School Committee: Elementary School Reassignment Policy - 2026-10-05

AI-generated summary. Written by gemini-3.5-flash from the transcript below, which is the record. It may be incomplete or wrong; it does not report votes. Every item links to the moment it began.

The MPS School Committee heard updates on a middle school river canoe program, the district's strategic plan survey results, and a new high school late bus service, before discussing a proposed elementary school reassignment policy.

1:32 Consent Agenda — Approved the consent agenda, which included bills and payrolls, a $295,000 Beth Israel Leahy Health grant, a gas donation to Brooks Elementary, and the September 28, 2026 meeting minutes.
2:12 Mustang Moment: Canoe Mobile Program — McGlynn Middle School Principal Nick Tucci and sixth-grade students Adelaide and B Strassfeld shared their educational experiences participating in the Canoe Mobile program on the Mystic River.
12:01 Strategic Plan and Survey Update — Member Jessica Parks summarized the results of a strategic plan survey from caregivers, students, and educators, followed by an update from Superintendent Suzanne Galusi on the district's ongoing five-year planning process.
37:12 Student Advisory Council Late Bus Presentation — Student representatives Blind2It and William presented on the implementation of a new Medford High School late bus route designed to increase student participation in after-school activities.
43:59 Elementary School Reassignment Policy — The committee debated Resolution 2026-24 to establish guidelines and timelines for elementary school reassignment requests, ultimately deferring a vote so the policy draft could be further refined.

[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: All right, good evening, everybody. 18th regular meeting of the Medford School Committee will come to order tonight, October 5th, 2026. And it's a little past six. This will be a regular meeting of the school committee held in room 201 at Medford City Hall and via remote participation. Meeting is being recorded. The meeting can be viewed live on the Medford Public Schools YouTube channel through Medford Community Media. on your local cable channel, Comcast 9, 8, or 22, and Verizon 43, 45, or 47. And participants can log in or call in by using the following Zoom link. And the meeting ID is 9469, I'm sorry, 946-3714-9680.

[Member Aaron Olapade]: Member Mastroianni. Here. Member Lopate, here. to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for

[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: And we have our consent agenda, approval of bills and payrolls, approval of grants, Beth Israel Leahy Health, Inc., City of Medford, on behalf of the Medford Public Schools, $295,000, approval of donations, mobile gas donation to Brooks Elementary School, and approval of the meeting minutes from our regular meeting last week, which was September 28th, 2026. Is there a motion on the floor?

[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: by Member Reinfeld, seconded by Member Mastrobuoni. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? The ayes have it, with one absent. We have no reports of subcommittees, but we do have two reports of our superintendent, so I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Galusi for our Mustang moment.

[Suzanne Galusi]: Thank you very much, Mayor. So tonight, we're so excited. We have Principal Tucci from the McGlynn Middle School and two students here to talk to you and share all about Canoe Mobile, a wonderful opportunity that our middle school students have been able to experience. And I'm going to turn it over to Principal Tucci to give us a little bit of context. And you'll be hearing from the two students right after that. I will be moving my computer. as we're having some Wi-Fi issues so that you can see the participants directly.

[Nick Tucci]: Good evening and welcome everyone. Last week when the weather finally cleared after that big storm our sixth grade students from the McGlynn and the Andrews middle schools had an extraordinary opportunity and experience our community from a whole new perspective through Wilderness Apri's Canoe Mobile program. Right here in our own backyard along the historic Mystic River in Riverbend Park, students stepped outside the traditional classroom and into a living and breathing learning environment. Canoe Mobile is a floating classroom that travels to communities across the country, bringing students onto local waterways like the Mystic and 24-foot Voyager canoes.

Through this unique experience, students explored science, history, geography, and culture while discovering the natural resources that exist right in our backyard. The program combined hands-on outdoor learning with meaningful connections to the world around us. Students participated in both on the water and land-based activities during two-hour intervals with opportunity to learn, explore, collaborate, and see Medford along the Mystic through a different lens. On the land, for instance, students engaged in interactive learning stations that were facilitated by the U.S. Forest Service, the Mystic River Watershed Association, and the City of Medford's Office of Planning, Development, and Sustainability. And on the water, Wilderness Inquiry staff took it from there and they launched their voyages right into the water from the dock at Riverbend Park. Experiences like this remind us that some of the most powerful learning happens when students can connect what they learn in the classroom in a really meaningful manner to the world beyond it. Students build their knowledge and engage in team building activities and develop an appreciation for their environments and creating a lot of lasting memories that they'll have for their lifetime. So tonight we want you to hear directly from the students that engage in it on a firsthand basis. It's my pleasure to introduce sixth grade students from McGlynn Middle School, Adelaide and B Strassfeld. We'll take it from there and share their experiences.

[QAjPmDQYddA_SPEAKER_16]: Canoemobile was the best part of the day on the 30th of September and the best in the last couple of days, so much so that I wish I could do it again. The best part was definitely when we went inside our canoe, dubbed the Goat Boat. It was a euphoric experience moving steadily along the water, racing and losing with our classmates, rowing with fire in their eyes. Before we went in the canoes, though, We went to three different stations. The first one we visited was all about where water can go before the evaporation stage in the water cycle. The way it was presented made an otherwise, in my opinion, dull subject into a fun experience that showed us different locations that water from, for example, your sink goes, teaching us to be more mindful about what we put in, again, the sink. The second station showed us all the little creatures living in just one little tub of water, showing us just how much life is everywhere. We looked at the creatures under microscopes and magnifying glasses, and as an arachnophobic person, I can say that I wasn't freaked out at all by how the organisms looked. The third one was the most fun of the stations, where we had a competition for record time beanbag sorting, and won for the most part, against the previous group's times. The station taught us that overall, recycling and composting is better than just throwing something in the trash. The event as a whole taught us a couple of things to do in our lives to help us support our environment. Recycling and composting, being more careful with where we put things, and how much life is everywhere. And like I said before, it was all a very fun and enjoyable experience that I was looking forward to the whole day, awaiting the announcement that we could go in a big canoe with our classmates.

On the 30th of September 2026, we participated in three interesting, fun, educational activities by a canoemobile program, plus canoeing. For the first part, we went in a nice area next to the river for the program to start, but after that we went to the table that was all about organisms in the water. We took pre-prepared water samples and put them in containers using pipettes to see if we could find anything alive in it. We also used microscopes and magnifying glasses for a better view. After that, we went to the second table, all about compost. We did a relay race with beanbags with different items on them, then learned about and then learned about a few of said items and how long it would take for them to disintegrate if we threw them in the trash, as opposed to the compost or recycling. For the final land activity, we made bracelets revolving around a more complicated version of the water cycle. After all the land activities, we went back to where we waited for the canoe section to start. Before we were able to begin, we went over rules for the canoe, such as how to paddle the life vests, how to get in and out. But after that, we got into the canoes. We were on the water for about a half hour and saw a bunch of beautiful things, including trees turning orange, quite a few birds, such as a great blue heron.

And the area was a really good spot for people that had never boat before. When we head back to the building, we were discussing the program. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the kids that were on the program became environmentalists. The kids that were able to take part, I'm sure not only had fun, but learned a lot too. Seeing all the nature along with doing something fun like boating, I'm sure had a lot of people really surprised as they probably came into the program thinking they wouldn't like it, but ended up actually enjoying it quite a bit, and were inspired to go back on the river a lot more. We were able to do a fun, original learning method that most of us enjoyed a lot. In the classroom, we learned about organisms, and we get to be in the area where some of said organisms live. We get to experience currents in the water, just like we learned about in school. We see the river in real life, as opposed to talking about it in history and geography class.

The canoe mobile program is a combination of learning, exercise and activity. And I'm sure it was a highlight of the first quarter of school to almost all of the sixth graders.

[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I'll just say that I went out for a few minutes and got to experience all three stations. I think it was amazing. And they reached out to me several years ago, and then I got Cano Mobile in touch with Mr. Tucci. So I'm so glad I did. I think my sentence got rained out, time got rained out, but it's been worth it for all the students that got to experience it so far. hopefully they raise, I think their grant expires. So hopefully we can find a way to continue new mobile for the future sixth graders. It's a great job on your presentations. Thank you for being here.

[QAjPmDQYddA_SPEAKER_16]: We worked with your boat, Carl. We named it the Cheese Grater's Court to be myself. We won different boats.

[SPEAKER_03]: Someone had to put a sign on the door so there was no Wi-Fi. I didn't see anyone. James from Biden, that's right. No, someone told me. Oh. It was a Wi-Fi feature. I'm here for moral support. So I thought it was like when I was on the field of therapy.

[Sheila Freitas]: Why is my mouth like that? I don't know. It's only in my eyes. It's very nice.

[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Yes, absolutely. All right. Number two, we have strategic plan update. I'm going to again turn it over to Dr. Galusi, our superintendent. The results of the strategic plan survey is also on the agenda. Thank you.

[Suzanne Galusi]: Yes. I do believe we're going to start there first with the results? Yes. Okay. So members, member Parks? Member Graham, who's presenting?

[Member Jenny Graham]: At our last subcommittee meeting, we talked about essentially wanting to package up all the information that came in on the survey from, you know, there were hundreds of respondents, like the response rate was still quite low. but still hundreds of people took the time to say and tell us what they thought. So the sort of action item for me was to pull together the results of that survey and be able to present it. And I just want to say thank you to Jessica because member Parks actually took that task off my plate and I'm so appreciative of that. But she has, she can maybe walk us through the results as they came together and then I think the idea was like in preparation or sort of as a lead up to some of the strategic planning work that the district is undertaking this year, this can be an important input to be passed along to the team. So I will let Jessica Meber-Parks go through some of the things that she saw she was pulling together.

[Member Jessica Parks]: So thanks. As Member Graham said, while we did get a lot of feedback, there were 234 responses to the survey. And we did have, I think it was six strategic planning sessions where we invited caregivers to attend. Two were on Zoom, four were in person. Um, and we did have some, um, caregivers attend those events and talk with us about, um, uh, did a lot of talking, um, about mostly the, um, kind of, oh God, I'm having a brain, um, I'm sorry. Our mission statement. Thank you. I could not think of that word mission statement. Um, our mission statement. Um, a lot of the results of the survey, um, gonna. Talk about more are kind of, um. What, uh, opportunities, strengths and weaknesses that I saw emerge from the survey.

talk to you, you know, the survey does tell us a lot, but it doesn't truly tell us, I think, what our caregivers think from a, it's not representative of what our district is, you know, and that's kind of the caution I want to say. Our respondents were 86% white compared to 55% of our students. We heard from one caregiver of an English learner, so that's, I think, 0.4% in a district where 17% of students are Hispanic or Latino. Three quarters of respondents were women, two-thirds hold a master's degree or higher, and the median household income reported was in the bracket of $150,000 to $200,000.

So actually that was surprisingly the only area that represented Medford because our annual median income for families with children is currently listed according to the census as $179,000. But for overall median income, it's at 129,000. Um, so median income was probably the only kind of representative, um, that we had shown. The, sorry, I apologize. I lose place. I'll shoot. Um, when it came to, um, uh, sorry, I'm like skipping around. When, um, So but when it came to kind of between the questions, we had questions that you had to pick from checkboxes and questions where you put in comments. And those didn't fully align. When we asked people to pick from a list, people chose academic excellence and quality of staff.

as kind of most important to them. But when they wrote in their own words, kind of four different things dominated. And that was the high school building, after school, and pre-K capacity, and as well as special education, and then recess and lunchtime. So before and after school care, though, was only selected by 19% on the checkbox question. So that kind of differed. when digging deeper, but it was one of the most frequent written complaints on the survey.

So it's kind of understanding why those two things differ. Special education was one of the most emotionally charged topics in the survey, I would say, and it had a lot of... It had... Especially in the open ended questions, but it falls towards the bottom in the checkboxes because it was bundled in with into school programming with English learners and special education, and it only showed up in 23% of our responses, but it rose to the top when it was. in the open-ended questions. And it was mentioned more than any other words under areas for improvement. And second highest for top priorities for the district should focus on in the next five years.

And it was only mentioned six times under what is working well. It shows up in comments from both caregivers and educators, which we didn't always have that kind of consistency between our caregivers and educators. Um, multiple, um. So, I would say that kind of is a big area of focus that emerges most praises about people teachers received 93 mentions. And criticism is about the systems, our facilities. The special education processes I talked about inter school equity, which I'll talk about a little in a little bit and then also, um.

communication. Communication is the only topic that ranks in the top four in both working well and needs improvement. So that's an interesting one to dig deeper, but it is continuously praised in a lot of the comments. So I think, you know, we can dig into the few areas where people are struggling with it as an area to grow. And I know that is part of, the plan that the superintendent went over. So we were looking at that rigor versus support under priorities. The topic of academic rigor and challenging advanced learners was mentioned by 57 respondents and special education was mentioned by 40 responses.

So many people are many of the same respondents are saying that public schools works well for students in the middle. and is failing both of our extremes. And that's kind of a theme that was seen through the same respondents. Again, we're talking about 57 and 40 people in a district of 4,000. So we have to take that with a grain of salt, but it is showing up and emerging to the top of the respondents we do have. There are two views of technology.

There are many calls from caregivers 22 for less screens, Chromebooks, and AI. But there is a desire, and this is mostly from the educators, of which I apologize, I did not say. 78% of our respondents were educators from MPS, and that's 33% of our respondents. And so our educators are saying that our tech is outdated. They want smart boards, Wi-Fi, and new Chromebooks. So a little discrepancy there, but let me back up because I apologize. I realize I didn't do the breakdown. Our main respondent role categories, caregivers of a child currently attending MPS, there were 145 respondents, which is 62%. Educators, 78 for 33%. And our MPS students, only 11 for 5%. So I would say we want to kind of increase all of that representation and possibly give the survey to all of our students to see what they think, because I think they have a valuable voice.

And then equity issues are mostly across the schools. 34 of the 59 equity mentions are about disparities between Um, our buildings, you know, such as Robert's overcrowding, Robert's lack of community, EL concentration at McGlynn, Brooks first and this attack resources. Um, Andrew cleanliness and discipline. Those were kind of the comments and they talked about pitting one school against another school, which was interesting and did not talk about equity due to demographics, um, in our student populations. which was a very interesting way to see equity described.

And when it came to leadership, it's mentioned both as an asset and a gap. There are 33 positive mentions, interim superintendent, new principal, McGlynn principal, central office visibility, 34 critical ones, principal and AP accountability, elementary leadership, admin turnover, and initiatives that come and go. So that's kind of a high level of things that were pulled out. I think there's a lot more that could be teased out of the data, and there's a lot of information. I have a ton of things that were teased out, looked at both by the individual group types and kind of what bubbled to the top.

So, you're welcome to look at that, but those are kind of the big things that I pulled out. I think the bottom line is that, you know, don't build just on the survey alone. Pair it with a data-driven, experience-based approach that kind of draws on um, you know, the collective knowledge of our, our staff, our educators, our administration, um, and, um, under the guidance of district leadership to develop a strategic plan, you know, be given these small data set we have, and then bring it back to, um, our community. and get more feedback and try and figure out ways to get a much better representation of our district when we do really try and come up with creative ways to get that representation because it's not here.

And another thing is really just increase the response rate period. So that's that. Are there any questions?

[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Any questions from the committee? If not, I'm going to turn it over. Just to note that this data, I think, is basically a year old.

[Member Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah. So it is worth noting that many months have passed since these responses came in.

[Suzanne Galusi]: OK, thank you very much. So I'm gonna pivot then to my update, Osha. So I have a brief update just on the work that we've been doing around strategic planning. So I had mentioned before in reference to my goals for the year, but do want to just give a little brief update about where we have been. So I did mention that we have partnered with one of our external consultants and partners, Lynch Leadership Academy, They are through the Barr Foundation. We have been partnered with them for about two years now, working on our initiatives through our high school.

[Suzanne Galusi]: Thank you through our high school change initiative. So they have been working with our administrators and a lot of our teachers. So it made a lot of sense. They kind of know the landscape of Medford to be able to help us be really good. They're taking on that lift of organizing so that we really can kind of focus on the deep work that is involved in the strategic plan. So. Just kind of to start off, this is just as we kind of center ourselves with this work, an equity statement around what we've been doing here is, in a nutshell, the belief of the intellect of all of our students as we are working to create a culture of achievement. This has been a through line. Pretty much every presentation I've been talking about, and really the essence of this year's goal of belonging through and making sure that the intellectual identity of our identity of our students is enhanced, enriched and forwarded. So next slide please. So this here also I presented on, this is just a brief overview of the phases of the strategic plan. We are currently in phase one. This is where we are here, which is the month of September to October. In this phase, we are working on, to member Park's point, we are working on Vision and mission. The part of this work is, as you see here, they lead us through what's called a SOAR analysis, where we are working on identifying our strengths and our opportunities, our aspirations, and then what results come out of that.

At the table for some of this work, we have a core team of district-wide administrators as well as school leaders. That is myself, that is Dr. Talbot, that is Kim Clinton, maybe I'll do titles too for people at home. So Dr. Talbot is the assistant superintendent for academics and learning. Kim Clinton is the Assistant Superintendent for Special Education and Student Services. Chelsea McNiff is our Director of EL. We also have Principal Marta Cabral from Medford High School. We have Principal Nick Tucci from McGlynn Middle School. And we have Principal Dr. Kroll from Roberts Elementary. In addition to that core group for the SOAR analysis, we also had members of the senior team in the room for this work, which was also Ken Lord, our Chief Operations Officer, Noel Velez, our Director of Finance, Jeanine Camuso, our Director of Human Resource, Will Pippicelli, our Director of Communications, and our Budget Analyst, Gerry McCue.

Next slide, please. And so what this slide, this slide was generated by Lynch Leadership Academy. And of course, they give a little credit here to it was created by Gemini. But what is important about this slide is it encapsulates the foundational work that we've been doing at the beginning of setting our strategic plan. So this is where you can start to see where the bridge here of how strategy is going to kind of connect our mission, which is why we're here. It really encapsulates like, what is our current practice? What are we doing? What are our core values? It's where the work shows up every day. And then on the other side is our vision. So where do we want to go? What are our aspirations? And the strategy is going to connect those two.

Next slide. And so part of what this initial work is, as we've been starting on that SOAR analysis, is gonna bring all of these three pieces together. So what are our current strengths? What are things that are really working for Medford Public Schools? Those are the things we want to identify, celebrate, and make sure remain intact. So what are we bringing to the table? While we're also looking at where do we need to grow? Member Parks listed a lot of areas that were strengths, but also areas for growth and gaps. Those are the pieces that we're definitely talking about. So we're exploring what our strategic opportunities are. And then that is gonna lead us to what our strategic direction is and tell us where we're heading. So what that looks like in action is, In a room, we are all in a room kind of digging in deeper, having a lot of conversations around concrete visibility as well as aspirational, where do we want to go. We are working in small groups. we are showing our thinking and our dreaming and our planning in visible ways through post-it notes and gallery walks and poster boards and really trying to kind of like coalesce on what we want our vision and our mission to be. If you don't mind going back to that previous slide for a minute, thank you. So And here, I just want to like, talk about the symbolism of it a little bit so there are pieces that we have been discussing that can be both at this time, strengths, as well as strategic opportunities for us to kind of dig into and unpack. Some of those things are student voice, instructional practice, systemic impact and coherence. I've talked a great deal about what that looks like and how we're really trying to build that coherent piece. Staff diversity, clear expectations around our work, leadership capacity, community and staff and student voice. You also see that there are some clouds that are empty. We have just had one session. And so we're at the beginning phases of this. So a lot is yet to be discussed and focused on. So Mr. Pippicelli, you can go to the next slide.

This just brings us back to what the timeline is for our work. And so we've had our 1st meeting phase 1. we did not get through the whole sore analysis because we were having really, really. deep impactful conversations that actually took some time. So we got through the S and the O, we got through strengths, we got through some opportunities. So we really have to dig into our aspirations and results and then move into refining our mission, assessing some risks and drafting foundational goals in the next meeting. And that will be this month. So there's one a month, and you can see here that we're going to have stakeholder validation sessions. That's okay. throughout this process. So one is set to come up in phase three, somewhere between November and December. That is still being refined, but to Member Park's point, we have been having some thoughtful conversations with the team and Lynch Leadership Academy about the best way to capture some of that stakeholder input. Yes, through surveys. Yes, through helping out with our community connects. network, but also maybe being visible at parent-teacher conferences so that we can be there for the night of parent-teacher conferences and hopefully be able to explain what we're doing, what does the strategic plan look like, and get people on the ground to participate and get some feedback from them. So, multiple ways. The goal here is for us to be coming to this body and sharing frequent updates when we have different phases of the work. And that was the last slide, so I'm happy to answer any questions if you have any. Dr. Talbot, Kim Quinton, Ken Lord, Noelle Velez, and Will Papaselli are in the room as well.

[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you for presenting. Thank you all for being here. I don't see any questions. That was a good presentation. If there's no questions from the committee, I'll turn it over to Ryan.

[a17_UOV__Vs_SPEAKER_20]: When was this phone sent out? This is, sorry, this is the- The survey? Yeah, the survey you were talking about know, the folks I was talking about earlier.

[Suzanne Galusi]: That's a great question. So it's been, this work is like long and ever evolving. So it's been a little bit of time. We're now going to take this information that we have as one part or one piece of the information. And we're gonna use that to inform the work we're doing to write our strategic plan, which means our big goals for the district for the next five years. So there will be other surveys We will send them out again. I think what we found too, is that we had some positive input in terms of like, what was it? 294 people completed the survey? 234.

Yeah, January, but our in person sessions didn't yield as much as much participation. So, I think it also would be helpful once we have some ideas to present to students and to present to the community. I think it will elicit a higher level of. Like, detailed feedback that we can work with to keep refining our goals for the next 5 years.

[a17_UOV__Vs_SPEAKER_20]: There's no way I can. You have to be picked by the committee. There's no way you can join, right?

[Suzanne Galusi]: No, no, no. There will be a student. We're going to have multiple stakeholder sessions. And so there will be one for the community. There will be one for caregivers, for teachers, for students. So you will 100% have an opportunity to participate.

[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Great. Thank you, Ryan. Yeah. Thank you, Dr. Galussi. If there are no further questions, I'll move on to presentations of our Student Advisory Council. I don't know if you want to come sit here and present on Medford High School Late Bus. Yes, I'm going to swing the computer over.

[Suzanne Galusi]: Yeah, I just want to make sure I could see both of you in the view. Okay, here we go.

[a17_UOV__Vs_SPEAKER_20]: Hi, for people at home who don't know us, I'm pretty sure they already do. We are Blind2It and this is William.

[8vfGP8SYT18_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah. So today we're bringing up the late buses. So this year we have late buses in Medford High School and previous years we didn't have it. So we're going to have three stops. One is going to be in South Medford, one in Central Medford and one in North Medford, which are areas farther away from the high school. so the light bus will help in students getting to those places.

[a17_UOV__Vs_SPEAKER_20]: And the specific stops are Main Street and George, Salem and Paddling, and Jim's Market. This is kind of the most popular places for the late bus. The yellow bus, particularly the one that goes right at 233, has a lot more stops. But this one, we can only do a number of them, right?

[8vfGP8SYT18_SPEAKER_14]: So the reason we have late buses this year is that there are many after-school activities that happen. And since there were no late buses, students who relied on the bus for transportation couldn't go to these activities. And so now that there's going to be a light bus, they'll have the option to do that. And also they can have the option to stay after school with a teacher if they need to. So now that there's bus, they can go back home or wherever they go after school.

[a17_UOV__Vs_SPEAKER_20]: Our vision is to increase ridership by 80%. The reason for this is because we know if we do not get this number, we will lose the funding for this and we know how important funding is by the school committee is to this bus. And we're also looking to increase extracurricular activity by 15-20%. We're hoping that students get more involved in tutoring, sports if they have any, or clubs. You will also see like an increase in grades, like increase maybe in tutoring more, like staying after. And kind of feeling like students have a sense of belonging and purpose in the high school.

[8vfGP8SYT18_SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, in January, we're going to send out surveys so we can get reports back on this.

[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Great presentation. So we just want to make sure that everybody, all the kids know about, students know about, they use them so that they stay.

[a17_UOV__Vs_SPEAKER_20]: Ms. Frida said we will send out a black email to all the classes so they know about the rapist. So we're already kind of planning on doing that in some way. Good communication. Thank you.

[Suzanne Galusi]: So just like a small little piece of context is, I don't know if you remember last year, we had our student reps, um, report to this board and they mentioned the need for an afterschool bus to North Medford because the MPTA does not go up there. So we put one in. The problem was it was highly underused. So our transportation manager, Ina Williams, has been working with Eastern Bus. The ridership logs that they collected showed that there was a range of two to eight students in terms of daily use. So I think our two wonderful student reps are here because they want to see this opportunity for students remain, but they also know that they have to try to like mobilize their peer group. But I think one of the important pieces between the collaboration with assistant principal Ms. Frase Haley, our two wonderful student reps and our transportation manager, that increased stops so that the late bus is getting to various areas of Medford is hopefully, right, that we're hoping that does the trick. Hopefully. Do you want to make any comments?

[Sheila Freitas]: Yeah, I mean, great segue to equity, right? You know, and that's kind of why should kids who ride the MBTA bus run out to grab the MBTA bus and can't access our things like after school clubs, after school help, the whole nine. So now we have the opportunity and the message will go out tonight, Mayor. We wanted to present it to you, of course, the body school committee, so that we're giving opportunities for all students at Medford High School.

[Sheila Freitas]: So that's a whole hour. So students who want to participate in a club, go to after school tutoring with National Honor Society or their teachers, they will have this opportunity now. Rather than waiting for a bus down at the bottom of the hill for two hours. Yeah.

[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you for the presentation. Good luck messaging that out to your student population. Thank you, you did an excellent job. Thank you. Thank you. We have no presentation of the public or continued business. We do have new business 2026-24 offered by member Reinfeld, elementary school reassignment policy. Medford Public Schools is committed to providing a consistent, equitable, and welcoming environment. Okay. Motion to waive the reading by member Reinfeld, seconded by member Ola Pate. All those in favor. All those opposed 60 affirmative one absent. The reading is waived. Do you just anybody want to summarize? I mean, I think yes. So this.

[Member Erika Reinfeld]: This is something that's been in the A lot of what this is doing, like many of the new policies, is documenting some of the processes that have been in place. It's been about a year because we wanted to live through this process with the newest person in charge. So Dr. Talbot has done a lot of work looking at the data about how well we can support So intradistrict elementary school reassignment is basically in Medford, students are districted to a particular elementary school based on where they live. And every year the district receives requests for students to go to a school that they are not districted for, for a variety of reasons. And so what this exercise and policy was meant to do was to prioritize when we do this, it affects capacity, it affects our class sizes, it has a lot of impact on all the students, not just the students who are moving to a different school. And so consistency and equity and operations are all really important pieces of this. And so this policy is looking to prioritize, right? What does it mean to have capacity for additional students?

What are the urgent placements for special programs? What about siblings and families? And so there are a lot of different pieces of this, which you can kind of see in the criteria for determining the feasibility. And putting some constraints. All of these requests are confidential because often they have to do with sensitive circumstances. But the idea here is that we still owe it to. All caregivers to the community to say, these are the general guidelines we're following. You don't get to know why this request and that request was granted, but in general. Here are the. here are the values and the reasons that requests would or would not be granted, and then trying to find systems to provide consistency. So we have, like I said, we have the criteria, we have things around this in and of itself, such as trying to get into a particular school to be with a particular teacher that's maybe not a high priority reason and so that alone would not be a reason to do it but if someone's in a special education program and their sibling needs to be at the same school for family reasons that would qualify and so just laying that out and then what does it mean for school capacity in the timeline when people can expect to hear answers because enrollment as we always hear fluctuates throughout the year and particularly the summer, over the summer, particularly for kindergarten and to some extent first grade, but particularly kindergarten. And so, laying out what is reasonable to expect and what happens if someone is reassigned, they don't get their own bus route.

Transportation provided there were stipulations around after school, because that was always a challenge with this and actually this policy. I think makes it easier for people to be in their district in school because there is after school. A lot of the requests were coming in because of childcare reasons. So this is tied into a lot of things that are going on, a lot of moving pieces. I think it ended up being a lot more complicated than I was expecting. Dr. Talbot is nodding her head vigorously at this. So that's kind of the reason for this. The details are on the agenda in front of you. happy to answer questions. I don't know if Dr. Talbot wanted to say anything in particular. I tried to cover the things that we talked about. You did an excellent job. OK. Yes.

[Member Jenny Graham]: Some questions. Yeah. Member Graham. I appreciate at the beginning of the policy and a request for alternative placement, the sort of bracket of July 15th to August 15th. However, I think we just I think we need to set better expectations. No one's going to hear from us in June. They're just not. And we should not lead anybody to believe that they are going to hear from us in June because they're not. So I would certainly be an advocate for saying like, you will not hear from us until at least August 1st. That's just the, that's just how operationally this has to work because I think And for all good reasons, people want to know so they can plan, but then we are also needing to plan as a district. So it's, I think it's, I think having a much more narrow time bracket is like, I understand it's like not great if you're the family that is wanting to know, but I think it's worse to be believing that you're going to have an answer that you can't have because we all know that that's not going to be possible. So that was sort of one comment I had. And then a couple of other things that sort of jumped out to me, I'm not sure I have the answers, but like the idea that a transfer is for one year feels like I understand operationally why we would do it, but that seems like it's kind of impossible if you're a family that is trying to like, I don't know, make a plan right like now you're saying like I want to put my kids somewhere and I know it could just be for a year. I just think we all know that that's not anybody's real expectation right like that. When I put my kids somewhere for a year. I'm not anticipating that next year, you're going to be like, you can't come to school at the school that you have your friends at anymore. So I guess I don't know if I have an answer, but it feels like I guess my question is, is there a way to be more rigid about how many people we're going to grant transfer to and that when we transfer somebody, they are able to stay put for the duration of their time at that school?

Because I just, I don't think I would rather see people find ways to be in their neighborhood school for a million reasons. Then and find ways to help accommodate that being possible for people then dealing with like the idea of like bouncing a kid around year to year. because of what's going on. So that's one other concern that I had. And then in a similar vein, the idea that we would bounce a student out of a school mid-year feels completely untenable to me. I just don't know how we could practically do that. So that feels especially rough.

Again, like I would rather err on the side of like granting fewer of these than like having all of these like machinations that are just fundamentally really unstable for kids because I think everybody was sending their, their wanting to send their kids somewhere like they want everyone wants their kids to feel like they belong. I don't know how you belong if you are in one school one year and then you go to, you have to go back to your neighborhood school the next year and then the next year you can go back to your other school like that feels just really tumultuous and I worry about that. I also do wonder if it's it is worth exploring. Now that we have some substantially different after school policies that like instead of transferring students due to like caregiver like schedules like. Having a process to to jump the line, so to speak in a hardship situation in after school in their neighborhood school like that feels to me like a better pathway than moving kids to another school for like commuting or, you know, I don't know, that's maybe like a possibility. But that, that I would like to see factors, I understand the point of like, if you're going to transfer into a school, you don't get priority in that after school program. But like, could we use after school as a way to keep students sort of like in their neighborhood school is the question that I have. And then, My last comment or note, and we can dissect these one at a time, was when we talk about a family relocating mid-year and that that student can stay, that they have a choice, what happens the next year? The policy doesn't really say. It just says you can stay this year. But are we saying that you are transferring at the next year? Or are we saying that you're given a choice? So I'm just curious, for those mid-year moves, fully supportive of letting kids stay where they are for the year. But what happens the next year, I think, is another point of policy that we probably need to clarify. So that was like, sorry, big dump. But those were some of the things I was thinking about as I was reading through them.

[Member Erika Reinfeld]: I can speak to a couple that or you know, you go and then I'll follow you. Yeah, please, please fill in. So, the 1 year, I will say that is documenting the practice that has been in place. So, I'm certainly open to. Reconsidering, but this is what we have done for the last. However, many years. Since yeah, so that that's, I'm absolutely open to that discussion. I think this part of it, some of it is around. the reasons to go and some of it is about de-incentivizing some of the requests when there is not a hardship or a educational need.

[Member Jenny Graham]: I just don't think it plays out that way. I think what happens is everyone says yeah and then the next year, it's like, well, you can't take my kid out of their school, right?

[Member Erika Reinfeld]: So priority number three, when it is a request for continued reassignment and the original reason still exists. And so that is reasonably high on the list. Happy to have the conversation. I think in practice, people don't usually end up getting bumped around, but You're right. If we're clarifying the policy, but we do every year.

[Member Jenny Graham]: Asked for the, we do get requests from family every year. Like, yeah, that was saying. My kid is already in the school. What do you mean? You can't tell me if they can be in the school again this year. Right? So. Even if it doesn't happen in practice, it feels like it's happening to people, right?

[Suzanne Galusi]: The history, I would say, is I came to central office during COVID in 2020, July of 2020, and there was no kind of formalized protocol. and a lot of what the requests were were hardship for child care purposes after school. Trying to get a sense of what the data was and start like kind of compiling the protocol that I did follow when requests came were really just for child care hardships. At that time, because we could not offer a lot of capacity for afterschool programming. Those were the reasons that I was approving, but it was contingent upon a yearly approval, no transportation, and they could not be on the wait list in that school's afterschool program, right? They'd have to go back to their neighborhood school. I think trying to kind of like make sense of all of the pieces that you mentioned, the difficulty with all of this, because our school assignment at the elementary level is where you live, And I think we know there is wide variation in enrollment from school to school.

And because we do it that way, and we're a public school, which means we have rolling registration, I would say that every year, I also have wound up, up until this year, having to be creative with if and when we had to add new staff, like kindergarten teachers, because we did the budget, we weren't prepared for things that kind of have shifted and happened over the summer. And you want to allow families to be able to send their children to the school in where they live.

But this constant unknown, I would say that to your point about the clarity of the date, August 1st seems reasonable maybe for other grades, but that's still almost too early for kindergarten to notify kindergarten families because That's the challenge and the budget. And so I've been putting some positions in Title II because you do, it is allowed in Title II to put over-enrolled, the assignment of an over-enrolled teacher. The difficulty is sometimes these fluctuations, you don't know when they're coming in. I think some of our data from the summer had like 15 third graders So if we've allowed 15 brand new third graders and how that looks, but how that looks from school to school, if we have allowed, like, let's say, you know, five inter-district requests, but now we have eight coming to this one school, the conversation is, do we add a new teacher? Or are we telling families that they have to go back to their their neighborhood school. Those are the things that we're constantly having to, you know, make decisions about and shift on.

And even just this year alone, our projections around budget time was to put a fifth kindergarten teacher at the Brooks. And our projections were not, we've seen a slightly, a shift a little bit at the Roberts, and we didn't think we would need it at the Roberts. And then as registration played out, the Brooks didn't need it. And the Roberts did. And so we shifted that teacher from the Brooks to the Roberts, but these are the pieces that just make it a real challenge if, um, you know, We had a money tree in the courtyard of Medford High School, an ample resource. Maybe it's a different conversation, but trying to be thoughtful for families as well as our resource is part of the bigger conversation.

[Member Erika Reinfeld]: So I would say for two things, I would love to see if this, when this is reevaluated and evolved, if there's a way to tell families with older students earlier, and if we find that there is more active fluctuation in certain grades. that those maybe need to wait a little longer and maybe we can tell people earlier. The other piece in terms of mid-year bumping, that's where I think the buffer, we spent a lot of time thinking about what is a reasonable buffer. If we're looking at class sizes and we're saying it's meeting this, it's got to be under it, and we're adding a buffer. there should be some extra space for people to come in so that we don't have to bump them mid-year. So I think the mid-year bump is an extreme scenario and the buffer is meant to protect against it, but to say, if push comes to shove, the priority is for the student new to the district who is already, who is zoned for this neighborhood school, rather than sending them somewhere else and then bumping them back. I don't know if you have, I think you looked at the data, the buffer was a lot lower and then you looked at the data and said, no, we need a higher buffer. So, I think there is some protection against that, but point taken that it does sound like.

[Suzanne Galusi]: Bumping is going on to date to add correct today. We have not. Yeah, we have not rescinded anything or told people they had to go back to their neighborhood school. It has been absorbed in our numbers and our planning moving forward. I just, I mean, also in full transparency. You know, the high priorities of saying. to keep families together and saying that one sibling is in a specialized program and the caregivers and family want their siblings to be together. So that's an inter-district request is definitely a higher priority for us. And how do you vet out hardship, right? There's a lot of gray area to that. We're definitely taking, we're not, We're taking people at their word.

[Member Erika Reinfeld]: We're not systemized case by case determination. Correct. Member Parks.

[Member Jessica Parks]: Yeah, my question was sort of, or two questions was sort of to build off of what Member Graham was saying about the dates is instead of having such a wide span, is it possible to have kind of a latest date, which would slightly disincentivize people and weed out who truly was looking for this, but also to say, you know, how are we doing it though? Is it on like a first come first, do we put it in here? I didn't think I saw it on a first come first serve basis. I mean, what if there were eight people who had siblings in the connections program or something and they all, they all had siblings and they all wanted to be at Roberts. Like how does that work? And how is it first come first serve for that year and then We let them know, so should it be like, here's the period where you can submit them. It's first come, first serve when they come in from this date. And then we'll let you know by, say, August 20th or whatever is relevant, seems appropriate to let them know by, pick a latest date. And people just have to know that we don't have numbers, and this is our kind of date, rather than a span. would be one thought for that, and just kind of how those applications are looked at.

[Suzanne Galusi]: And just for people that might be listening, so Dr. Talbot created a form, so if a parent wants to request an inter-district request, they fill out the Google form, which also allows us to see, like there's a timestamp associated with that, so it does let us see when they come in, but to the way the policy is written, to the way that spreadsheet is set up, to the way we aligned the buffers to the CBA, to the teacher's contract in terms of class size and current enrollment like trends per school.

We had lots of meetings and we took each request in each grade level at each school. on the grade level in the school on that kind of case-by-case basis.

[Member Jessica Parks]: And is it possible to re-evaluate once we see what the increase in after-school does to these requests since it seems like a lot of it has been caregiver after-school driven? Absolutely.

[Member Jenny Graham]: Member Graham, on the conversation about the class size limits, I would recommend that we put in here that it's referenced to whatever our current collective bargaining class size limits are. So if those change for some reason, the policy list what it currently is, I think that's completely fine, but I think the anchor is like whatever is in the CDA. And the CDA is, those are the numbers that we're calculating against. And I guess I also don't have a sense for how many of these happen every single year, and if they are declining over time or increasing over time. Um, but I think there needs to be some visibility to that because I, there's to the point of like not being able to like are, you know, objectively decide that something is a hardship or it's not right. Like, um, I also think that those kinds of requests tells other things about what's going on in our schools and potentially, and at times, and I just would want us to have some way that we're also evaluating that number of requests. Like if we're seeing big increases, we should be asking some questions about what's going on.

[Suzanne Galusi]: Each year, the average hovers around 50. That's a lot. But I do want to say that. A lot. Yep. I didn't imagine that many. Yeah. It's a range.

[Member Erika Reinfeld]: I would say that's the average. Concentrated in certain directions, I think.

[Member Jenny Graham]: yeah well and that's my concern is like what the directional concentration and what why is it happening right like is it just because that's where the specialized programming is and the like i think there's like two like there's a couple of buckets right like there's people who need and want their kids all to be in the same place yes right like that's so if like you said 45 of them were that versus like people with like after school issues being, you know, if that was 45 or 50 people that like, I think I would feel differently about. Would you say that like a half to a 30? So I guess it doesn't have to be an answer right now, but I think there's like something important there for us to be worried about too. Agreed.

[yGcuIBQZTjc_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's about a third. Yeah. And the other two thirds tend to be around the idea of hardship and after school care, even if there are spots in after school programming open in the neighborhood school. I think I just want to say really clearly that our school policy, our school placement policy obligates us to make sure that every child who moves into a neighborhood has a seat in that neighborhood school.

[yGcuIBQZTjc_SPEAKER_00]: So that should be our very, very first priority. unless they need a specialized program that we're already set up to do. And that is not the trend that I've seen since I've been here. And so it's hard to place a value judgment on things like, I can't pay for afterschool, but the grandparents live across the street from this school, right?

[Suzanne Galusi]: It puts us in a really... In this year, we had a lot of siblings. A lot of siblings. So a lot of the requests were, my older child is already in this school. And so it was a request for the kindergartners.

[yGcuIBQZTjc_SPEAKER_00]: Right, in the school because of a school reassignment granting request.

[Member Jenny Graham]: I mean, I guess the other question is, do we consider a bigger buffer so that there is less movement? It probably would create more stability too, right? Like there's, it's going to be less likely if you have a bigger buffer that next year suddenly I have to go back to the school that doesn't work for my family. I'm trying to figure out how to create stability, but also like, acknowledge that there are big enrollment differences between our schools. So on the one hand, if you want to go to the school that has 200 fewer kids, that feels like it's a good thing for us and for the students in the school that they're coming from, if that's an overcrowded school. But I worry about if the direction of of interest is into the schools that are already sort of at or near capacity, and frantically so, then I think we have to do something to be even more limiting than a buffer of four, right? Because four could happen in August, like that, right?

[Member Erika Reinfeld]: And their district, their challenges in terms of geography and districting, because many people who can see one school from their yard, is it a hardship? There's transportation provided to their non-neighborhoods. That happens in every neighborhood, too. Exactly. Yeah, for sure.

[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: But I think you were going to say something, Member Burns. So are you going to take this back and just adjust and put it before us again? Or do you want to vote tonight with amendments?

[Member Erika Reinfeld]: It sounds so I think it would be helpful to hear the proposed amendments. Like, what what would you what would other people want to see if maybe they could send that feedback. To yeah, I mean, I or we've got the I took some notes. Yeah, yeah.

[Member Jenny Graham]: I only have questions, right? No, that's exactly and you're these are the questions we wrestled with in writing. Yeah, I mean, I do think maybe a bigger buffer is a potential solution. To consider. And I think the date of. you know, any implication that we're going to get back to anybody before August 1st just shouldn't come off the table, because I just don't think that's practical. And if it needs to be later than August 1st, that's fine too, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't leave anybody to believe that we can tell them in July. Like that just seems, like if you can, people will take your answer. eight. And that's fine. But it, but it just seems like it's that's impossible. So I do want the policy to be clear so that when people are filling out this form, they're like, they can acknowledge like, you know, I'm acknowledging that I understand that this is when I will hear and these are the rules like the policy can be sort of like that form of acknowledgement to hopefully make it easier for families to plan like I care a lot about that. But also, that they're not surprised by the timelines. I think that happens basically every year.

[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I'm CC'd on a lot of the emails, and people just keep asking and keep asking and asking. So the timeline would be helpful, I think, for the superintendent and the team that can be referred to based on the school committee setting a policy. So I think maybe just a little more thought should go into that with a couple suggestions that have come your way and what would work best for you all.

[Member Erika Reinfeld]: And I think, I do think one of the biggest challenge is the sibling component. Yes. Because somebody, a student for six years is contained, but then if you have multiple children, multiple years, then it becomes, Yes.

[Member Jenny Graham]: Well, you're not admitting one, right? Like you're admitting like one plus one plus, you know, x, I don't know, whatever x is right. And it's different in every situation. Um, I mean, I just, I think again, like, I would really want to know, like, what could we do to keep students in there? Like, of course.

[yGcuIBQZTjc_SPEAKER_00]: So I think what. would be helpful for me to hear is obviously the later the date in August that we need to let families know, the more accurate, the more fiscally responsible we'll be and the more confident we'll be that every child who moves into the neighborhood has a seat in the neighborhood school. So I'm just wondering like how late, for me, like August 25th, the Monday before school begins feels like I could be really confident, it could serve as a deterrent. especially for K families who want to do all the August things with the schools. That, to me, is a really strong message from this team that students, we believe in neighborhood schools and that students belong in neighborhood schools. When you start to move it forward, 15, the first, like then we really just, it feels messy and it feels like you're making a lot of value judgments that, um, just are harmful for long-term relationships with families and schools. Like, I don't want a kindergarten family to start off emailing the mayor for a placement. So I guess my question is how, how far, what is the tolerance of this team for how late a notification can be for a family?

[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: can be later than the 15th. I mean, I think you could say you may hear as early as the 1st, but you may not hear until the 21st based on numbers coming in and late registrations and capacity.

[Member Erika Reinfeld]: I mean, as a caregiver, I wanna know as early as possible where I'm going to school, where my kids are, where I'm sending my kids. You could say insinuating circumstances. And I think this is why we said, the only way we guarantee that your child stays in the school and that their siblings are, is if you go to your neighborhood school. But windows are tough though.

[Member Jessica Parks]: But I think windows are tough. Can we just say by August 25th, it may come, I mean, if it comes in early, yay, but if you can't guarantee it by the 25th.

[yGcuIBQZTjc_SPEAKER_00]: I think we need to, can I just like talk again? I'm just gonna talk again. I think we need a beginning time too, because the families start like right away on July 1st, and then July 7th, and then July 14th, and then the 15th. It's like, it's constant.

[Suzanne Galusi]: So I do think we need- Between, then you're saying no sooner than- August 15th to August 25th. For example, yeah.

[Member Jenny Graham]: I mean, I think it's, we have to be very clear about when is the first possible day you should expect to hear about this because that alone is a point to plan around, right? Especially for elementary kids cannot go home by themselves mostly and hang out and, you know, do whatever like that. That's part of the impetus for all of this, like care and direction and consistency. And as a parent, like, If that's untenable, like I won't know until two weeks ahead of time, like that's an important thing to be really clear about so that parents can decide like, can I wait that long to know what is happening or can I not? And do I have to make other arrangements? Because that's an unfortunate part of the reality too. So I think like a week before the start of school feels like tight but if it was two weeks before the start of school and and it was two weeks before the start of k for kindergarten like if you anchored it to like the first day of school for that grade maybe two weeks out really is like the 25th for kindergarten it is it is right so if it was like everybody can expect here, you know, no later than two weeks before the first day of school, like that, that feels like enough time for us to be operationally as certain as we can be. And, but still there's like, you know, it's not like five minutes before, so.

[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Okay, so take this all under advisement and then we'll bring this back for it.

[Member Erika Reinfeld]: for bullying to, so that would fall into the placement is necessary for the physical or emotional safety of the student, which is the second priority after capacity that there's actually room for it. Yes. Though I will also say, I very much hope that the school will have worked to resolve it within the school and that an intra-district placement is not the first response. Thank you, Ryan.

[a17_UOV__Vs_SPEAKER_20]: I was a victim of bullying and I know how it is for students who get bullied. It's awful and I just want to make sure that they have that opportunity because I want them to feel safe and I get every student that's been bullied.

[Member Aaron Olapade]: Mayor, I just want to make sure so I have for the agenda and stuff. So we waived the reading. I just want to clarify, are we accepting the motion with more work to be done?

[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: I don't think so. No, I think we're, no, I don't think any more. Yeah, no movement tonight on that.

[Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you for presenting. We have no reports requested or condolences. Our next meeting is October 19th. 2026 in the Alden Memorial Chambers, Medford City Hall, in addition to Zoom. Okay, is there a motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn. Member Reinfeld, seconded by Member Mastrobuoni. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Six in the affirmative, one absent. Thank you, everybody.

Breanna Lungo-Koehn total time: 5.39 minutes total words: 893	Aaron Olapade total time: 0.37 minutes total words: 58	Jenny Graham total time: 14.71 minutes total words: 2239	Jessica Parks total time: 13.52 minutes total words: 1675
Erika Reinfeld total time: 8.35 minutes total words: 1323