald McHugh, and the assistant business manager, and a few other people who are assigned to these grants. You'll see here two negatives right now. One of those negatives is the Cummings Foundation. through our own internal audit, we believe there might be a $35,000 deposit missing, which we're currently working with the town CFO and the treasury to locate that. Secondly, you'll see there the Children's Trust MFN at a negative 14,000. What's tricky about that grant is you have to spend all the money first, and then you get reimbursed, and we have what's called a 90-day receipt program. So when we finish our reporting in July, And we submitted it. The money, the funds didn't technically come in until October. So when we do our 90 day receipt, which ends on September 30th, it didn't, it didn't show those funds, but we are, you know, we're confident in saying that that account currently is positive because we were reimbursed that extra $15,000 that we spent in May and June. It just didn't come in for during that 90 day receipt time. Next up, we got a few more revolving accounts. These are from the vocational program, which are looking very healthy and good. As you see here in the culinary program, we have approximately just over $300,000. Some of those fundings will be used to cover two salaries from the vocational program, which we talked about when we gave our original budget presentation for fiscal year 26 to help stabilize it and keep it level funded. by June or July, you'll see that number go down when we do a journal entry for those two salaries. Continuing with our revolving funds, we've got before and after school, MEEP, short tuition, and the parent and childhood account, which also supports the MFN. grants, which also supports and supplements some of the MFN grants items that they cannot due to just the strictness of the MFN program and how we have to use certain grants. So that money right there, we try to hit it as little as possible to continue to support that program. As that is one-time funding and once that funding is gone, we won't be replenishing that line. Last in it, we've got our school athletics, Edgerly Field and community schools, which are looking really good right now. A lot of work has been done with the new athletic director, myself and the superintendent in the community schools to make sure that invoices are being sent out properly, all programs are paying. what needs to be paid and that the deposits are going to the correct account. So we're not seeing the negatives that we were seeing the previous fiscal years that we were reporting. Regarding the pool, which is still at a negative, sadly, I'm glad to say that we did see a net positive of $54,000 last year. So we're hoping that we can continue that net positive that by the next time we're meeting and talking about revolving funds, we can continue to lower this number as we just continue to look at proper ways of keeping the pool open at certain hours that are both great for the community, but also fiscally responsible for the school district. Yeah, go ahead.
[Gerry McCue]: So this is something that came up in the school retreat, the school committee retreat. And a question came up. It's often talked about the city does contribute beyond the minimum required by DESE net school spending. But the question is how much and what do they spend their money on and this is what the city reports on our end of year report for what they spend on behalf of the school department and it's employee retirement contributions so a lot of our paraprofessionals, custodians, security, some of our non-unit administrators are members of the Medford Retirement System, so that's part of the retirement contribution that's made on behalf of the school department. Health insurance, of course, is a big ticket item. There's also, you know, the city also pays for school department employees who are now retired and they get, they're eligible for health insurance as well. They also pay for the charter tuition and the choice tuition. And then the state provides a little bit of money for tuition reimbursement. So it's close to $26 million is spent on behalf of the school department in the city budget. And then, okay.
[Paul Ruseau]: Thank you. I'm sorry to interrupt you, Jerry, but I thought the city never saw a single penny of the charter tuition dollars when that is subtracted prior to the city receiving its money.
[Gerry McCue]: Yes, but it's so.
[Paul Ruseau]: But it's counted in the net school spending.
[Gerry McCue]: Yeah. We have an allocation of Chapter 70 that goes to the city, and the state will deduct the charter school amount of the Chapter 70 and send it directly to the schools. In the accounting of it, the full Chapter 70 is accounted as coming in, and then the charter school tuition is counted as an expense.
[Paul Ruseau]: Okay, thank you. That's fascinating accounting, I'm sure. You all understand it, and it's just another way of making it not like the state is just paying for charter schools, because it's really our money, but we never see it. Like in real life, there's no other scenario where that's a thing, right?
[Gerry McCue]: Well, charter schools are public schools, so. OK. Well, let's not go there. Thank you. And then the next slide, because a second question came up at the retreat. How does Medford compare to other school districts in terms of the above net school spending? MedFed falls on the higher end, but in the middle, there's two districts that contribute more than MedFed in their net school spending requirement, and then there's three districts that spend less than MedFed. I just wanted to follow up with that topic that came up at the retreat. Yeah.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yeah. May I ask a question from the chair? Are you, are you done or? No, no, no. We still got two more, but if you have a question. Oh, you got two more. Okay, sorry. Go. Okay.
[Noel Velez]: No problem. Thank you. And then just to kind of give a quick summary of what we're going to be talking about next and what are a few things on the agenda for the next committee of the whole. Go to the next slide. Thank you. We're going to talk about some new spending requests and increase the current budget. Just to give you an idea of what those numbers represent and what they look like, of course, we'll have much more detail in our next presentation. But it's always great to just have an idea of what's coming up. So when you read that provided funds for salary and step increases, that is based on current CBAs that have been agreed upon, where we reviewed everyone's steps in current lanes, and we also looked at Any salary adjustments that would be needed, and that was the total number we came out to. Funds unavoidable for cost increases, just to give you a few ideas of what's coming up. We've got the access classes over in the McGlynn Middle School, which were added on later in the budget year. We've got two Curtis Tufts teachers currently who are charged to a tuition reimbursement line, which once that account gets to zero, which we believe will be this fiscal year, we'll be taking over those two salaries in the general ledger budget. We've got a few one-on-one paras for students with IEPs who've moved into the district throughout the school year. We've got two at the Missituk, one at the Brooks, one at the Roberts, and one at the high school currently. We've got, of course, yellow bus rate increases, which we project that to be about $100,000 more, just based off this fiscal year to next fiscal year. That is just to keep the current buses we have available. That is not to add any new bus routes. We're also moving eight paras from the before and after school revenue line into the general ledger. So that's going to beef up that number a little bit. Also, just to go over some things in facilities and operations. We've got the cleaning contract, which will be about $200,000 higher next fiscal year compared to this fiscal year. And we're just based on what we're getting right now. We're looking at about a 25% increase in utilities for both heat and electricity, just based on what we were at last fiscal year to this fiscal year and just trying to continue to figure out, trying to put a good dart on that number for next year, which is always hard to predict, but we're doing the best we can to project that. And then, of course, we've got our school-based initiatives, which is, those are new requests from our principals and directors based on proposals for either new FTE positions, certain types of curriculums they would like to see increase. And last but not least, you know, one thing we really wanna keep talking, we wanna keep looking into, is supporting our whole staff with some professional and curriculum development initiatives which would increase us, which we're looking to increase that by another $176,000 based on last year's budget. And that is our... First presentation of Committee of the Whole. Any questions? I'd love to answer them.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: From the chair, if I may, on the enrollment data, now that we've learned the sad news about St. Joseph's School closing, I believe at the end of this school year, did you take that into account at all, or were these done prior to?
[Gerry McCue]: Yeah, these were done prior to, but we are trying to get information of what their current enrollment is. so we can make sure we factored that in.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Okay. Dr. Lucy.
[Suzanne Galusi]: We are going to get more specifics to the grade levels, but I do know just from Gabby DaCosta in our registration office that she has received some registrations coming in from St. Joseph's. It's not We're not seeing it in the kindergarten numbers necessarily, but we are seeing it sprinkled throughout the grade level spans. We can get that, that data for you drilled down at each grade level.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. And one more question with regards to the Medford Family Network. I believe school side administration has met with them with the issues they're going to face next year financially due to reduction in their grant I think that they've had for 10 years, so I know we're going to probably be working collaboratively on that, but any insight you can give us, the city side or the committee now, because I don't know if the whole committee is aware that they have run out of that main grant that they do operate out of, I believe potentially three positions. What conversations you've had so far?
[Noel Velez]: Yeah. Do you want to talk on that, Superintendent? Oh, sure. Yeah. So we have met. I meet monthly with Irina just to go over her grant total as a whole and to go over her budget and salaries. Last week, she met with myself, the superintendent, Marie Cassidy, Megan Fidler-Carey, and Jerry. We all kind of just brainstormed, kind of looking at what it looks like as a whole. So she did provide for us some preliminary numbers based on people's salaries, what they've done so far for the community, what programs they want to continue to run for the communities. And we're just looking at that number and the goal is to kind of take what she's going to submit for what grants are still open. Minus what it costs as a total, and then we'll have a cleaner number. We're hoping by the end of April to kind of, as you said, collaborate with the city and figure out how we can close in that gap so that this program can continue to support all the Medford residents.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, thank you. And then my last question before I go to the committee and Elachi is, You mentioned increases to, I think you said gas and electric. We also have, I think a 13 to 14% increase in health insurance, which obviously is on the city side. Did you factor in a potential hike in cleaning costs due to an ordinance that the city council might be passing?
[Noel Velez]: Yes, we factored in about $200,000 based on the current contract to what we're projecting at the moment, yes.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, thank you. Members of the committee, do you have any questions before I go to Elachi? Member Graham?
[Jenny Graham]: Can you, I found it very helpful that you added the chart about, net school spending that sits in the city budget. I think that's like really opaque to a lot of people. So I appreciate that. Can you add a column that assigns like a number of staff who are participating in some way. So I'm just trying to quantify like how many how many staff for which are the is the city contributing to retirement. So because we have the most people. I think it would follow that we have the most retirement folks but I don't think that's actually true. So I would like to know I would like to understand like how many are how many are we in this category as a percentage of the city's sort of overall population and same thing for health insurance like how many active. folks do we have on health insurance versus how many retirees we have on health insurance, again, as a percentage of who all is in the pool so that we can understand that impact.
[Gerry McCue]: OK. And typically what happens is for the retirement side, most of our staff are members of the teacher's retirement system, so they're excluded. The rest of them go to Medford Retirement, but that's also where the city DPW is, the city firefighters. So on the retirement side, we tend to be smaller than we are on the health insurance side.
[Jenny Graham]: I think that's what I'm trying to help people understand.
[Gerry McCue]: Yeah, and we do have a number of people that the city offers an opt-out incentive to not take health insurance. So we could add that in too.
[Jenny Graham]: Great, that would be very helpful. The other thing that I wanted to call some attention to that is starting to bubble up from the MSBA project is about the pool. So we run in the red, and I want to just put a fine point on that, like the pool is not a profit center for MPS, is that fair? And when the pool runs in the red, how do we cover the cost?
[Gerry McCue]: Well, I think the main goal is we try to catch up with rate increases. This year, I met with Rachel Perry, and we took a look back three years on pool revenues and expenses. With the pool, we have a structural deficit. We don't collect enough money for the staff we're deploying to meet hours of operation. In addition, pool chemicals have increased tremendously. We could also look, I think the goal was to try to make enough money within the pool to cover the high school's use of the pool, but that's not happening. So we could begin to budget some money in the high school budget for pool use. So it's not, we're kind of a fiscal agent for community benefit. And if the pool was a separate entity like the rink is, we would probably have to pay some rent or some charges. So that might be a way to try to balance the budget. But I think what I talked to Rachel about was we have to look at increasing the rates, but we should really look at the hours of operation and initially it seemed like it's well used early in the morning but maybe less so at 7, 7.30 at night. So that might be an opportunity to shave some labor costs in combination with a rate increase.
[Jenny Graham]: Thank you. I'm completely I don't use the pool myself but I am completely in favor of that being a community resources resource that we manage like as a fiscal agent. I just am not in favor of extracting money from the budget for educating kids to cover a community resource. I want to make sure like that is. not upside down. And I think there's a lot of people who believe the pool is very profitable. And I'm just saying it out loud because it's not true. So there's a million myths around the pool in particular, including how it was paid for and what shape it's in. And that misinformation is, I think, going to pop up a lot. So I just want to be able to be ready for people to understand what the actual financials are there so that if asked, we can provide an accounting of that.
[Gerry McCue]: Yeah, we haven't really done a deep dive on mechanical deferred maintenance or improvements that need to be done that would be way outside the membership fees that we charge.
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah. And I think the other, you know, in a similar vein, right, the MFN, we are like a fiscal agent, essentially, like making that program like move forward and it's been able to sustain itself. But, you know, we do need to, as a community, figure out how to fund MFN. I don't see that solely as a district problem. I see that as a city problem, because most of the kids served by the MFN are not even yet school-age students, and it's a wonderful resource, and I want to see it continue, but I want a bigger tent for folks to come with their creative ideas and purses, so we can fund that.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. I think member Master Boney, member Parks, and then I just heard member Rousseau. That's what I saw hands.
[Mike Mastrobuoni]: Sure, thank you. I'll start with one. Obviously, the biggest red flag is using one-time revenues to support the operating budget. You sort of sandwich the real issue that we see with school funding. And we're not alone in Medford. This is happening across the Commonwealth. But using $750,000 in stabilization funds, I think the drawdown plan is great. I like that that's the way to go. We want to get there. But then, you know, I think I'm using my calculator here, so I might have gotten this wrong, but I see $8.5 million of increased costs on one side. And I think what we heard from the administration was somewhere between a 2.5 and a 3% increase. So I think that's something I'm looking forward to seeing how we're going to figure that out. That's I think the overall biggest red flag for me. I wanted to dig in on.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: If I could, sorry to interrupt you. Sure. It's not any stabilization. This is the stabilization account from the money from the override. Just making sure you knew that, which I believe you do. But it's not like a stabilization account from the general fund.
[Mike Mastrobuoni]: Sure, I understand. But this is still one-time revenue that came in, right? Yeah, I understand. So I wanted to just dig in first and let my colleagues ask their questions. But on revolving funds, we have some really big balances. And you mentioned, I think, one or two are going to have some journal entries, some salaries reducing their balances. But specifically, you know, school lunch, before, after school, Edgerly Field and MEEP. It would be helpful for me in terms of context to understand the trends of where these are coming from and what we identify as a healthy reserve balance for those. Do we feel good about these balances or do we feel like we have room to invest in these resources with the revolving funds? Or do we feel terrible about these balances? They need to grow, right? I want to understand sort of like, do you feel like these are healthy balances across the revolving funds? And do we have target reserve levels for them? For me to kind of understand, is this healthy or not?
[Noel Velez]: Yeah, of course. We'll do this one first. Yeah, no, thank you so much for that. So regarding just the school lunch, so the school lunch of course is a federal program that is audited very closely and those funds can only be used for certain spending requirements. We have right now myself and Bretta Smith meet monthly to kind of go over those. The goal right now is over the next two years to start drawing down some more of those funds to refurbish a lot of our equipment. But we also want to reserve some of those funds for when we build the new high school and we can build the cafeteria that we believe will be up to par with any cafeteria in the state of Massachusetts where I wouldn't have to dip too much into. some of our other funding so we can use that as needed. So that is just regarding that big number when people see 1.5 million in school lunch. That is a really nice number, but we also have to understand that there are certain provisions that are put towards that number that we can't spend as we deem fit. We have to spend it as the federal government deems fit. That only involves our school lunch programs, our cafeterias, staff involving our cafeterias. For an after school program, I do believe that number at one point was close to two million. So we have started looking that number down. We've invested in the after school program, bringing in a consultant. We had a few paras hit that account this fiscal year just to kind of help support the budget as we continue to right size that budget properly. So that after school program, I believe we've done a good enough job with it to kind of properly hit it, but not continue to draw down those funds, because just in case anything that comes in the future. And regarding the MEEP, the number is a little high right now. What that number isn't representing is there is a general entry done based on what the MEEP program does, the square footage they use of the building, the business office, us being their fiscal agent. We do charge them a general entry. That number isn't currently showing based on our electricity bill and everything of that nature. So yeah. So we do use those funds properly to, those revolving funds properly to support our budget as a whole. So I do like those numbers where they are right now. The school lunch one definitely is something we're looking to spend down, but we want to spend it on our equipment and renovating a few of the cafeterias.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Yeah, could I just add on to that? So you buried the lead. Sorry. Director Smith, I think, is well aware of what she's sitting on. And so she actually has been actively looking to renovate a lot of the outside, so not Medford High School clearly, but the other school cafeteria spaces. And she's working with, I'm sorry, between Ken and Noel and Jerry, they may know the name, I'm not quite sure. of the name of the consulting group that she's working with?
[Noel Velez]: They just won the bid like a week ago. Yes, I forgot. Yes.
[Suzanne Galusi]: And so she's, excuse me, what was it? imagining your space. And so she's, I really wanted her to come here and do a presentation. Hopefully too many people are not listening from the Missituk, because that's where she's starting. And they'll be like... It's supposed to be a surprise, you know. Yes, yes. Well, I know, but I am just saying, so she's gonna start at the Missituk and then move from school to school. I think it's like the work to do this, this crew comes in, And they renovate the entire space. They make it very student-centered, very, they kind of weave in the identity of the school while also adding some like educational and historical components. So where it's, and I don't want to give too much away at the Missituk, but their motto is the Missituk Monarch.
[Noel Velez]: Yes.
[Suzanne Galusi]: So there is a plan to spend that down and also beautify and make a little bit more student centered our cafeteria spaces. I would say that I think it's very important on all of these slides there is a date. This before and after school program, Noel mentioned it, but I just really need to like crystallize. There are eight paras being paid out of this account that Mr. McHugh spoke about moving into fiscal. Off this revolving account because they should not be there for the fiscal year 27 budget. So this is not wholly representative of what is in that line right now. Yes we want to preserve a little bit but our goal and all the work we've been doing with basic the consultant that's here. is to be spending this money on enhancing capacity for our community as well as enrichment opportunities for our students. The goal of the after school program is not to make money. it's to have maybe a little reserve, but I just wanted to be very clear that that is not what's representative right now. And I do believe that Ms. Bowen, not that it's for today, but she already has a plan for fiscal year 27 to be increasing some capacities in MEEP by extending some additional seats as well as some full-time enrollment and full time programs like expanding our capacity right now for our MEAP programs.
[Mike Mastrobuoni]: Thanks Superintendent. I understand these are fund balances as of the end of fiscal 25. Seven, eight, nine months have passed since then. I think what's helpful for me and I think is helpful for the community is folks see big numbers in here and they say why aren't we doing anything with this? That's not the case, of course, from what I'm hearing from everyone. There's plans to spend these down, but being able to say, you know, a healthy amount for the culinary program is, I don't know, six months of expenditures, and we maintain that amount as a sort of baseline. Like, trying to understand that would be helpful for me, because what we're looking at here is point in time. So that's kind of where I'm coming from, and I look forward to learning more about this.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Okay. Member Parks and Member Russell.
[Jessica Parks]: I have one question. It might just be clarification. The facilities and operations requirements line item for 600,000 I think is that different from what Mr. Lord came and presented two weeks to meetings ago. I think it was because I think he presented for fiscal year 27 was up to a million dollars worth of work. And is that not getting done?
[Gerry McCue]: And at the next committee of the whole, we're going to do a deep dive into each of these categories. But part of what Mr. Lloyd reported on was capital that are going to go into the capital improvement program. But some of it is over half of that 600,000 is our maintenance contracts for day-to-day maintenance is still underfunded. So that would represent, you know, what we believe is full funding for those contracts.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Member Ruseau.
[Paul Ruseau]: Thank you. The pairs that are being covered by the revolving account are not being included in our net school spending, correct?
[Gerry McCue]: Correct. I just want to make that clear. That number is down. It's way down, yes. It was over 20 were allocated. It's coming down. We're going to have a proposal to get them all off in FY27.
[Paul Ruseau]: This has just been a long eight or nine year process that has had a couple of regressions, but not the last few years, thankfully. where our budget did not in any way, shape, or form reflect what we spent on education. I mean, it was probably a better ballpark than saying my paycheck at my day job covered education, but it was truly very, very far from what we really spent. And, you know, there was a time I think almost all of the pairs at one point were covered in revolving accounts. We had full-time special ed teachers, like regular MTA teachers, who were not actually paid for out of the budget. They were paid for out of revolving accounts. That's just insane because it makes comparison year over year utterly impossible for the school committee or the public to ever know what's going on. When we go up four percent, It's 4% over the last budget, but if we moved a whole pile of people back into the correct place, in order to get to 4%, we really would need far more than 4%. So I'm glad we're getting close. I would like someday before I sail off from school committee to have a budget that reflects actual spending of the public schools. I also just wanted to kind of be a little more blunt about the pool deficits. We are spending money on the pool that we are claiming to the state is being spent to educate kids. Correct. It's in our budget. We find the money from the budget.
[Gerry McCue]: Everything's accounted for in the revolving fund. So we do report revolving fund expenditures, but right now it's not part of the base budget. When the deficit was much larger, when I was director, I had facilities which also didn't have the money, but I had them by because I didn't want to drive up the pool deficit anymore. And I felt that that was comparable to the high school's use of the pool, so it somewhat offset it. But we're kind of getting back to getting all the expenses accounted for within that pool revolving account.
[Paul Ruseau]: Thank you. The budget has to get balanced somehow before the end of the year. I don't think anybody here likes the idea that we took some money from one revolving account and spent it on something other than the revolving account that was expected to be spent on. My understanding, and I know there's Many different kinds of revolving accounts. There are some that the state explicitly in law like outlines what they can be used for. And I just, those ones I would hope we, if there's a dollar in there and the law says it can only be spent a certain way, that we're only spending it that way. So like the food service money, we're not using that to buy pool supplies. Because we'd get audited and that'd be bad. But there are other revolving accounts where we're kind of a little more free to do what we want, which is how we've gotten by. But I think as a community, if we want a pool, we get the money from somewhere other than before and after school. We get it from fees, we get it from a line item from the city for the purposes of a pool or whatever. And then it's crystal clear, we know what it costs, we know where the money comes from and where the money's going. this, you know, revolving account approach to things is the most non-transparent thing on earth. And it isn't that you all don't know what's going on, but there's no budget book to go look at. There's no end-of-year report that will show you this stuff. So I'm just very obsessed with us getting done with saying one thing and then just moving the dollars around in the back room, which I don't mean in the negative, like I said. Nobody's doing anything wrong. It's just not honest.
[Gerry McCue]: We do everything we can to get all our revolving accounts out of deficit by the end of the year and be in compliance with what those revolving funds are. But from an accounting perspective, All the revolving accounts are in one fund. So if we have a small deficit in the pool, we have surpluses in all our other accounts. So it's looked at on a bottom line basis. We're still positive. OK.
[CsSw9Cunt1k_SPEAKER_16]: Thank you.
[Gerry McCue]: Yep.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Elachi. Yes, Elachi was next.
[Alachie Yeager]: I'm going to keep this one very quick. I just want to agree with Rousseau, just that we want to be as transparent as possible. I think that sometimes I've been here, I've watched these meetings last year and also been here this year, and I have seen a lot of what you guys talked about, right? Even if it's not malicious, charging it to the chemicals to buildings is, you know, maybe not as obvious just from an interested citizen's perspective, even if it does accurately reflect how much we want to, how much of the funds from which place we want to delegate to the pool. The one thing that I noticed when I was looking over this material earlier and then also now was just that a lot of the numbers in the slideshow are in parentheses. And they just wasn't explained what that meant. Could you elaborate? Some of them were red.
[Gerry McCue]: In accounting, that signifies something that's in a negative balance.
[Alachie Yeager]: Okay. There was just one that I thought was interesting because most of them were red, but one of them was not. Yeah, in the net school spending. Is that the last charter reimbursement?
[Jenny Graham]: It's just in black type instead of in red type.
[Alachie Yeager]: Is it just, is it just, it doesn't matter, it's fine.
[Jenny Graham]: The 720,000.
[Alachie Yeager]: Oh, the 720, yeah.
[Jenny Graham]: It should be in red, right?
[Alachie Yeager]: Okay, but it's not, it's not something else.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, thank you so much. A member, Master Boney.
[Mike Mastrobuoni]: Sorry, I just have a couple quick questions, hopefully. If I can pull my notes up. What's our risk assessment right now for federal and state grants? My understanding is that the continuing resolution from last year kind of bailed us out for this year. We felt pretty confident across the Commonwealth. Has that changed for fiscal 27 and when will we find out? How are you all feeling about the risk to losing any federal or state pass through grants?
[Noel Velez]: Yeah, I'll take this one. So thank you for that question. Currently, right now, we've met with our liaison, Michelle Thomas, over at DESE. So right now, what we understand is we will be what's called almost at a level service funding, where our grants, both our Title I through IVs, our IDEAs, will kind of stay where they are as is. Of course, with the political climate currently going on, we keep a close eye on how many teachers' salaries If we were to lose all those fundings, which is why we wanted to provide that fiscal year 26 awarded amount, what that would look like in the future, because then, yes, to keep. you know, these reading teachers to keep our students in these collaborative outside tuition programs, they would ultimately be absorbed in our budget as a whole. So at the current moment, you know, we're grateful that at least it's staying level funded, but as we all know, tuitions are not staying level funded, salaries are not staying level funded. So Susan Callahan, myself, the superintendent, you know, we go over as we're gonna, ultimately be submitting our fiscal year 27 and kind of get an idea of what that's going to look like overall.
[Suzanne Galusi]: Yeah, I just I want to add one thing to that though. So the guidance we I'm sure you have the same guidance. I mean the guidance we've received is that yes right now we are to assume they are level funded. Big giant asterisk on title one. because the federal definition of the poverty level has shifted so that federally they've changed the parameters of the poverty level. And so what that does is 10% more people are not gonna qualify for poverty. So what they are expecting for us for title one is that, sure we're level funded, but expect 10% less in allocation because the poverty level definition has changed. So we will wait to see what the allocation is, but that's been the latest guidance that we've received from the Department of Education.
[Mike Mastrobuoni]: That's really helpful. Thank you. And as you get more information, sharing with us is obviously appreciated. Two more questions, and then I'll take a hike. Knowing that we have a structural deficit, a pretty significant one, and it looks worse going forward. Are we doing anything to prepay fiscal 27 items with fiscal 26 money this year to give us a little head start? I know that's something we do like transportation or special ed tuition or things like that. Or do we not have capacity to do that because we're running on target right now?
[Noel Velez]: I would say it's a little too early. We have done a few projections over the last few weeks just based on how many paychecks we have left, items we've purchased, current blank and POs. It's a little too early for that right now, but we always look into that. It's one of the first things we look at, what can we prepay, which as we know, All you're doing is you're kind of kicking the can down the road, just in case anyone's trying to understand. When you do something like that, it is great for your budget on the short term, but in the long term, we still want to, as Mr. Russo was saying earlier, we want to look at really our budget being properly funded.
[Gerry McCue]: Yeah, I think, but one of the strategies we use along those lines is we try to do that same thing with our revolving funds. So Culinary Arts had a big budget balance, MEEP had a big balance. So we do target employees to be paid through those funds, but at the end of the year, If we don't have to move, if we have a little flexibility in the general fund that we don't have to charge everything we planned on meat or culinary or some of those others, then we are able to retain the money in the revolving fund to be used in a future fiscal year. So it's a similar idea to what you're talking about.
[Mike Mastrobuoni]: Awesome. I'm happy to support any prepayment just to get over the short-term hump. My last question. So I think for 26, our circuit breaker was $3.1 million. Could you share for me and the public, what's our policy for using those funds? Do we use them as recurring income and spend it on an annual basis? Or is it on a year lag? And do we have any plans for that to sort of help mitigate the structural deficit?
[Noel Velez]: Yeah, as we started last year, we use it on a year lag basis. It's best to kind of, A, support the budget and let us properly use our circuit breaker funding. So myself and Joan Bowen, we sit down and we go, and Jerry and at her admin assistant, Nicole, we look over what our tuition costs are going to be next year, and we kind of map it out in advance. And we look at what's going to hit the general ledger, what's going to hit our circuit breaker, what's going to hit our IDEA grant. And that way, we know we always have money in the reserve in case we have a move-in in March or we have a move-in in October. We have to pick up the tuition right away, and we know we weren't going to have an extra I don't know any school district that has an extra $100,000 to $150,000 in their budget. But worst case scenario, we use some of that circuit breaker money. But we've been trying to do it on a lag, which we started last year, and we're keeping it up this year.
[Mike Mastrobuoni]: Awesome. Sorry for not knowing that that happened last year, but that's great.
[Noel Velez]: No problem.
[Mike Mastrobuoni]: It's a great best practice. And the last thing I'll say is GIC had their health insurance last week. Looking forward to seeing what that means for us, if you can give us a little more capacity on the city side. I think we saved, in Somerville, like $1.6 million with the new rates based on what we projected. We were also projecting, Mayor, like 12, 13, 14. I think it came in at midnight. So hopefully that can help all of us off the city side and the school side as well. So we look at the expenditures. next meeting, love to see sort of how that, how that changed. Thank you for, I appreciate your questions and we'll probably dig in more offline. Thank you. Of course.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Thank you for the presentation.
[Gerry McCue]: I just, I just want to mention one, one thing just kind of as a heads up. I've worked with my colleague Dr. Talbot to develop a a presentation or some feedback from directors and principals about what they're doing in their program, what their accomplishments have been, their vision for implementing their program, what they're looking to use their FY27 budget on. It's a chance to hear like in the director's voice what they're trying to accomplish. So, you know, we'll send it out ahead of the next committee of the whole meeting so you can kind of have that as part of the context for what we're going to describe. But you certainly could, we would welcome, you know, feedback to improve this process if you think it's worthwhile for your decision that you have to make.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you. Thank you very much. Next up we have under new business offered by Member Reinfeld where as historically low temperatures have recently laid bare the vulnerable electrical and heating systems in our school buildings and whereas seven of the eight school buildings have in progress and planned updates. for these systems and whereas in 2024 the district developed protocols for extreme heat conditions. Now therefore be it resolved the district shall create a similar mitigation plan for extreme cold temperatures and be it resolved that the plan will include protocols for relocation of educational activities in buildings where certain rooms disproportionately compromise the public safety, physical safety of students and staff in specific locations. Is there a motion on the floor? I'll turn it over to Member Reinfeld.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I don't have a lot to say about this other than thank you to Mr. Lord and everyone who worked really hard to deal with these historically low temperatures. Now that the urgency has passed, I would love to see what was done documented and turned into a protocol so there isn't scrambling in the future. Happy to answer questions.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Motion for approval by Member Reinfeld, seconded by Member Olapade. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes. Thank you, Member Reinfeld, for bringing that forward. And 2026-09, also offered by Member Reinfeld, whereas members of the MPS community have provided input into the strategic planning process via survey and focus groups, and whereas the Medford School Committee has identified a permanent superintendent for the district, and whereas the Medford Comprehensive High School Building Committee has submitted its educational plan to the Massachusetts School Building Authority, Whereas the district is convening a dedicated task force to address overcrowding at the elementary levels and examine the viability of a 5, 6, and 7, 8 model for MPS middle schools. Now therefore be it resolved that the strategic planning subcommittee shall meet to establish the process. deliverables and timeline for the development and review of the community-informed strategic plan.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld. Yes. Again, I hope this is fairly self-explanatory, but this is just to acknowledge that the foundational documents and data are in place for the strategic planning process that we approved in October, and that there are other synergistic processes going on at the same time. And I want to officially press the go button on making the mapping out what the strategic planning process is going to look like. And I think a subcommittee meeting is the right place to do that. Motion to approve?
[Gerry McCue]: Second.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Motion to approve by Member Graham, seconded by Member Mastroboni. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes. Our next meeting is April 6th. It's a budget committee of the whole number two here in the Alden Memorial Chambers, Medford City Hall, in addition to Zoom. Member Opade. Oh yes, member Elachi. Member Elachi.
[Alachie Yeager]: Member Yager? Yeah, no. I just wanted to just give a quick closing statement. Is that the, just as a, just for next time the student representatives are gonna be presenting on the April meeting about, we just gave out a survey actually a couple weeks ago about just lunches and buses and sort of gathering student opinion on those fronts and what students thought was problematic and, and what were, what were the main issues. So we'll be presenting that next meeting. We're looking forward to that. Thank you very much.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you, Member Alache. Is there a motion to adjourn? Sorry, a question on that point. Will we receive a copy of the presentation in advance the way we do for our others? Yes, yes, absolutely, yes. Great.
[Alachie Yeager]: Thank you. Don't worry, yes. Thank you so much.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Great, and we have an MSBA meeting tomorrow night, 6.30, I believe? Yes. On Zoom. On Zoom, that's correct. Okay, thanks for reminding me. Motion to adjourn? by Member Reinfeld, seconded by Member Graham. All those in favor? All those opposed?
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