[Erika Reinfeld]: Oh, I was going to say thank you as well. And just to let you know, so the rules of the school committee have a place for the student representatives. And we hope to see at least one of you at every meeting. And just to, I think, work with Ms. Freitas Haley. members of the committee to figure out how you get on the agenda if you have things you want to talk about and of course anything that we're discussing on the floor. Your seat is there but I think member on top is the one who's going to get tapped on the shoulder and borrow his microphone at any point, because we really do want to hear from you and a lot of the things that we do here come from your voices, whether or not they are in this public forum, but I love the idea and the practice of making them more visible. So thank you for being here and keep showing up. And we want you to be part of these meetings. And I think many of us would be very happy to be invited to your meetings. I think several of us attended in the past. We can't all show up. That would be a problem for open meeting law, but we would love to be a part of it and make sure that this conversation goes both ways. So thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I will note that this was not done in a vacuum. This was informed by a district-wide survey of, I will say, staff, teachers, administrators. There were conversations around bringing in feedback from students and from families as a follow-on. The goal was really to get something on paper, but I think we had 120 or so responses, and we pulled out patterns, and we looked at those, and that really informed the discussions that we had. And I will say this when we go to read the policy. Well, maybe I won't since I'm saying it now. But the review timeline on this we set at one year because things are changing so much as we learn. and as different software companies, programs decide to comply or not comply with student privacy laws. So this is something that will be continually reviewed and that was always the goal and to see how with an eye to our student council representatives here, how this is actually affecting students and what this looks for. So we were looking for a policy and guidelines that teachers at different grade levels and in different subject areas could customized to the needs of their particular learners. So those were all parts of the conversation that we had. I'm happy to say more or answer specific questions, but I don't need to go on about it. Thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So the policy that is in paper, it takes the educator and student guidelines directly from the materials in the handbook. The handbook contains additional information, like the resources and the language for syllabus, which wouldn't be a school committee policy. And then the policy also adds a little bit of, top level framing for the policy book and a section on use in district operations, just because that was new guidance that came out. The committee was really focused on the classroom. But are you asking whether we then have to approve both things in both places every time?
[Erika Reinfeld]: So a lot of the language is overlapping and I think one of the, as we discussed in the handbook policy, the handbook update policies. those get reviewed and then summarized to align with the policy. So if the policy changes, the handbook would then have a follow-on update to reflect the new policy.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Sorry, I just, I would like to hear the rest of the overview of the handbook updates before we table the full discussion.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld. Yep, I just wanted to thank Mr. Trotta for providing this. I know I was the one who severed this last time and I just want to say thank you for providing the additional info. That's it. Member Ruseau.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So the educational staff and the student is taken directly from the committee's language. Most of this overview language is from, but I added the bits about consistency across grade level and within subject areas. The thinking on that, right, is that if a student on side A at the Andrews has a different policy than side B at the McGlynn, that's a problem. But recognizing that these tools are used very differently in a humanities class, a science class, a world language class, special education, so special education professionals were on in this group to say when things are using English language learners have a different need than others and in terms of assessing where the students are. So that's that was there and then as I mentioned the district operations that is kind of brand new in the DESE guidelines that came out at the end of August and I recognize that this work was done before our chief operating officer and assistant superintendent for instruction and curriculum. This actually began right in our surprise superintendent transition. And so I have to thank Director Chiesa for stepping in and doing some of that material. So that's where this came from. I put it on the agenda tonight because I knew the handbooks were on the agenda and I think it would be inappropriate to be referencing a policy that doesn't exist. So I welcome the discussion, friendly amendments, whatever we need to show that we're thoughtful and to make sure that we are supporting students. The discussion in these committee meetings was these resources are here to stay. We need to be using them responsibly and we need to have a position and not just let things happen. because someone comes up with an idea. So I am excited to have a consistent policy in this area.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I believe we said that the district will provide training and resources.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah. So one of the one of the objectives of the of this task force working group was to identify the training needs not prescribe what they should be. So I know that document exists, but has not been codified. Thank you mad for meetings, and I will also note that the language that is in the handbooks was reviewed at department meetings and building levels so. It has seen other eyes, although, as we mentioned, additional input from different stakeholders is still needed here.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I would defer to the staff on that. That was their language and not to pass the buck, but that was our teachers and administrators. I think they wanted it to be very consistent with the existing academic honesty and integrity policy, but I'm hoping. And I want to note that director Layden is not here. Shana Tova to our Rosh Hashanah observers. So there may be some questions here that our director of technology and library services may be better equipped to answer, but perhaps Dr. Galusi can talk about the panel.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I was just going to add that in our initial survey, we asked what the committee was, what the task should be, but also we got a high positive response to both generative AI tools support student learning and generative AI tools undermine student learning. And I think everyone kind of recognizes the complexity of that. Then this question that people are kind of most mixed on was, I know when my students are using generative AI tools. There was a big range of, I know, I have no idea. And I think more people said that their students didn't use the tools, but there was a recognition that that was going to increase over time. And that's why we really wanted to get ahead of this with the policy. So thank you. Yeah, of course.
[Erika Reinfeld]: The district maintains a list of acceptable software programs. And it, I believe, includes generative AI. Or they were adding the generative AI tools as of the writing of this policy. That's a great question for Molly Leighton as well.
[Erika Reinfeld]: to for student data protection. And that's really the that's the filter there.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And we kind of said there, there isn't a, it doesn't make sense to list those out in the policy because things change and legal. So the district maintains that in the same way that they maintain other acceptable software and why Google this works and Microsoft that doesn't, or I'm not trying to slam any particular company that was random. Right, I understand.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I will note that the environmental piece came up as ethical as an umbrella, both ethically in terms of personal development and learning, but also in terms of societal impact.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So it was certainly discussed, but the point is taken. I will say I wrote a very different policy for my graduate students than I wrote here. Fair enough.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So this was developed by committee, but I believe The intention on who is keeping these records is the person completing the assignment. And I believe the prompts list is only for the assignments work that is turned in to say this is the sourcing for the content that I'm providing. That is my understanding of what the teachers on the committee were thinking with this language. Member Ruseau?
[Erika Reinfeld]: every week when there's a new AI tool so that's how I interpret this to answer your question and I will add I back in this language so it's all use of Jenny I for schoolwork must be recorded and shared with teachers such as with a transcript of prompts and responses. So the policy is written to give teachers some flexibility in explaining what their expectations are and to say, this is how I want you to be citing things. It doesn't require that list of prompts, but the teacher, this is an example of something that a teacher might request. Another teacher might say, I want a disclosure of AI to say, I use this tool in my introduction, or I use this in my research to create an outline, but I don't need the specific prompt. So I think the such as is actually important here in that language. I don't know if that addresses the concern.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I can speak to that if you'd like. So that's in the definition section, because a lot of people use chat GPT interchangeably with generative AI. And so it was to specify that it is a specific tool. It is not the list of approved resources. It's a definition of clarifying language.
[Erika Reinfeld]: If this passes its first reading, we will have a second reading. I'm happy to take the request to explicitly call out energy requirements as a separate thing from general ethics. I think that's That's a good idea. And the cognitive decline is a really important thing. It's embedded in the critical thinking, but I think maybe an understanding the impact of AI is maybe part of the literacy component of it. So I think we can look at the policy with that in mind. And I was going to say something else? Oh, it is. I will note that I did add the phrase developmentally appropriate in front of technology use. And so I think in a future meeting, I may bring that to the technology responsible use policy. But I think that was part of the idea here in terms of what's happening to our brains as we use these tools. Because that's that research is coming out fast and furious, and to member on top was a point very alarmingly so.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah. I thought we put it in the first mention, but if we didn't, that can certainly be fixed.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And it's also right. It's in the related policies. I think it's the access to electronic media. But it's definitely a or the Internet acceptable use and software. It's all covered in there.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I was hoping you could comment just on what the expectations or requirements are for teachers in terms of posting syllabus having the curriculum night and I know we also in some cases do information sessions about potentially sensitive content, I know we did that when that when we. in fifth grade when the puberty unit comes up, that is available as a resource. And we've, I think, talked previously about listing what curricula are being used. I know DESE has it on their site, but putting it on our website and saying this is the curriculum we use for math and for science. As Member Ruseau mentioned, you can't just hand over a curriculum. It's very protected, but what are the expectations for educators to make that information available proactively?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Not a mandate, but it is an expectation. Is it explicit or implicit? A little bit of both.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Because I know sometimes I sign a syllabus for my child. Sometimes I don't. And different things are available at different curriculum nights. But we've always had that information up front.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Christine's question raised another point, which is what kind of supports are available for the teachers to have these conversations in the moment? Because sometimes it's something that comes up kind of unexpectedly if we've encountered it as we're reading or so facilitating the conversations in the moment in the classroom as well, I think is a really important piece here.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Right, so yes, I think that's the core of it, is making sure that this is being discussed in a department meeting or a building meeting, particularly since it's new. And I know educators want support in how to
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld. You answered my question about what is required of city council may or school committee, particularly with the mind to there's an election going on and who we elect is going to affect this project. My other question is when are the community conversations happening.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Right. And I would like to motion that this committee hear from the final designer about their thoughts or via the building committee. And I was going to put a date on that, but now I'm not, I think perhaps before the feasibility study would make sense sometime between October 7th and the feasibility study. And I defer to the building committee members to say what that,
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: This is basic housekeeping from our May 20th meeting. We were very quick to authorize the space utilization study and fix the enrollment challenges at the Roberts. This got lost in the sauce, and so I'm putting it on the table now to make it happen.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So I think we, um. We know that our district needs a strategic plan. This resolution is written the way it is to frame kind of why we are where we are in the strategic planning process and to lay out that plan, recognizing that there is currently an interim leader, an interim person in the The superintendent position is currently interim and so the strategic planning subcommittee by definition defines a lot of the strategic planning and so the idea here is that the My vision here is that the strategic planning committee, that the school committee will be leading the vision setting, and then a superintendent, once appointed, will do the how we get there component of the planning. So that's the thought here. But what does that process look like, given all of the community meetings that we need to be having anyway all of the content that has already been developed that is in service of a strategic plan. It's this resolution is here because it's time to start the process and we have completed a lot of these other components that will feed into it and I think it's time to synthesize it. That's that's my recap very quickly knowing that it's late but happy to questions, comments, etc.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes, I'm hoping you can clarify, maybe for people watching and people new to the process, what is the role of community input into this evaluation process?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Motion to enter executive session.
[Erika Reinfeld]: A motion to sever the CCSR.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Motion to approve everything else.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes, I was just noticing the allowing us to redirect these resources to areas of greatest need. And I'm curious what that means in terms of, is that for within the CCSR program? Is that related programs? Where does this money go if it's not going to what was written in the grant? Or is it just deviation from the line items? Sorry?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Right, but I'm reading this as communicated in our May 20th email. Foundation is lifting restrictions on the use of grant funds versus to your organization, allowing you to redirect these resources. to the areas of greatest need. I'm just, I don't fully understand. Is that the greatest need within CCSR? I think that's what. The greatest need within the CCSR program as not to.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I don't anticipate this is going to be a problem. I just am curious what that means, because this is one of the largest grants we received and one of our largest revolving accounts stipended, et cetera, all of that.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So motion to table until we have an answer.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes, if we could just summarize.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Oh, Member Reinfeld, yeah. Sorry. So I think probably you need to say all policies when adopted or updated. Or is an amended, updated policy in adoption? It's the same language. So that was an ironic comment then that I made. Okay. And so if one wanted to make an exception, these make sense. So one would then have to say the superintendent is the sole decider of this. So that would be the way to make the exception, is to add that language there. If a policy gets- If a policy required that, say, it be specifically the superintendent, or if it's a principle and it's a, I don't know, a Title IX something, and it has to go to this particular person, they would either need to be named by name or say, as the sole person responsible for this?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Great, and thanks for answering my questions. I can second that, your approval, but I see Member Olapade. Member Olapade.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Aye.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes, I was just wondering, are there other companies that do this? I assume we have to go through city procurement. Are we going to be, what's the timeline that we can expect to see this? And is procurement going to be a challenge?
[Erika Reinfeld]: That's really helpful. And then in regards to the special education vehicles, you said it stops at the Bedford city limits. Is there any effort now that this legislation is in place, kind of for cross-district to do some coordination and have that shared resource.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Terrific. I think this is great. And I really appreciate the earmark request as part of this, as this is really about student safety. And I would love to see those funds go towards that. So thank you. Is there a second yet?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I'm seconding.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Does this change benefits eligibility for anyone? What does this do? No. Okay. I'm sure I have more questions, but I will.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Is there a, oh, Member Reinfeld? Yeah, just a little bit of clarification. It's a little bit on the side here on the city year. So previously, you said we're getting more city year people. Are those more people being paid for? As I recall, we were splitting the city year, we were paying for city year partly out of afterschool, but not entirely. Correct, that's still the same. So, but these new folks that are coming in is exclusively on the afterschool or are we?
[Erika Reinfeld]: But for more people.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay.
[Erika Reinfeld]: But they're still being paid a reason. This was one of our concerns a year ago was that yes, compensation was they're able to live or near Medford or Boston.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Great. And then are we confident we will be able to offer vacation week programming for this? Because I see those days in there and not that we don't have plenty of work that people can do for eight days, but
[Erika Reinfeld]: But I just wanna make sure that that's.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah. And does this take things off of our director's plate?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Here.
[Erika Reinfeld]: You probably need to reshare it to get the audio and there's a box to check when you share.
[Erika Reinfeld]: You probably need to re-share and then in the share window, there's usually a box to check. No, not, sorry, not sharing from Google, sharing on Zoom.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Ruseau was first.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld and Member Grant. Thank you. I just wanted to ask how this maps to our staffing. I know part of the motivation for this model was that we thought that we could have more flexible staffing opportunities. And so I just wanted to make sure that was proportional here and that the people who are on the clip shift till 4pm working, they're still being paid at the same rate as the people in 6pm.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And so this proportionally maps to what we need to pay our staff to run this program, presumably with more people in the early shift and fewer people overlapping in the later shift.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, I was going to agree and note that the financial aid is still available for families who need that, which seems reasonable as a, reminder that that's happening as well.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld also says yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Sorry, we all said it at the same time. That's per unit, right? Per station?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld. Thank you. So I wanted to say, I know Director Smith is not on the call, but I appreciate both that this is proactive, but also really responsive to something that students requested. So I really appreciate that. And I just wanted to ask Director Velez if Is this at risk? I know the revolving budget at the moment, the revolving fund can handle it. Does this come under risk if things happen with our federal grant and the support for free lunches, the free breakfast and lunches?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Terrific. Thank you. In that case, I'm happy to second the motion to approve the lease.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yep, I just wanted to say I think this is well worth investing in for the revolving accounts. I think that was one of the things that we saw when we got these budget presentations that there was some unevenness and some questions around what was coming in and what was going out and how it was being distributed. So I think this is well worth the cost and a bargain, honestly, for financial budget consulting. So I'll motion to approve.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you. I'm not going to repeat what colleagues have said. When I saw this just a couple of days ago, I know it's been in the works. I really appreciate the background on where it came from. And I had some similar concerns around what here is policy and what is protocol and what is education. I know we have a robust health services page that has information about various medical conditions. I think everything in here is incredibly important, incredibly valuable, but I would like to make a motion to move this to the rules and policies subcommittee to kind of sort out what is education, what are the protocols, and I think these protocol sheets should be absolutely distributed and I don't think moving this to subcommittee would prevent it from going from being implement those protocols to be implemented in the upcoming school year because I imagine we really do want to have this in place for that but I think it would be really helpful because if I want this information, I'm probably not going to the school committee policy page to find it. I'm going to a handbook to resources with other resources within the district. So my motion is to send this to the policy subcommittee, and that I think would also open it up to get some of the input that other people have mentioned from staff, from levels, and from athletics, and potentially the PTOs as well, which I think is really important, particularly having an event where we had someone come in and basically didn't follow this policy. Cheney knows what I'm talking about. She was at that event as well. So that's my motion.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And just to be clear, this still means that these guidelines can go out to the relevant parties as the current practice. Because I love the one-pagers. I think that's a great approach.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I can second that.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I suspect what I was going to say was related to what Dr. Galussi might say about. I was going to motion that we strike this policy and integrate the relevant language into IKF, everyone's favorite policy for the spring.
[Erika Reinfeld]: My only reason for the integration, and then I promise I'll let Dr. Galussi speak, was that when we talked about the impact of ballot question two and removing MCAS as a graduation requirement, she was very clear in her presentation that there are reasons with the MCAS being offered and the benefits to students in terms of scholarships and that was a point that seemed important to the district and therefore I thought there could be a little section at the end over of of IKF for the describing that MCAS is administered and here are some of the things that the impact of that but I will let Dr. Galussi actually say what she was going to say.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay, then I second the motion to rescind.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you. I was going to ask if this was for all buildings, which is great. I would like to roll into this, the continuation of resolution 2024 25. We had, which was from obviously 2024. from the building and ground subcommittee to meet with the universal safety committee to review a set of recommendations that we were sent in February of 2024. I think this dovetails nicely. I don't think that subcommittee ever met, but if they did, maybe this report could be part of that. I know we haven't approved that, but it was looking kind of more broadly at accessibility. And I would like to see those things happen, particularly since there was a list of known issues and proposed solutions potentially for grant funding.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Absolutely. But I know there was an assessment that was supposed that we were that was going to happen. And I think it got eclipsed by our our budget season in 2024. But concerns are still there. And I would love to see those move forward. Well, solutions move forward. And an assessment is, of course, the first step for that.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, I just had a question for Dr. Galussi about the best way to involve our new COO and the facility staff that we're hiring because this is directly relevant. And I think framing it, thinking about it in terms of when they're coming on board, because I'm not sure these positions are hired yet. And we would want them to be a part of this conversation from the beginning. I think it might make sense to have either a building and grounds committee or a strategic planning depending on the scale of these things with those new folks on board to get an update and have them be able to hear directly from the committees or maybe it's a maybe it's a committee of the whole since i've named two different committees but i i want this conversation to be part of the new staff because they need to be a part of this conversation and it will also be their responsibility to act on it so I'm not sure what the motion is though if it is. to schedule a meeting for the fall to address the questions around entry points in this, as well as that 24, 25, I know we're already gonna be hearing about the space utilization report. So I guess my question is for Dr. Galussi, what is the best way to do this efficiently so that everyone has had time to collect the data they need and not have a million and one conversations with individuals on this body? but to really focus and present it in context. What's most helpful?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Sean.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I'm going home to eat.
[Erika Reinfeld]: We have to start recording or push to YouTube or oh, I see community media.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I would just say that this is a meeting about not the content of what we say, but what. The processes are, or what. what communications go out, not necessarily what's in them. Like general topic is fine, but not getting into the details. But to say family needs this sort of information and this is appropriate for a real time communication, this communication could be archived on a website for people to reference. And what are those processes? What do they look like? So it's not the details of exactly what we're telling people about what happens when you move from middle to high school or How the lottery works, just know it the after school lottery works. It's just keep. We need to have content about what the. How people need to know how the lottery works, but we don't need to get into the details. Of how it works on this call, so there will probably be a fair number of action items after this meeting. but it's just to say what are the points and what are the points where central administration can support program directors and principals in getting messages out to a large swath of people, right? Are there moments when it doesn't make sense for each middle school, some things that will make sense for each middle school to communicate with the families going, but if it's generally what happens when you move to middle school, that could potentially come from a central location, or the message could be crafted centrally and sent out by individuals. Does that make sense? Do people have questions?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay. And then once people are in, it's the building bridges and it's what's on the website, right? Those are the kind of the, and then there's an open house in the spring and the screenings, right? Those are.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay. So I guess my question is, are there things that we need to streamline or improve? It sounds like we've made some progress in the last few years.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay, and I was just going to ask, could that happen when they're say that that goes on a list of required documents and say this isn't essential for registration, but this is helpful to get that sooner? And I think the big question that families have is, particularly people who haven't been in schools, is why am I giving you all this information? And I don't, it's been a while since I filled it out. I was out of Medford for early childhood, so. I remember filling it out. I just don't remember the messaging around it.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So I mean, and I think I certainly understood. I'm just thinking of people who are less familiar with American education systems.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And one of those, and if exact dates, days of the week are not known, but to say it's in early May or mid May, or I'd say days of the week.
[Erika Reinfeld]: It sounds like kindergarten, we know that. Otherwise, I know middle school open houses are a little less fixed.
[Erika Reinfeld]: No, I think we should move it a reasonably with all due respect to input.
[Erika Reinfeld]: That makes a lot of sense to me. I think one of my questions around afterschool is, I know we have done a live question and answer about, say, the middle school lottery, which I grant is a very different lottery beast, but is there some sort of real-time thing that's needed here? I'm not sure if it is, but...
[Erika Reinfeld]: These all sound great. I think one piece that I think, I think these things are all happening kind of once placements have happened, once kids know where they're going. And there's a lot of anxiety leading up to that about not knowing what's coming. So I think, again, kind of that overview of there's- The road to middle school. The road to middle school kind of thing and with the fifth grade teachers. And I know there's some inconsistency among fifth grade teachers of, How how much they're willing to take on or how much they have been able to take on in terms of prepping their kids for.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And I think the main source of anxiety I've seen around the lottery is actually in the kids. And am I going to be separated from my friends? And that's where I think the peer-to-peer panels actually make a lot of sense here, especially as middle schoolers are doing that developmental thing where they are separating from the adults and trusting the older and wiser eighth graders before they trust.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I think they should go together. I think you should have representation from both schools. The risk of that is if one kid is engaging and another one isn't, then everyone wants to do that. But there's also anxiety about how different are these two schools and these two experiences.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And hearing that from a kid is huge. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's a good question, is what we can do centrally to take some of that individual burden off of you and Nick to do. I think personalizing middle school is really important, and I don't want to lose that because it makes people feel welcome in the school that they're in. But some of that hand-holding before they know where they're going is good.
[Erika Reinfeld]: You got two rising, and John's brother is also, you got, yeah, you got four school committee members coming into ninth, families coming into ninth grade.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Actually, I don't think, I don't think one of them, I think one of them is going to a Catholic school.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Presumably some questions were asked frequently in those emails that could be pulled out into some sort of FAQ. Because I got the email and I found it wholly without context.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I know, I know last year, it was there were a fair number of curriculum directors there who They had a range of ability to speak to what the day-to-day lesson is, but most of them were able to say, this is the curriculum, this is the textbook we use, and didn't really talk about what the student experience was, like what you do in class.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, I need to look at that as well. I'm not sure how school shifted.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And I think the other piece that's perhaps missing from parents and maybe it's the, overly involved parents like me, but wanting to know if I make this choice now, what are the consequences of that later? You know, we're trying to say, okay, somebody says, well, I don't want to take this honors class, say, okay, but that means you won't be able to do this, or just knowing kind of the trajectory of how some of these things go, especially with what the graduation requirements are. and say, if you opt for your instrumental class, you then have to choose between language PE and one other arts class or whatever it is, just kind of that big picture and a little bit of the long-term planning of, you know, in order to take AP science, you need to make this choice. Actually, I don't think that's true in Medford. I know I said, If you take earth science, you close off AP classes. That was my high school in a completely different state. But knowing a little bit more of the big picture of how scheduling works and what it means, because it does feel a little bit like throwing darts at a dartboard. And I recognize the challenge that we don't have the schedule and the courses for the semester. I'm a bad example as a rising ninth grade parent.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And I do think parents understand that. Everyone I've talked to, and granted, I only talk to the people that I talk to or reach out to me, they understand why things were in flux. So I think there's a lot of goodwill here, just making sure that we're ahead of it.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, I was going to also say, I think bringing in some parents to advise on that would be really helpful. And there are some people who are very productive and kind about it. And then the other point I think that students and families is what is the relationship with guidance? I think guidance Councilors play a different role at the different levels and knowing that scheduling is going through guidance and challenges you're facing go to guidance, particularly at the high school level. You mentioned meeting the principals, and I think you said sending guidance Councilors to the middle schools, was that true? Or was it guidance? No, it was the Councilors going to elementary. But I'm wondering if there's an element of that that would help with the transition of I think that's a big question that parents often have is, who do I go to about this? Am I going to the principal? Am I going to... Right, in elementary school, it is the teacher first and the principal, but who is it at these other levels? I think that would be really helpful, because the relationship with guidance absolutely changes, or has the potential to change. Not everyone leans into that resource.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Erica? Yes. So that was, that was, so I've been seeing a lot of people being taken by surprise by a field trip or the prom tickets are going to be, some of it is around expenses, some of it is around scheduling, but just knowing that these are the moving on ceremonies that every grade at the high school often has a dance and who's responsible for that to say, this is a PTO thing, this is a school led thing. And I think just having a heads up about what that is gonna look like is gonna be really helpful for people. Because a lot happens at the end of the year and people, I think, feel like things just suddenly get thrown onto the calendar when we actually knew these things were coming. And so being able to communicate that at every level is helpful and also around expenses. We got the field trip notice for Canobie Lake Park, and it's a $30 field trip, which some families panicked about that. Some families said, oh, that's fine. Some might have said, oh, if I'd known that I was going to be paying that much for a field trip, maybe that would have been a gift that I would have given my kid at their bar mitzvah or at their as a as a milestone and so being able to plan both time and financial resources. And I know it's not always easy to say exactly how much something is going to cost or exactly when this is going to happen. I know at the high school, the dances, there was talk of a combined dance, and then there was talk of individual grades. But what that looks like, I think we know more and can tell people more in advance. And it's probably a PTO slash school collaboration. Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah. Because this is, this depends on the class fundraising, knowing that this is what we're fundraising for, or, you know, fifth graders always do a fundraiser at the Roberts. don't know what happened. They do fundraisers and it's, what is that for?
[Erika Reinfeld]: And concerts and moving on and
[Erika Reinfeld]: And I recognize any of these calendars are going to come with a subject to change. I think I keep cutting miss gain off.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Is there an integrated, is there, I don't know how sophisticated our web stuff is, but the calendar, is there a way to filter? So if I have a kid at the high school and the Andrews and the Mrs. This is what we're working on. This is what we're working on.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, I think we did those action items along the way.
[Erika Reinfeld]: No, I was asking if we need to sever the strategic and capital planning subcommittee because we're discussing it later. That's up to you all. Okay, so motion to approve. I'll second.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So we got together and we got you some little things and we just want to say thank you for everything you've done for the district, for the schools of Medford. You've had your fingers in so many different projects over the years and I know I, whenever I would reach out and say, hey, what's going, what about this? you were already on it, and I know that you were doing it for the students. Your values and your actions were so beautifully aligned, and we really, really appreciate that. So we have some cards, we have some tokens of appreciation, and also, do we want to share those or hand them out?
[Erika Reinfeld]: We also couldn't let you leave without a reminder of one of the projects, one of the perhaps unexpected projects that has haunted you for your entire time since I've been here.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you for putting this together. I really appreciate the increased flexibility. When we saw this last time, there was also talk of independent studies for health. And I'm wondering what happened with those. So I think what we can do for that piece would be to offer more health electives for students to take. Would that count as part of the physical education independent study, or would those be their own independent electives? That would be their own independent electives.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I just wanted to echo the thanks that has already been said and to note that I'm pleased that these adjustments do not include cuts to the arts and to mental health support. I see some of those things have increased for the position needs here. And so I want to call that out and say thank you, because those I think are really essential for the health of our community. And I will second the motion.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And it's also our report from the subcommittee.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And just to jump in, you mentioned the bubble, but to be really explicit about what that is, all but one grade at the Roberts next year will have five classrooms at that level. Everyone except the fifth graders, and that is where those new classrooms are needed. And it also affects the ability to engage with specialists. So you saw in the amended budget that one of those positions is a specialist teacher, so that everyone gets that access to those enrichment. academic experiences.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I'll second it. Member Graham.
[Erika Reinfeld]: The Missituk was the only school that didn't have space constraints and had classrooms available with bathrooms for the preschool level.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I was just also going to say one of the things, not to rehash the entire meeting because I think it is worth looking at the presentation and the recap, but is that one of the things we're thinking about with the new that came up was the new high school is looking to have early childhood because there are programs like that in the building. We have a unique opportunity with MSBA to grow MEAP-like programs. for the whole district. And so this meeting was a really interesting balance of the short-term fixing the challenges that are directly affecting next year's ability to really stay above water and looking at the long-term solutions. And so early childhood, we had an interesting discussion around that in the context of both the new high school and what all the schools have to offer, as Dr. Galussi said.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So the space study is commissioned for the summer to happen. And then once that data is in, it falls to the district to analyze and say, all right, what are we going to do with this? Does this mean we're restructuring the grade levels at different schools? Does this mean we're changing how kindergarten enrollment happens? Is it changing districting? It's to explore those longer term solutions with the data about what our buildings can handle. Got it.
[Erika Reinfeld]: around communication. Which Wednesday? The 11th.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I see you. I am on the side of the road. I am not actually Zooming while biking.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Present.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Motion to enter executive session.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld, could you call the roll for us? Yes. Member Branley? Yes. Member Graham? Yes. Member Intoppa?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Olapade? Member Reinfeld, yes. Member Ruseau?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn, absent. Member Olapade, are you back?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld? Yep, I will just say I am incredibly excited about this candidate. Dr. Scalusi said most of it, but she is incredibly competent and her values are rock solid and well aligned with Medford's instructional vision, strategic plan values, community-based approaches. So I am very excited to motion that we approve the offer to Dr. Kimberly Lawless-Talbot for the position of Assistant Superintendent for Academics and Instruction.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld, can you call the roll? Yes. Member Branley? Yes. Member Graham?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Intoppa?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Olapade? Member Reinfeld? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes, member of mayor lungo current absent. So, 6 in the affirmative is that memorable party was absent.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Are there any questions or comments from the public?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Ruseau? Member Reinfeld, will you call the roll? Member Branley?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Graham?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Intoppa?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Olapade? Member Reinfeld, yes. Member Ruseau?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn, absent.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Roll call, please. Member Branley. Yes, please. Member Graham. Yes. Member Intoppa.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Olapade. Absent. Already adjourned. Member Reinfeld, yes. Member Ruseau?
[Erika Reinfeld]: And Mayor Lunko-Kern? Absent.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you. Yeah. So thank you for all this. I know that pulling it together was was a lot. And thanks to everyone who's on this call. So I think I'm going back a little bit to some of the questions about the previous slide. But I'm really intrigued by the early childhood. As member Ruseau said, I've heard the five, six, seven, eight floated. I hadn't seen anything around the. restructuring at the elementary level, would that open up more pre-K programming to families in Medford? I think it's not as cutthroat as some of the after-school lottery, but I do hear people feeling really, really lucky to have a preschool space in the public schools. So does it affect that at all?
[Erika Reinfeld]: MSBA proposal to bring more early childhood into. The high school, I don't know if there's more to say there.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay, that's helpful because then I was thinking, well, if you've got pre-K at the high school, are we considering a K-2 model in K-2 schools and 3-5 schools. So there are a lot of possibilities. And I agree, we have to understand what is possible. And I know there are some challenges around retrofitting what was built for middle school students, for elementary. But I also think we have some inequities at the middle school level in terms of service provided and students in both schools needing things and either having to double staff particular services or concentrating certain student populations in a single school. So I'm really interested in the restructuring for that. I know this conversation is really around elementary school, but. to the sense that some of this can solve some of the challenges we're seeing at other grades, I think is really important. The weighted lottery system, I think the potential and the critiques are all really valid. And I appreciate your explaining what that meant, because I read this and I went, oh, weighted. So if you are within a certain geographic radius, you go there and that gets into the 360, 180. whatever it is, because I have a personal interest in increasing alternative transportation around walking and biking. And I think if you're not busing around a certain radius, anyone who's living within that radius. And then I think there are certain areas of the city that are going to need busing or vehicle transportation either way. And I don't know if that's weighted enrollment or if it's actually a redistricting because you kind of say, all right, if people are all the way up in the heights, they're going to be bused no matter what. So does it make sense? Do they have to be bused to the Roberts? I know traffic in the city, 93. I know it's awful. I live in one of those places where if I walk five minutes, I could go to it. My kids would go to any of the four elementary schools. So I see the traffic. But that's what I was wondering around Weighted Lottery to do a geographic radius. And if there are neighborhoods that need busing either way, Well, I think I would be busing to the school that is closest to them. Or are there more opportunities to rethink where folks are going?
[Erika Reinfeld]: And I think that could be true for redistricting as well. I know there are much more formal processes that apparently Medford hasn't engaged in before, but there is some common sense logic that is not always applied to the mapping of things, namely that this is my backyard and I could walk here.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah. And that was the last thing I was going to mention. So I will step back and let other people add thoughts to the conversation.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And I see Ms. Demos as well. I was just going to say that. I see you as well. And I see caregivers as well. We see you, everybody.
[Erika Reinfeld]: It was a lot to take in, but it really was. Lots of thoughts and questions. And given that this is kind of the first public conversation we're having about this.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So seconded by. I can 2nd, but I did have a question from his crawl to Rebecca's point. Are we do we know how many families. Are are going to be affected in terms of. I guess we don't know who the incoming preschoolers are unless we happen to know a parent.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, I mean, in particular, but to Rebecca's point around whether they're being separated from their their siblings. Yeah, because I was going to ask if there's any way to have one Meep classroom so we can prioritize people whose families are already in the system. But it sounds like we need both those classrooms.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, I mean, I know a family who has students at Roberts Brooks. Correct, correct. I know this happens.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And I think I think that might be worth including in messaging around the shift, obviously, that the priority is. freeing up the space for the Roberts now, but also to remind people that this is part of the long-term thinking, that it's being considered both in these space utilization studies, but also in the new high school, because we have the rare opportunity, unlike other cities, to co-locate that kind of programming in a high school. Yeah.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Do we need to authorize the space study or that's already engaged and ready to go?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah. And along with FY26 budget?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I can double check, but I'm... That's separate from the recommissioning. Correct. Great. And I think as part of the moving, once I think, once the full committee is able to provide, approves, I suppose it's possible that they won't, but the relocation of the MEAP classrooms, I think communication needs to go out as soon as possible. I know we've had challenges in the past, Um, by last, what appears to be a last minute change and an inability to plan for an upcoming school year.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Well then, I don't know, I think the sooner we can communicate with families, the better is my point.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Just wanted to say thank you for doing this. I know I was kind of beating down your door even as you were in the process of transitioning. So I appreciate the turnaround on this.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I know it feels, as somebody said, five years too late, but I'm glad it's happening. I'm glad it's moving. And thank you to all the staff and caregivers who signed on to learn more and raise issues. Thank you. Motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Second.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I'm not sure everyone who has is listening in is familiar with this basic acronym and who Andrew is so if you could go back a little bit.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Reinfeld? Yes, so I am strongly supportive of this. I have also met with Andrew and was very impressed by the work and seeing what's coming out of the community and really appreciative that this was able to move forward so quickly after the listening sessions. My question is when we will see that proposal, that quote from Andrew and confirm that that's coming out of the revolving fund for afterschool, or I really want this to move forward. And I think member Ruseau may have already seconded. I would, if not, but as the school committee, we do need to know what that financial impact is and make sure that it's not affecting families. We have our tuition rates. So I just want to be financially responsible in authorizing this.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Oh, remember, Thank you. Yeah, so I wanna thank the task force, people who just spoke, Jessica, Ada, and others. The deep dive into other districts I think was really powerful, partly because we were looking at that as inspiration and what could be possible versus all the things that other people are doing that we're not. It was really collaborative and open-minded. And on the communication piece, I just wanted to put in a plug for our family engagement and communication subcommittee meeting on June 11th after school lottery is one of the one of the topics on the agenda, along with some of the other family facing communications. So that subcommittee will be meeting in June. Hate to give people more meetings at the end of the school year, but it's important and we wanted it to happen now.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Sorry, you wanted questions about the organizational structure and then about the job description?
[Erika Reinfeld]: No, I think I think my only question was around. Exactly how much is on the superintendent plate in terms of the finance communications and human resources? And I think that has previously reported to the superintendent, correct?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I know, for example, food services was not a direct report to the superintendent.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you. Yes. So one of my questions was going to be, can I see the org chart? So I'm really glad that this was provided and I've been trying to read through it while we've been right before the meeting. And so I'm also thinking about all the things that our new assistant superintendent of curriculum instruction is going to do, but having seen candidates, I'm sure they will be up for this. Agreed.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Although, as I recall, Ms. Layden's position covered some of the networking as well. So there was some splitting.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld? also have two suggestions. One is under qualities MPS is looking for, I would like the last bullet point, I would like the innovative leader to identify and implement both projects and processes. I think it's not just about coming up with great ideas for projects, it's looking at existing resources and synthesizing them into a system and also being able to execute. I know that's covered a little bit in execute sufficiently, but I think the new projects, both the ideas and the implementation, and that it's also about the processes we're looking. And then to the point of the org chart, I think it would be helpful to have a section around, actually, I think it's certainly the way I have seen job descriptions is supervision, received and supervising. I forget the exact phrasing, I can find it and get it to you, but the list of everything that will be supervised, because in reading this, my first thought is, oh, it's the facilities person, and that's it. but I think just calling out these are the areas, but in terms of actually supervising people, because I think that people management and that delegation is a really key part of this job description and knowing how big the team is, or at least how many departments are under the supervision is important for someone applying for it and doing the job, of course.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, and I think just synthesizing it into direct reports and that bulleted list is really helpful in seeing the job descriptions. I think we did that in the assistant facilities director of saying this person is responsible for custodians and I forget the whole list. I looked at it right before this and it has gone out of my head, but no confusion that way.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Council.
[Erika Reinfeld]: You mentioned sending this to City Council. How is this? How does this fit into the budget proposal that we have?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld? Thank you. So you answered one of my questions about the cost for the literacy program. So two questions are you looking. Is there talk of developing a math specific program which is another area of summer slide I know last year we had the grant specifically for literacy and so that's where our focus was, you mentioned. the morning activities, but what does this look like for stem or math in particular.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Just curious about big picture long-term. So that actually splits my second question into two questions. So just to confirm, so this is for elementary families? Yes. And the MAPS program is anyone, any elementary family in Medford or? Yes, yes, two rising grade six. Okay. And then, The thing when I when I saw this I went, how does this stack up we have we approved a summer fund program, which is significantly cheaper than than this for families, I hear that this is academically and enrichment focused. And so I'm hoping you can explain a little bit about how this fits into the broader summer offerings. And then with an eye towards the future we talked when we approved summer fun about rolling out all of our summer programs at the same time. So I would like to see that in the future and I think you know that but I wanted it on record but. Could you put this in the context of the other summer opportunities in Medford, because the price difference is significant and I understand the staffing is different and the curriculum development is different, but it would be really helpful to hear what makes this an important part of our summer portfolio when we have summer fun as well.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And then are there accommodations for special education services?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I'm sorry. Oh no, one-on-one support that's needed, aids to facilitate
[Erika Reinfeld]: I'm not sure if I'm allowed to do that. I think the purpose of the meeting of some of these details. It's a very long policy. I don't know if I'm allowed to do that if we have to Okay. I think the purpose is useful and. Motion to waive the reading by
[Erika Reinfeld]: Well, did you have a question?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, I was wondering if you could speak to how unique this process is for schools in particular, because I think to Tracy's point about community questions about why did it happen this way, and people's reference point is likely other construction projects that they've been involved in. And so is this typical across building projects, or is this really a singular experience for the MSBA process. Maybe Marissa can answer that. When my work was rebuilt, this happened. And this is what is going to be inundated. And so I'm curious if you can, in a nutshell,
[Erika Reinfeld]: So this sounds incredibly exciting, and I love the timeline, not just because I also have an eighth grader. I'm curious how the begin work immediately in June lines up with community input, particularly given that summer is a vacation time and our educators are gone. I know there's an architectural selection and that probably needs to happen before we get the community involved. But when can we expect those sorts of conversations and meetings?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Absolutely, and I know you have a subcommittee for engagement and communication.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you so much for laying that out. And congratulations.
[Erika Reinfeld]: If you're definitely going, you should be the alternate.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you. So one of the things we hear a lot is, what do I expect when there's an after school lottery or when my child is coming to kindergarten or moving up to sixth grade or to eighth grade and I think the district has done a really nice job and. bringing on a director of communications to centralize some of the communications coming out of the central leadership, but I think we do better in some areas than others when it comes to communicating expectations about transitions for families. knowing that we have a director of communications now, and we recognize some of the things that are always going to need to be communicated. Obviously, there are program specific things that need to come from a program in the moment, but I think overall, I think we are at a point where we can really start to put together some frequently asked questions and some schedules that can be communicated to families in advance. And so I would just like to have a deeper conversation and bring Director Pappichelli into that conversation to discuss how his position can support some of these very broad communications that affect a lot of people.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And I will just add this isn't to take authority away from people who are doing communication, but it's to support them in that work and to, I think this meeting could also give some of our families a chance to communicate to us. I know you heard a lot of it at the meet and greets, but what they would like to know what they're expecting so we can be ahead of that and not have all of our folks on the ground, spending all their time answering questions about things that could have been communicated in advance so that they could focus on doing the work and executing on it.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I think this mostly speaks for itself. This is kind of a trumped up version of our don't run out of paper resolution that I think we passed this time last year. But, and I, I do apologize because I know it is work to put together those school supply lists because they do change from year to year and I hate putting more work on school staff in this busy time, but I think it's really important that we give our families and indeed are the people in the system. As much lead time as possible to pull together what they need for academic success in the new year when in the new academic year when we don't necessarily know what's coming down the line.
[Erika Reinfeld]: That was actually, I was going to mention that because I know that class selections are still being made and we're still figuring out what the offerings are. So I would look to you to advise on how best
[Erika Reinfeld]: I was thinking that gives us, because normally I think the lists go home on the last day of school in elementary school. They typically, yes. At least that's when I've gotten them. I'll just say that.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I'm okay. I normally don't like the vague language of as soon as possible or at earliest convenience, but I think that's reasonable. So I accept that amendment. Okay.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yep, I echo all of the thanks and appreciation for the work that's happening and I want to extend it to the members of the community, students, teachers, parents, voters, who allowed us to have these conversations about what we can do for students and with students, rather than what we can't. a much more encouraging budget process and negotiation that we were able to do this quickly. And that is because people in the community put their trust in our schools, our administration, our teachers, just everyone involved in this. So I just wanted to thank the members of the community and the voters. This couldn't have been possible without the override funds and a commitment to putting students first. So thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld. Dr. Cushing, I'm hoping you can tell us a little bit about the consultation. I know a lot of thought went into designating holidays and I'm hoping you can talk about how communities were consulted about the possibility. I had a lot of conversations with people when we were reviewing last year's calendar. I can speak to one religion more than others, as I imagine many people here can.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Not counting against their bank?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Hence the motion to discuss further. I also support triangle and I'd be interested to see how that goes to inform future. I'll defer to colleagues.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld. Yep, I was just going to say, I know that we in our schools do need to really make sure that those major assignments and tests are not happening. And to be aware of the burden that can be on students to notify teachers that this is a holiday for me. It is sometimes challenging for students, not all students, but those students. who are not comfortable putting themselves out there in this way. I certainly hear from people that having teachers be ready and aware and not making it a big deal will be really important, as well as the other student acceptance of marginalized religions in particular. And I think in terms of choosing which holiday. The other piece here is what actually happens during the observance right the observance of Yom Kippur is a fast based fasting holiday. It's very different than Rosh Hashanah. So I appreciate that consideration in this decision. Or this request.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Let's see, Member Reinfeld. Um, this to clarify, I just seconded this. I should have. This is to discuss both the changes recommended by Dr Cushing and the holidays in general. Yes. Yes. Um, in that case, I would want to make sure that we invited, um, faith leaders and representatives from to attend this meeting, explicitly inviting them, not just making it known that this policy, the subcommittee is meeting chair. Member Ruseau?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I watched that meeting.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I did watch it.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld. So you answered my first question. My second one was what was the previous, what have the increases been like previous, what's the history?
[Erika Reinfeld]: What's the history of increases here?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Am I right now? Yes. And then I was also wondering how this matches up with some of the right sizing we've been doing on our budget over the last couple of years with our revolving accounts. I don't know if that's a question for budget analyst Gerry McCue, but that is my question around this.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, because I'm curious what I know that was one of the accounts that has had a lot of movement over the years.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So this is a very fancy way of saying our elementary schools are overcrowded. We need to fix it. What this began as a resolution to undertake those solutions, but very quickly evolved into a report to assemble the data so we can really understand the nature of the problems and the challenges we're facing. I apologize, this probably should have been submitted as a report request by the time I was done writing this. But the community, the principals, everyone has come to us, we know this is a challenge, and everyone has an idea of how it ought to be fixed, whether that's through redistricting, restructuring, changing how we select students per elementary school. And so I would like for the district to begin that process. I know we've just had a lot of schedule changes that we've had to implement very quickly, but this is a pressing problem. And there are two stages to this. One is to figure out the long-term solutions based on the data that we have, but we also have a very urgent issue of potential kindergarten admissions exacerbating this problem for the upcoming school year. So I'm looking for some short-term solutions as well as some long-term solutions. And I think the district has a lot of this data and can present the challenge and potential solutions before choosing one to really investigate further. So that's the goal of this is to begin the process of solving our overcrowding issues.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I'm certainly open to that. I am also on that committee. So I'll be getting that information. So I might confirm with colleagues who are not, I think any, all right, I'm seeing some unofficial signals that that feels okay, so yes. And my question to the superintendent is, would we need, because that's strategic planning for the longterm, would there need to be, looking at the elementary school for next year, would that need to come to this group sooner, or would that need to go to family engagement?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Is it possible to have that conversation about elementary without having had the bigger conversation in the subcommittee meeting? I'm thinking about timing here and the May 19th meeting.
[Erika Reinfeld]: All right. Then I will accept the amendment to bring it to strategic planning, but I would defer to the superintendent and the team if this piece of it needs to come on the agenda sooner.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, accordingly, when the data is ready, we can schedule strategic planning and see how the kindergarten situation fits into that. Well, we've been closely monitoring everything. I'm sure.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I have the same question, but I also wanted to confirm that if somebody has initial feedback on what they're looking for in the role but does not want to serve on the committee they should still answer, they should still respond to that survey. Yes, I think if you do a second push, it would be really useful to put that in there because I certainly read that as, if you want to be a part of the committee, that's what the survey is for, rather than also feedback.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member, Member Reinfeld? I would just amend, replace further considerations and next steps with additional considerations, since it's a policy and not on the top of page three. It's not part of the policy? OK.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Maybe that was a question.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And I guess the question is, where is this page three content available for people to view?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Because I think since this addresses questions that the community had about students in particular situations, like transfer students, significant needs, et cetera, it should be available and easy to find place. Sure.
[Erika Reinfeld]: One more amendment is just to add eligibility for a diploma under the post-2024 requirements so that it's explicit that this is about the diploma. Last bullet point to assess eligibility for a diploma under. Eligibility for a diploma. And then I will stop amending things. Oh, you'll get me next week, yeah.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you. Member Reinfeld. Yes, my question was related. You said this could be added on if we see costs are coming down. If we, say, decide that we want to do this, is this estimate going significant? I know we cannot always predict what the markets are going to do, et cetera, et cetera. But is there a significant risk in waiting to do a solar addition? That's a good question. What I'm trying to avoid is six months from now going, oh, we should have authorized this six months ago, for example. So thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you and I appreciate locking things in because this has to get done before our kids go back to school in the fall. This has to happen over the summer so
[Erika Reinfeld]: Well, I say we move, but I know my colleague has a... I'm going to go to Dr. Galusi and then member Olapade.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you, Member Graham. Member Reinfeld? I would just add to that, that the state provides limited flexibility in some areas. And so I think it's really important where there is some flexibility to increase, as member Graham said, options for students and provide students with the autonomy to do the things that they are passionate about and really make electives things that they elect to do while still meeting basic health and academic requirements. And I know our various departments have done a lot of work to build really wonderful electives in a lot of different areas. And I just want as many students to be able to access those as possible.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes, thank you. I'll echo the thanks to the finance department and to everyone who contributed to this budget. My question is, is there an anticipated time frame for looking, I know you said we're not adding any building-based positions, and I understand that in the sense of how much uncertainty there is and not wanting to make promises that we can't keep in terms of the funding. I know there are adjustments that get made as enrollment is projected enrollment. We'll see what the enrollment actually looks like. I know we have been trying very hard to get the message out around kindergarten, but we often see an influx later. And then, of course, you knew I was going to say this. I have concerns about the guidance levels at the middle schools. like I said, I understand they're not adding positions this time, but is there a time frame when we would look at that and see if that is really needed and be able to add those positions? Especially as contract, as we understand what the collective bargaining comes to be.
[Erika Reinfeld]: We look at new schedules. I could imagine needing staff to support those different, those changes or ongoing uncertainty.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. It was I found it clear. I had to look up a few words, but not too many. So thank you. I have a hyper local local question. I'm wondering if on the city side, we're going to see some non standard increases in departments. My understanding is some of the city departments We're a little restrained last time in order to fill some gaps in the school budget, which I very much appreciate. And I'm wondering if we're going to see those come back of people who unevenly increasing within the city? That might be a question for the mayor. It might also be premature, but I know some of the departments in the city, I don't wanna say sacrificed, but their ask wasn't as big because we had some significant gaps in the school budget to fill. And I know the override covered some of those, but I'm curious what the impact is gonna be on the allocations.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you. And then, of course, there's the outstanding question that I know nobody can answer about what the federal landscape is going to look like and what is going to come or not come to the city, what compensations the states have. And of course, we'll be talking with the school finance director about contingencies and what things look like within the school budget, because we get obviously a lot of federal grants and a lot of federal aid and questions around, is this going to be a if we end up, find ourselves with less money, is this going to be an across the board reduction or is it going to be targeted to particular areas if we have to make those decisions, which I very much hope we don't, of course. But just recognizing that on the floor.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Present.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Unless that's a problem because I have a child with the Roberts, but I assume that's fine.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Jerry, do you want us to save questions till the end?
[Erika Reinfeld]: And sorry, while I'm here, will we get a copy of this? I don't think it was in our- Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: All right, just to clarify, that's the balance, right? That's not the spending on it?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay.
[Erika Reinfeld]: No, I just wanted to make sure that was.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Will we get this list that you just went through here as well? That would be really helpful to see what people want.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Even just this tab, I think, would be really helpful. Yeah. Great.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Is there a motion to enter executive session?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Sorry, Member Reinfeld. Yeah, I think my hand is the same color as my wall. I'm curious what happens if demand exceeds supply on this one. This is super exciting, and I think a lot of people will be interested. I think there are some really real financial challenges for equity. what's the protocol?
[Erika Reinfeld]: If more people want to do this then there is room for it. Do you have to be a host family to be an exchange family or just for your student to go? Is that
[Erika Reinfeld]: I mean, it is a very competitive price from what I've seen of Europe, but it is still
[Erika Reinfeld]: And then I was just wondering if what if more people want to go than there are more than 15 students.
[Erika Reinfeld]: That age prioritization was, I think, what I was getting at. Thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Maybe I'll switch to the default yellow instead of my accurate skin tone. Could you clarify what the role is in terms of special projects? I know there's mention of maintaining the capital plan and relationships with vendors, but when we approved the assistance facilities director as part of the override allocation. Part of the motivation for that was we knew that the district was going to be entering into a number of special projects, not just the new high school, but with the capital plan that we have approved as a committee, we know there are going to be select projects. You mentioned HVAC, but we know that's not the only one. We know there are things coming up and I would, maybe it's a bullet point just on special projects, but I wasn't sure exactly is it the facilities manager, is it the assistant facilities manager who's going to be serving as the liaison to the vendor, the OPM, the project manager. I think if that is an explicit responsibility of being the point of contact or the team lead within the district for these new construction projects, these big maintenance projects, not just ongoing maintenance, I think that needs to be called out more clearly in one or both of the job descriptions. And I wasn't quite sure which one that was landing on.
[Erika Reinfeld]: into which job description should a bullet point?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Or both. Yeah, are they both? Is it at the discretion of the facilities director to delegate that to an assistant facilities person? I know there was a vision. I'm not sure. I'd like to see that reflected in one or both of these descriptions.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Is this another other duties as assigned needed here? Yes. We know that this is going to grow or evolve, maybe not.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And then assist with collective bargaining and administer all contracts involving the facilities department staff. Is it really just the custodians versus?
[Erika Reinfeld]: If this person is responsible for the custodians and not other management, I'm not sure it's appropriate to be administering contracts not related to custodial. You tell me how that works.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So maybe it's assist with collective bargaining and administration of all contracts of rather than the administer verb. I know this is. a little bit semantic, but this person is not responsible for fully to administer it, to assist and administer. They're assisting with the bargaining and administration.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Motion to waive the full reading? There's a lot of numbers.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Sorry, the change on this was,
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you, Mayor. I can speak on this. So thank you. And thanks to my colleagues for considering these resolutions, right? Our job is of course to set policy and this resolution isn't setting policy. It's simply affirming the existing policy and directs the superintendent to continue existing practices. So I just wanted to talk very, very, as briefly as I can about why this is on the agenda, particularly since it echoes the guidance that Dr. Galusi has already sent to district staff. and a statement that the Acting Commissioner of Education for Massachusetts put out a few weeks ago. This is on the agenda in partly in response to concerns from students, teachers, some students' families wondering whether things like our GSAs and respectful pronoun use and language in academic and administrative forms and protection from bullying and harassment are going away in light of the political climate, just want to say, no, they're not. But also this is on the agenda because there is a pattern in history and in communities more broadly of using marginalized populations as a test balloon for trampling of individual rights. And so I don't need to dwell on that, but I think this is why I, or really we felt that this was important to draw a line now and state this publicly. And I also just wanted to note that we did separate out sexual orientation from gender identity because there are different risks, vulnerabilities, really, that come with those different identities. And I think that's worth acknowledging. But ultimately, this is about Belonging right learning does not happen unless people feel safe and safety requires a sense of belonging. So, I, I think we do have a few students on the call. I think there may be some people watching on YouTube and just to say, we celebrate you. We appreciate you. and everyone belongs in the Medford public schools. I have a couple of language changes I would like to put questioning back into that first sentence. And we missed a couple of the policies around harassment and retaliation. Just so just to add those to the list of MPS policies, but these exist, these laws have not changed. We welcome our queer and gender nonconforming students and staff, families, and I think it's worth saying publicly here and now. Member Olapade, I don't know if you wanted to add to that.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So it's in the chat.
[Erika Reinfeld]: the ACAB policies and one of the JB policies.
[Erika Reinfeld]: This one has a language.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Mayor, you're muted.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Olapade, did you? have your hand up.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, I just wanted to again echo what Member Olapade said, but to note that this comes a little bit out of an executive order from the end of January, from about a month ago about ending radical indoctrination. I don't think that is what we're doing. This is why we are supporting the district's commitment to educational materials. It's also coming out of the Texas and Becerra case, which if people are not familiar with this, this is speaking to remove section 504 compliance. And so I think it's important that people know that these are some of the things that are happening here, and then I just also wanted to note that the, again, the laws have not changed here executive orders are not laws. This court case is pending, but things like I've spent I spent a fair bit of time with the. Harvard affirmative action case and while race as a lone determinant was determined, was the Supreme Court handed down a verdict that said that was not a basis, that decision does actually affirm that lived experience and how identity characteristics, including race, inform your educational experience and your opportunity is in fact a reasonable basis for making decisions about what belongs in policies and classrooms. So it is worth noting that these are laws that are in place and that they do, as member Olapade said, seek to expand and maintain opportunity and ensure that people are able to reach their full potential and be reflected in the learning environment.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And then I think our... I think today is our March 10th meeting.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I was potentially going to motion to take 2025-03 out of order, because that either seems to be a sending this to the subcommittee or just updating the policy. So I see this is coming up on the agenda, but maybe Member Ruseau could clarify whether this is a policy update or a recommendation to send it to the subcommittee.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So I agree with that and the reason behind it. My only question is whether that poses a, if we're looking to be opening registration in January, are we concerned that that would affect people's ability to commit or our ability to guarantee a spot?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Will this opening of registration coincide with other summer programs? I don't know if jumpstart dates are set or other.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I was also going to ask about financial aid or sliding scale. So I support that as seeing that model. And I would actually like to see more of a differential between the resident and Medford school staff rate. And non-residents, the rec center program is 250, Power Kids is 315, and then I believe Six Acres is 850 for two weeks, which turns into 425 for one week. And so looking at our numbers here, I think particularly for non-residents, we can definitely push that up. when we want to be prioritizing the people in Medford and Medford schools.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And I also just wanted to add, I think the CIT program is a fantastic addition, and I love that for our older students. And I support having things be a little higher so that we can pay our students. So finding that balance. But I do think we can have a bigger delta between in Medford and out of Medford residents, although it sounds like. Was that 10 students per week, or was that over the course of the whole summer?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld and then Member Intapa. Yep, I have another amendment to add. I would like to add in between the access to school premises and dismissal of students language about bus encounters. So if the encounter involves school sponsored transportation, bus drivers and monitors shall take the following steps. One, do not discharge students until instructed to do so. Two, do not allow the agents onto the bus until instructed to do so. Three, request identification from the agents and a copy of any judicial warrant. Four, immediately contact the superintendent's office for further instructions. And five, contact the transportation office to document the incident. Again, this is the practice that is happening. It mirrors the language of entry into school premises, but our student-provided transportation is an area that we also need to include in this, I think. Do you want this language to go? Yes. Perfect.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld? I will also say there is some significance to today being Holocaust Remembrance Day, and I would actually love to have this passed on this day.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you for this overview. I think I was the one who initially wanted this report. And one thing that I don't see a lot of here and I imagine will be coming up in presumably that some of it is going to be addressed in the supplemental proposal. But part of the reason for this report was to inform the fiscal year 26 budgets, particularly around the impact on students. I know at the elementary level, it ended up tweaking some of the class sizes. Middle schools, I'm still concerned about the loss of the guidance Councilors and bringing that back. I think I have a middle schooler I've seen It's working, but I think we've lost some of the aspects of student support because these guidance Councilors are spending their whole time teaching, and it's affecting also other classes in teaching. And so I'm hoping to see a little more information about the impact on the students. Member Graham mentioned what was happening with the administrative assistance and the, you know, these stipends were, I talked to a few of the people who received the stipends to cover some of the responsibilities from the Director of Professional Learning and Assessment, and that seems to be working reasonably well. I'm curious where you see needing to invest in fiscal year 26 for some of the less budgetary impacts, but the student experience.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So thank you. That's useful to hear kind of what are the urgent needs that are being addressed by this immediate infusion of override funds, but to note that this is still a conversation that we're having about the next budget.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: clarifying question on the restoring of the administrative system at McGlynn. Will that end up being two administrative assistants for two schools or will it be one per school? Is it designated?
[Erika Reinfeld]: And I know people fill in for their person next to them.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Great. Member Branley covered my other clarifying question. And then one last one, you mentioned that the administrative floater had been supporting food services. We're not leaving food services in the lurch by transferring that. No, no.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you. I just wanted to make sure we were in.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, I was just hoping you could speak a little more about the logistics of how funds reserved for bargaining for a future contract gets spent in the bargaining fiscal year. You alluded to it for a couple of these items, but just explaining how that works.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Present.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Oh, minor quick. When will the McGlynn schematic get to 100%? How does that?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I just want to make sure this isn't going to introduce some new delays unexpectedly. Right. This is how this timeline is built is to do it this way. And then I'm wondering if you can comment on the in-classroom experience in the hot months of May and June and what are we looking at? We don't have a great solution. Yeah.
[Erika Reinfeld]: May and June have not been... Well, we usually have like two to five really brutal days and that's when everyone gets hot and angry, hot and bothered, should we say?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I just, I wanna be ready and anticipating what things are gonna be like and being able to tell people, this is why it is this way.
[Erika Reinfeld]: To be clear, I am in favor of approving it, but I think it's useful to have the context of what was discussed in the capital planning meetings because we were supposed to have had that last week and have that context for the council. But I'm on that subcommittee, so I know what's coming. I guess maybe I'd defer to the people who
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes, I am in favor of doing it tonight, but I think it's useful to have the context of that plan.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Director McCue is ready, so I withdraw the motion.
[Erika Reinfeld]: How does that coincide with the lifetime? And it was a reasonable proportion of the freight motor lifetime. It wasn't like, oh, we're getting 1% of its valuable lifetime by doing it. It did line up.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, I just wanted to relay from a comment that I received from the public of looking for somebody who's going to prioritize some of whom maybe are more vulnerable populations. I know that is something that Dr. Edouard-Vincent was very committed to as well, but to really make that explicit, that we are potentially looking at a fair bit of turmoil as changing federal and state regulations come down, filter down to local districts. And so, being on top of that and aware of how it affects the wide range of populations within our schools.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Galusi.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Second.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Present.
[Erika Reinfeld]: That's how I read the motion here is to create a job description. for somebody who will work in collaboration with the city and propose the stipend for Director Nwaje to continue the work through the fiscal year in a consulting stipend basis. So that is how I'm reading this.
[Erika Reinfeld]: You mentioned renovation couldn't get something up to ADA standards. Can you confirm that we do have ADA accessible bathrooms? We do.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So not necessarily convenient for people who need them, but they are on site. Thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I would like to know either at the second reading or as a result of the investigation, just who where the responsibility is going to lie for doing that testing because this most recent round of testing obviously was through the program that we are now no longer eligible for. I mean, we're eligible for the grants to update the drinking stations, but we can't, we won't be having the state come in and do this testing to the level that we did. So I don't need it codified, but I would like it. I would like to know who's going, where that responsibility will lie, but I will second the motion to approve the first reading on this.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yep, just to refresh, the funding source for that, some of it is allocated. Where's that coming from? How much of that is already allocated and how much of it needs to be directed? I know we didn't have the final number until recently.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay. Yeah. Cause I know we had designated some things for HVAC, but it's all bonded. Thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Does that make sense so far? Yes, I'll just put in a request to keep it bundled when we present to the full committee. We don't need to go back and forth on every element of it with that funding source.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Right. I just think the rest of the committee is going to want to know that and see that in front of them.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Sounds good to me. Yeah, I think it makes sense if it's going to up the chances of getting some funding for these other projects that we know are coming. And are those, do you know, are those typically funded at the full cost? Is it a portion and then the district needs to come up with the rest or district slash city?
[Erika Reinfeld]: This was one of the items where I was wondering if there was any alignment with similar efforts parallel efforts in other city buildings.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, I would love to that timeline. That's fantastic. And do you think it's possible to get a sense of the timeline before our committee of the whole term special meeting?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I agree. Okay, cool.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And that was one of the ones we flagged saying, should this be concurrent with HVAC? Did we get an answer on that? It's not sounding like it's tied to that or there's any real connection.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And former member McLaughlin had mentioned a grant that I know was a challenge logistically to apply for. And then when we did get an application in, we were not funded for it. I don't know if that's something that we can revisit. I think Dr. Cushing might have been the person involved with that, but also Director Nwaje. Dr. Cushing, are you there?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I was asking about the grant that member McLaughlin mentioned. I know we couldn't get the application in one year, and another year we got it in, but it didn't come through.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And who's we?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Then let me ask a clarifying question about these items. Are we out of compliance or are we in danger of being out of compliance?
[Erika Reinfeld]: And are the fixes that are costed out here, I know the range is big, will those have sufficient longevity that we won't need to be looking at this again in the immediate future? It's a real fix.
[Erika Reinfeld]: The Disability Commission?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I think we should. I also think we can't be dependent on this grant coming through to get in compliance for accessibility. I think this has to be a priority with or without the grant.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And then you asked what else here in the shaded portion is a priority. When you say the flashing failed, the word failed is always worrisome. What does that mean for those of us who are not stonemasons?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, and we're fixing that for the roofs on other buildings. That also feels like a... Mend.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Will that come out in this mini recommissioning assessment that we've just split off?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Oh, yeah, I think so this isn't on the verge of failing or this isn't already failed.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I was going to ask what the timeline for the assessment is, but it sounds like we don't have that number either.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And it happened. We were in elementary school when we started this conversation. Do we have what we need to do that? I can't it's up. Yeah, it sounds like we have a quote.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And is it going to affect? I don't know how long it takes. Is it? Are people using the field now? Yeah, so is. How long does it take? I remember when the Roberts playground drainage issue was happening and kids couldn't play on the playground and I won't mention that.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay, so this isn't going to disrupt essential recess activities.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I think so, right, Peter?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay, and then yeah.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Oh, three at Andrews, two at McGlynn?
[Erika Reinfeld]: So that goes into in progress?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I'll just jump in and say, I do spend a lot of time at the Roberts, given that, well, I only have one kid there now, but there have been residential properties that have now been converted. The available land, whether that was even an option to take for the schools, to purchase for the schools, is a question to me. There aren't a lot of properties it's it's very residential it's houses and we put up the, there's a new, there are new condos and then there's an ambiguous construction going on on Park Street and Hickey Park is the closest park and that ends up being It shouldn't be a 10 minute walk, but it is. And it's a 15 minute walk with kindergartners and have to do field trip forms to go to the park. They do field day there. It would be nice to get some kind of connection with Hickey, but it is a few blocks away. So I do think space is at a premium.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Right. So the question on the table is, are we prioritizing any of these schools for a CPC application this year? Right.
[Erika Reinfeld]: The other hard conversation, which is not the scope of this meeting, but is how are we managing the unevenness in population in schools across the district, whether that's looking at reorganizing the grade levels, whether it's just redistricting, whether it's somebody come up to me and say, we should just open a new school, which I suppose that's on the table too. So that's another hard conversation that informs what type of playground we need. Because if we move to a different model, we may have a different student population in that building.
[Erika Reinfeld]: One of the elementary schools in my hometown did that, but they actually had the whole school underground as well. It was very cool. They had it elevated. It was very cool. That was the 60s and 70s that that happened. Weird architectural world.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So I'm sorry for that. We ended the last one early, so this was due.
[Erika Reinfeld]: You might want to, picky details, flip Missituk and Brooks, because it sounds like that's the priority order.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, I was just going off the conversation that happened before, but you're right. We didn't have that conversation. Yeah.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Have we identified all of the, right, this meeting was timed so that we could say this is, I see the potential open space CPC. I don't see any of that for the current projects. Actually, some things had been committed up at the top. Yeah, and then we have an application pending for Curtis Tufts, yep.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes, I see that. Yeah, I think the question is what we're asking school committee to, I guess, is this the work of the district to say what if this is going into a supplemental budget request? What is coming out of funds that have already been allocated and what is a new request to city council or from capital stabilization, right? Some of the mitigation is potentially a stabilization fund. I'm also trying to do the math on what the grand total here is, but I don't know that a grand total is what's important so much as the total for each of these buckets.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And then the other element of this process was net school spending, but that's covered under the recommend proceeding in fiscal year 25.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And what does that mean for something like LED lighting replacement, which ends up being $180,000 across the three schools?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Oh, yep, there's that column. Sorry, I've zoomed in and I'm scrolling back and forth, so apologies for that.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Do we need a deadline? I know a couple people took action items to confirm quotes or points of contact. Is there, do you, in preparing that slide, do you need, is there a deadline you want that information by? Obviously we want it as soon as we can get it, but reasonable demands on people's time.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Till end of next week.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, nobody's working Thursday, Friday.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I'll do that one. Motion to adjourn by Member Reinfeld, seconded by Member Ruseau. Second. Member Reinfeld?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Present.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I think Member Olapade summarized it well. I think it would be good for this committee to understand what has been happening, what the need is, and what that intersection looks like in terms of building capacity within the district, understanding that there is very particular training that Director Nwaje has that people in the school district don't have, and just really making the best use of people's time and expertise in a really collaborative way that make sure that everyone who needs to be supported is supported on both sides of things.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I think that's fantastic. The language in this resolution is very vague, and so I am very eager to know how we are to know the details. So thank you for being here, Frances.
[Erika Reinfeld]: No, I just, I'm curious, are you a mandated reporter?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, I was going to ask if you can't do hours, is there a way to estimate what percentage of the time or what I'm trying to do, because we're being asked to put this into the school budget, which I think is a very fair request. And so trying to figure out, I know that we can't But a value on this but to figure out in a proportionately and looking across the system at how this how this shakes out in terms of what time the staff would be spending. scrambling around to get answers versus you having answers more at the ready and just kind of the percentage or what this looks like if you know I think we are blessed to have a resource in house like this and.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Another question, you mentioned having an idea and coming to discuss that. Again, in the trying to understand what all of this is a resource for and is supporting what that means, what's the balance around things that you are responding to requests from within the school community versus bringing things to the attention versus just the routine follow-up?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I ran into Janine when I was on campus.
[Erika Reinfeld]: There are these things that I cannot touch and I should not touch and we absolutely
[Erika Reinfeld]: Well, I think that that was kind of what I was getting at or wondering about at in terms of building capacity within the district because there is so much work we can do on so many of these fronts, whether it's a physical constraint a cultural constraint a situational something that arises in terms of being responsive to what's happening, but also building awareness of resources, of best practices, and all of that, both in terms of our administration, but also the staff and the employees more generally. So I think we have an opportunity, as we say, we have an opportunity to work with Director Nwaje on what DEI looks like in our district. I'm wondering what that opportunity is and whether it's, you know, it is, no, it's really, this is about compliance or this is about the opportunity to do more and make our district a better, more welcoming, more compliant place, which I think is something we would all love to do and to have really built into that culture from the moment of onboarding, really from recruitment on.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And can I just jump in on that, that culture and retention, it's one thing to get people into the district, having them stay, just to be really explicit. If there's no belonging, that doesn't happen. Right.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I'm curious what processes exist. And I don't know whether the end of this sentence is in our community or in our schools. I'm interested particularly in our schools. Is your support of DEI efforts in the school and ADA efforts in the school, is that to help us develop the systems and processes we need? Do we have those in place? Where are we in this work?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, I think the thing when you saw me go, is this the right resolution for right now? It was me saying, is this, we cannot rely on Frances to do all of this work, but we can't have her not do this work either. This collaboration is so important. And I, you know, I put my hat on of going, I went to the strategic plan and I look at all of these objectives and initiatives and, Only some of them are covered, I know they're they're baked into a lot of what we do as a district, but to really put that front and center, understanding who is responsible for these things. in many of these instances, is this a consultation or is this a responsibility? And so I would like to see these are the responsibilities within the district in doing this work and how that interfaces with this valuable collaboration. And I do think extending the partnership, the collaboration makes sense and What does it mean to take it to the next level of what this looks like on the ground and with the students? I would support that.
[Erika Reinfeld]: To continue to extend the stipend through the end of this fiscal year. Well, that's already, that's already. No, we had approved this through the end of the calendar year, but to move into the fiscal year to maintain the full collaboration at this level. Now that we have a sense of what this means in practice.
[Erika Reinfeld]: The consolidation on building on me, right.
[Erika Reinfeld]: To be really clear, I don't want to nickel and dime. We're not trying to nickel and dime anything. We're trying to provide fair compensation for work that is important and happening.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I don't know. We have two more regular meetings.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So I'll just say that I would like the reality check of is the current stipend in the ballpark? Yeah. because if it needs to be significantly more, I want to know that by December, I'd like to make that happen.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And if no, rather than we stick with what we have, I think if we can't get a good number in that timeframe, what we have is the best we've got.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I mean, I probably, although I'm okay. Does this does a within district position? Does this make sense to the people in this room?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Because one of the things I think we heard from Francis early on is this is what this job isn't, or this is what this consultation and this partnership is not. And I heard this group say, those are also things. Those are ands. not oars, but hands. Okay, thank you. I will mute myself now and let member Ruseau read.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes I appreciate being able to address this thoughtfully and not in a sudden resolution.
[Erika Reinfeld]: to adjourn.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Oh no, I was making sure nobody else had something to say as I was speaking slowly, but hearing none, motion to adjourn.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes, so I have a lot of questions about the transportation logistics and I, this is probably not the time because we need more specific proposals but the concerns about busing students from every single elementary school to every other corner of the city around seems like a huge challenge but I think we can't have that conversation until there are more specific sites, so I just wanted to ask about the SNL Sports Academy and partnering with local colleges. Do they have the ability to provide that consistent program for the duration of the public school school year because a lot of college schedules are very different than the schedule. It sounds a little bit like SNL Sports Academy does one-time events and provides programming in after-school programs that have a base core staff versus having, are the student athletes the ones who are responsible for the full-time staffing for the duration of the public school year starting in August, ending in June, and having
[Erika Reinfeld]: There are a lot of challenges that college students have throughout the year that take them away from a regular weekly commitment. Anyone who's worked with college student workers knows that consistent staffing is a challenge.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld, then Member Intoppa. I just wanted to say so they covered some of my, my question about the expanded program but I just want to say as you're thinking about the new schedule and the new pathways to definitely I just want to say publicly to make sure to talk with our arts department because I know they have a lot of ideas and are facing kind of that opposite challenge of under enrollment because of scheduling and the opportunity so I would love to see that proposal come to us as a coherent. You said lots of out-of-the-box thinking. I know they're already working on ideas there as well.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Exactly, and so I'm excited to see what's coming there because I think it is multiple sides of probably dice, not coins, to torture a metaphor.
[Erika Reinfeld]: No, I just wanted to ask if this was a proposed change to the policy itself or if this was a for this year only given that we are like, we're looking at a proposed budget supplement and some restructuring based on the override results.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And then I also just wanted to note that we have scheduled a budget hearing for February 26th. And so that's putting it right up at this deadline here.
[Erika Reinfeld]: But we had voted to approve that schedule with the public hearing and then another optional public hearing if needed after the request. Maybe we could send you those dates, Jerry.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes. So this was just to bring this request to the forefront. I'm actually gonna make a motion to consolidate this with the following resolution because I would be happy to see this report, the summary of what our position responsibilities are looking like. to inform the next budget cycle to be part of the justification for the budget cycle.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, and I will just add this bit at the end of my resolution about limited to roles and responsibilities. That's just to say what I'm not looking for is a conversation about people's performances and how individual people are and are not meeting these responsibilities is what is the need, what are the responsibilities, and do we need to make that a permanent, do we need a temporary coverage for this role, or should this be built into the new budget? So just to clarify, it shouldn't need to be said confidential matters, stay confidential. But I want to be really clear, this is about the need and the responsibilities that people have in the system. And I'm excited to have that conversation about how we can meet students needs through some of the supplemental funding.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I don't want to make the administration prepare a report for our December 16th meeting.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinhold. I'm fully in favor of this. Does this also place him on the Communications and Community Engagement Subcommittee? Is that a? Yes, yeah, because I think that's really important here. Yeah, he has. Well, has already said that he's been supporting it. But is do we need to formally do that as we don't need to do that here?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I'm happy to motion for approval.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: The accountability, oh, I guess I have to be called on. You're the member. I'm Phil. Yeah, the accountability percentile is that within the district? I know. So I looked on the Desi site and it's it's compared to other schools. Is that within the district or other schools with similar similar population statewide?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld. Thank you. So you've mentioned a couple of these key areas within ELA. Do these results, these gaps, do they match what teachers are kind of reporting outside of the standardized test evaluation? Because writing is definitely one of those things that you see a lot better in everyday classroom experiences rather than the standardized test model?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I think with the writing, it's just more of the output, the final product that was... Because I know students approach homework very differently than they approach, or in class exercises very differently than they approach
[Erika Reinfeld]: understand how good an indicator this particular test is on these really important skills. Thank you. Thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld? No, you're shocked, it was me. Should we be expecting to see some similar wiggles with the new integrated math that's coming up? You answered my question about, is this because we switched curricula at the elementary level? Should we be expecting this middle and high school as well in a couple of years?
[Erika Reinfeld]: So we don't think things are gonna dip back, dip down the way they did in some of these areas here? Or is that just, we can't predict that yet?
[Erika Reinfeld]: So- The MAP scores and the MCAS scores are matching up in terms of which areas are strong
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay. And then as we look, as we think about staffing for future budget cycles, I know when we targeted certain literacy skills, we prioritized literacy specialists. And I know there was a period in MPS history when there were some math specialists in the schools. Is that something that we're looking at? What you described sounds like the structures around team planning and scheduling with the trainings. We're covering it with the existing staff and the teachers. But is this something we should be thinking about as we look ahead?
[Erika Reinfeld]: But we are not desperately suffering without them. And these scores seem to support that we are making the progress. Yes, yes. All the things we could do with bigger budgets. All right, thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you. Member Reinfeld. Thank you. So I remember you saying a few meetings ago that the reason people didn't pass was because they didn't show up. It was mostly an attendance issue rather than an instruction issue. And on the Saturday and after school, those four, and I forget if it was four or three and the other ones. Yes. If additional remediation services are needed, is that interfering with people's ability to take elective classes? You alluded to the high school schedule and the constraints within the schedule. How does this affect people's ability to take?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I've seen that in other districts where the students who need MCAS support get pulled out of some of the other classes are really essential to wanting to be in school.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Exactly. I mean, because I know we have this challenge in elementary school of, like, my kid misses art in order to do strings, but sometimes she misses recess and science. I didn't ask Dr. Seary, like we need more targeted science, but do we also need more time for science as well? So trying to understand what's fighting with what to guess.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you for laying that out.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld. Yeah, so I'm looking at this list and I'm incredibly grateful that we are getting that kind of support. I'm also a little concerned if we need all the support, putting that on someone in the city who already has quite a full time job, I could see this all being a part of that. So I think coordination is great, but it feels like maybe we need some more of the support built into the school structures. I'll yield the floor to Member Olapade.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I have a question before. Member Reinfeld? Yeah, so the amendment is to allow the work. Every single bullet point here is work that is already happening. That's correct.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And so this is work that's happening uncompensated or as part of the, this is part of the current position.
[Erika Reinfeld]: That's an annual stipend?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I think that's part of what I'd love to hear a subcommittee discuss. I mean, I can I can do the math and say, all right, if it were if we're looking at 7500 for a year, and we're talking about a temporary acknowledgement and compensation for this work, we divide by 12 multiply by two months for November and December, that puts us at 1250. Which I think was member in tapas to accept this through the end of the year, at which point the subcommittee will have assessed and spoken with HR city schools to really figure out what is, what is the best use of, for instance, as time, what is the best use, what is the capacity within Medford public schools, because I really do think a lot of this capacity It has to be in the schools that diversity, equity, inclusion permeates everything we do. And it's gotta be built in. It's gotta be part of the fabric of who we are and what we do and multiple people thinking of it, not just one person from the outside. That's not the authentic work. And I think that Frances does fantastic work. I wanna be really clear about that. And I really appreciate it. I had no idea she was providing this support to the schools and I'm incredibly grateful. And I don't want our students to suffer for these supports not being in place. But I also think having one person do this work is not sustainable long-term. And so I support some acknowledgement of the temporary work, but not fully jumping on this model as written in perpetuity.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I do not want her to burn out doing all this work for Medford Public Schools. We need her too much.
[Erika Reinfeld]: For the fiscal year 2025. Fiscal year 2025, July 1. the first half of fiscal year 2025.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And member Olapade, You've done the motion to send it. Oh, sorry. You're right. I'll put it out.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Sure, it is really hard to just to know we have another member online now.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Before we go, yes, can I ask, so this seemed to be, when I went through it, very much aligned with the notes that came out of Department of Education and this fact sheet, the final rule fact sheet that has kind of the key components. So I'm wondering how much of this is the language that was already recommended versus specific to Medford, because I think I am confident that in having a policy that complies with federal law, We shouldn't be debating a lot of those things.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Great, so I think going through it piece by piece and maybe having member Ruseau and Ms. Bowen provide a little bit of the guidance of this is what this is doing here or how it plays out would be helpful.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And I know it was what we what we were just looking at was the preamble. There's one piece that says sex discrimination that right there where your mouse was prohibits sex discrimination. Should that be sexual discrimination? You know, Everything else is really consistent and then I didn't know if that was just left in as sex discrimination, but I promise I'm not, this was the only place I got that detail.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I'm not inclined to go in and
[Erika Reinfeld]: My sense was that sexual discrimination was the term that was being used to cover all of these things laid out here, plus sexual harassment.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Is there a definition of the word consider? Because it's not offer. It's not, like, I suspect that is one of those words that is legally, it means one thing in legal terms and the other.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Nope. Versus offering those supportive measures. Like, I feel like that's implied here, but it isn't explicit.
[Erika Reinfeld]: It's provided.
[Erika Reinfeld]: That says if you're not providing supportive measures, you have to say why. Like we went straight to disciplinary action for these reasons. There was an imminent danger. This was not a safe environment in which to offer this supportive measure. I understand that. It's the non-punitive.
[Erika Reinfeld]: This may not qualify for this type of measure, but it could still be a violation of other.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And we don't have any definitions of what a reasonable timeframe is.
[Erika Reinfeld]: But there's separate language for acknowledgement of the receipt of the complaint.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Remember, Randall wants to say something. I do. So this is the section where I had a lot of questions, and I think it comes up in the bullying policy as well. If there are more than two parties, if we're talking about a group, like a team of people or multiple staff. I think there's a lot of confusion on what gets investigated on a person by person basis versus people as a group talking amongst themselves. If you have a group of students who is either filing a complaint or is being Or is the respondent or respondents, whether they're getting individual, whether all of these words, multiple things happening simultaneously versus. An investigation into a group situation, and that's not really addressed, and I don't know. if there's guidance there. Obviously, I can try to talk to lawyers about that, but I don't know how that works in some of our other policies, because I know there has been a lot of concerns where I was told one thing and I was told another, and then parents start sharing with each other around the same situation, and there's just lots of conflicting information.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah. So I have examples that aren't Title IX specific. Is that? Sure. Okay. So for example, a group of middle schoolers is caught with vaping supplies. And each student is being, the investigation is happening individually with those students, but the outcomes of those end up being different. And so the parents, you know, suspension might happen. One student is suspended, another one isn't. parents are comparing notes. And they're saying, this is what the administration told me. Oh, well, this is what they told me. And I can't release information about this other student. But the parent has given me this information. And I want to bring that as part of my complaint, because my kids were together. Our kids were together. Is that helpful?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Do that or want to know, like, what else is there's a video, the reviewing of evidence, like, there's a there's a video of something that happens and. 1 complaint complainant can't review a video because it contains footage of another complainant, for example.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Right, if there is collective bullying for a group of LGBTQ students or the school say, I don't think this is going to happen, but school is not providing adequate pumping space for new parents. and we as a group want to file a complaint. Can we as a group file a complaint or does it have to be a series of individual complaints?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes, the sports scenarios are coming to mind, and I'm trying.
[Erika Reinfeld]: To note that, I mean, we are in a public meeting and so.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, we were on page nine.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Oh, and I see, yeah, for any purpose not directly related to this grievance procedure. So if there is a interconnected investigation that remains within the single grievance or, okay, thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And this might've been the previous section, but so there's this timeline talks about the elimination of conditions once the determination has been made. It doesn't, this policy doesn't seem to say a lot about while the investigation is going on, making sure things are safe.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay, in advance.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay, great. Thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Does that supportive measure potentially include removal of the respondent or the alleged perpetrator.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Because one of the real challenges of these situations is that a lot of the burden to remain safe is on the victim or alleged victim or complainant. And that can be really hard and further exacerbating of a situation.
[Erika Reinfeld]: but like administrative leave can't happen during it. And when does administrative leave?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Privacy challenges on both sides are significant. All right. Thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I mean, an anonymous report is not a formal complaint. And I think that's certainly where we've seen in higher education these things come out, is people saying, well, I can't do anything until a formal complaint is filed, and people don't feel safe submitting a formal complaint. whatever it is, but it's this horrible catch 22, maybe not even a catch 22, but a paradox of people just, people need to be good people, but.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay, because I did have a question is we have one appeal officer and what happens if This is purely hypothetical, not based on the individual named, but what happens if the appeals officer is involved in this? There needs to be an alternative.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And I don't know, since you said part of this is about communicating what the avenues are, that was my question here is do we need to communicate that in the event of the designated person not being able to be that unbiased decision maker, these are the alternate paths. It was only because that particular role had one person.
[Erika Reinfeld]: That is how I take them as well. I just was wondering about how explicit we need to be about that. And just since we're in public, I like John Bruno very much. Me too. At my child's school, just not picking on him.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I have been trying to figure out a way to rephrase the phrase victim without their consent because it implies that a victim can give consent up in the definition section, but I haven't settled on anything.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Interpreter, but until it's been proven, they can't put that in.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So they do say that alleged victim is a. Yeah. That person, but that's not.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So does this automatically go to a regular meeting or do we waive?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I just want to comment kind of a combination of these last two questions about transparency in the school. So member Graham already mentioned that the budget process is by law an open budgeting process. But I want to say we in Bethlehem Public Schools are in a really good position to be transparent about things. Our budget process got incredibly cleaned up by our last finance director who continues to consult one of the smoothest, most well accounted for budgeting that we've seen in quite a while. I was not school committee, but I watched the meetings. It is a clean budget book. We know where the money's going, how it's being spent, and we're going to continue to have those public meetings. We have a new capital planning process policy. We have open subcommittee meetings where these things are happening. They're happening in public. These conversations, we are collecting input. So we are in a really good position to show what is happening in the schools, where the money is going, and how it is responding to the needs that we're hearing. from our department heads, from administration, from our vendors. This is a good time to be transparent and we're ready to do that with these questions.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I did look at these numbers when I was doing some of the analysis and our levels are back to where they were right before the pandemic. So when people left the school to have their needs met elsewhere, they're coming back to Medford and they're coming back with significant need based on not just the pandemic, but just general student needs. And so I think things are going up.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I was just going to say, we got here because we made decisions that filled short-term needs, that were band-aids, and we didn't look. Far ahead.
[Erika Reinfeld]: We're making decisions based on the money that's available and what we can and can't do, not necessarily what is best for students in the long term from the school side.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes, so this presentation was very much about remediation. I am wondering, while we have these folks on the line, if there's anything we need to be keeping in mind for a new building that could potentially be coming to Medford in the next few years, we hope.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Absolutely, of course. Are there resources available to help with some of that? It's not remediation if it hasn't happened yet, but you mentioned grants for getting filling stations. Is that sort of thing available for new installations?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you for being here. I just wanted to ask if you are thinking about expanding the pool of drivers or what is the main impediment there? Is it salary? Is it the timing? Is it just a fixed thing? And the reason I'm asking is as we look to plan for the next few years, what are some things that we maybe could expect in order to get the pool of people we needed? I think member Graham's questions around how we can support the people who are already there are really key, but looking at expanding the pool, like once people are in as drivers, do they stay or are we losing people partway through the year? What can we do to make sure we have more people?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Right. And would we be looking at that going up in the future? It's going to go up every year.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Like if we shifted school days, that's not going to make a difference. I mean, I live right in Medford Square.
[Erika Reinfeld]: My question is what of these can or should be bundled right does it. Do we need to do. Does it help to do all the HVAC together because of a vendor or because of timing, or is everything here, like the roof rebuilds does it not matter which building it's on.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay, that reminds me of one of the resolutions we just had, I think last month or maybe it was the beginning of this month, around understanding what the needs to upgrade electrical systems to move away from fossil fuels. I realize that's not a specific project, but that's something we want to be planning for so that we're not kind of forced into making these decisions around. just on the basis of cost and availability. So that's an assessment that we need.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Though presumably that's the kind of thing, I guess then that question comes to the same question we had before. If we wait on that, does the price go up or down? Because some capital projects, the price goes up if you don't do it right away, and sometimes it goes down significantly if you give it a year for the technology to catch up. So which direction does this lean? Do we know?
[Erika Reinfeld]: So that, and so the cost of doing that is people's time, correct? Or is it time and training? Is it hiring of people?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay, then my other question in terms of making this list. These are all the things that we know are going to be big problems soon-ish. Is there a kind of middle tier list of things that we know are coming in the medium term, but if we don't proactively maintain them, they're going to get worse and become even exponentially more expensive to fix? And I'm thinking about The analogy here is things like our roads. It's a lot harder to repair roads that are severely weather damaged and potholes and all of this than to do maintenance on things that are showing wear and tear. And that saves us from doing desperate repairs later on. And I know we didn't, I didn't ask you to prepare this in advance of this meeting. So maybe this is a better question for November, but I want to think about what we need to fix now to stop it from becoming a huge cost?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah. All right. So thank you. Yeah, I wanted to put those things out there as they have to be factored in here. I think we're probably at a point where we need to now start that prioritization.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I mean, ADA compliance to me feels like we really need to get in compliance. But tell me more. I know we're waiting. I know we had identified some things at the high school, and I think we're waiting for member Branley to call the building and grounds meeting on that. Does this go with that?
[Erika Reinfeld]: And I will recognize that I jumped on member Ruseau. I think he was also going to say something. We should see that we should finish this.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I just moved that up with the like recommissioning assessment. Yeah, I was going to say that category is recommissioning for me.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Sorry, one other thing on that one, on electrification, is that, is there any sort of grant to support that assessment for climate mitigation, for energy, alternative energies? I don't know. but that seems like something that should be supported.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Well, and on the drainage, is there any, I know that's something that you were really thinking about with the new McGlynn playground because, I mean, that playground was, regularly not draining to understatement.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So it's not a drainage issue, but there is a drainage issue there. I was just wondering if there's a service contract to be maintaining this turf setting, does it also, is it possible to bundle that with the other school, even though they're, however- I believe the turf is being, I believe we are finally on the maintenance contract at the Brooks, right?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay. With the door sweeps, there was also a dumpster mitigation that I wrote down that I don't see in here. the general, there were two pest control issues.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And that's all one project? That should all be in line 27 or are they separate lines?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, part of my question on that is, what does that do to summer programs that we're offering in different schools? I know most of our programming this summer was at Missittuck and high school, unless I'm missing something. In the Roberts. Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, as I recall, there's the determination based on what the project is, and then there's also a funding threshold, right? Because I'm looking, if I'm remembering correctly, and I might not be, it was 250,000 was a cutoff, and I'm looking right there at network closet mini split. And I don't know what borderline is gonna dictate how things are classified. So if that's if we need to look at that quote a little more carefully for that determination, we might need to do that. So I'm sure knows that number much better than I do.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I mean, the only thing that comes to mind is we have talked about getting elementary school students into middle school spaces, whether it's after school or some other reorganization down the line. I don't know that that is concrete enough, but I know that when I spoke to Nick Tucci, for example, the concerns around having elementary school students in there would require some changes to classrooms. I don't know what the timeframe is that maybe the superintendent knows that a little bit better or somebody who's been talking. I know we're due to get an update on after school at the Andrews. But that is something that is potentially a capital project. If we're looking at changing who is in the middle school building, the what are currently the middle school buildings.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, quite capital, but right. That's a question.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I guess, Dr. Cushing, you mentioned the roof as being ready for solar. Are there other solar projects that are possibilities down the line? you mentioned that for the Andrews, are we?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Oh, thank you. Sorry. I was talking to a third grader who apparently they like to be fed. I don't know. It's weird. So is. Oh, fourth grade, whoops. Anyway, I was gonna say, I think this is when I was having audio trouble, but anything Curtis Tufts, I assume that those calculations are being made with MSBA thinking in mind of what's worth doing in a building if we really are looking to co-locate and that five to seven, sorry, five year plan. Yeah.
[Erika Reinfeld]: No, we have that date. We do.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So does that take the place of adjournment? That is correct. It does.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Can we see a copy of what the baseline numbers look like? What is elevated? Is zero the baseline on everything?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I have three questions, two of them for Director Perry. You said HECAT framework changes to curriculum end of year. Is that end of calendar year or end of school year?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you. And then I was wondering at the middle school level, how the reduction in guidance Councilors has affected the delivery of health education. I know that was a big question during budget season about the teaching responsibilities with that position.
[Erika Reinfeld]: have other, do they have room in their schedule for other activities? That was one of the things that concerns were expressed about.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you. And then my third question was just to confirm that the caregiver university is an a la carte model. People can tune in and out to different sessions. It's not an enrollment based. Thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld? Yes, I was just wondering what opportunities there are for teachers to give feedback or share how well it is working for them. I realize there's still a lot of training going on, but that formative assessment of, is this curriculum working for us and for the people who are delivering it? I can see a lot of these meetings coming, we're looking at the student data and we're really focused on the students, which is absolutely important, but I, where the teacher voice and their experience, is that happening in the PD sessions? Is that happening in the weekly meetings?
[Erika Reinfeld]: And participation on the DLT is volunteer basis? Yes. And we don't turn anybody away. But there's no stipend?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I would like to amend this the same way I amended last week's to include nicotine pouches and non, we have the phrasing in last week's. minutes to include nicotine pouches and state exclusion of prescription nicotine products, such as patches prescribed to end nicotine dependence and addiction.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I sort of hate to ask this, and this is not to curtail artistic integrity. Either do we have community standards for what gets painted, or is there a protocol in place if somehow something that shouldn't be in the lot shows up in the lot. I trust our students. I think they're great, but I just want to have that backup.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, I'm not a fan of censorship. I just wanted, things can happen.
[Erika Reinfeld]: All those opposed?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I have a question about the $75 to park. Is that just during school hours? Because I have seen in districts where you're not parking during the day, but if you are doing some sort of activity that has you there late at night, sports things, theater things run in, sometimes the car comes in after when bus service isn't.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I just want to say that I... Yes, I think we shouldn't be charging people to get to school, but we charge for people to take the bus, and I don't think that parking should be free when we're charging families to pay for their own T-passes. I think there's inequity and environmental impact to that decision.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you. Yes. So my goal here is to give this body the opportunity to articulate how these ballot questions map to the needs of our school community. These are the three questions that I believe most directly affect the student and educator experience. I do intend to divide this motion so that each component can be voted on separately. I'm happy to do that now or give an overview of of what I've laid out here, described the ballot question, mapped it to the needs, and articulated a position. I'm happy to note rate question two is about eliminating the MCAS test, not as a required assessment, but as a graduation requirement. This is something that Medford educators and parents have been asking for for many years, and it allows our educators to better focus on diverse learning styles, needs. It expands the definition of success. reduces anxiety, and increases equity. Question seven is a direct response to the budget crisis that we saw last spring. To replace those one-time funds, we all, I assume, remember how devastating the $2.7 million worth of cuts, plus the 2.2 million that we didn't even identify what those would be. So that's valid question seven, along with the... The Department of Public Works, we've spent a lot of time talking about transportation and how there are not necessarily viable alternatives for our families and students within certain distances. Some of that is on busing, which is also addressed by the ballot initiatives, but also on street and sidewalk repair, which makes safer environments for everyone. And then question eight. I think really addresses the challenges, these underlying challenges that we have seen come up, right? We heard enrollment in the arts is low and it's not because students don't want to be taking arts, it's because they don't have room in their schedule. Many people enrolled in vocational programs aren't able to take the AP courses that will assist in that. And so I just found out that my fourth grader in taking starting an instrument is probably going to be missing art class or science class every week. And that's a problem. And so we need to expand what we offer. We probably need to expand the teacher workday, the student learning opportunities. We are at the state minimum for how much time students, instructional time students have in class. But if we're gonna ask people to, to spend more time in the classroom, we have to pay them for that. We found out how low many of our stipends are. We have been hearing for years about competition with other districts. And so that is question eight. And then the final section of this motion is an acknowledgement that this doesn't solve all the problems. We are still committed as a body to working to make sure our students and educators have what they need. So I welcome edits or additions from my colleagues, and I really appreciate the opportunity to articulate how these three valid questions impact our students.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So what's our definition?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, it says this test is not the key thing that says yes or no, you graduate.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I think we, sorry, I think, Simon, are you here for this question? I'm so sorry. We have our frequent flyer. Would you like to speak?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I have some, I have a couple of questions. Member Reinfeld. I'm curious what happened to the language about student use and signage from the original policy or what's online?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you. So on that one, I would want to add nicotine pouches and gum. And I'm not sure if that belongs in the staff one as well. But that's a non-tobacco product, but it is, this is things like Zin and yeah. So it's not tobacco, but it is nicotine. Okay.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Nicotine pouches. And I actually wasn't sure about gum because I know some people need that. I don't know what our school policy is on gum actually, but I know that's helping to combat addiction.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I think we should. Not patches, pouches, the pop in your mouth.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay, I have our assistant super chair saying yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Motion to sever June 24th.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I'd like to amend the approval of the teacher budget line item. The vote was 5-0-2, not 5-1-1. There were two abstentions, no no votes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I have a question. Is there a limitation on the number of schools from a district who can apply for this kind of thing?
[Erika Reinfeld]: because I love this and you know I have a kid at the Roberts, so I'm super excited, but I also want to be thinking about our other elementary schools and equity across the district.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Motion to approve.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So there were 90 enrolled, 30 got to do Summer Fun. Were there people who wanted to do Summer Fun that didn't get to?
[Erika Reinfeld]: So the students who didn't pass, what support is available? What happens next for them?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Remind me from June, this was to cover the program for one year. Remind me of the scope.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So remember Ruseau touched on this. What was the percentage of students who accepted? We talked a lot in June about strategies for outreach.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay, do we have an opportunity to compare the students who participated with the students who didn't, whether that's through early DIBELS, early MAP, or even qualitative?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Because it would just be interesting to see if there was any kind of significant shift in scores comparing, looking across the cohort that was invited, those who participated and those who didn't, assuming they were on similar tiers.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah. And then my last question is, it seems like there was a lot of great teacher feedback about the format and how this works. How can we use the lessons that were learned in this summer experience to apply them or scale them up as we're looking at more intensive literacy training with Hill and others?
[Erika Reinfeld]: May I ask what that looks like? Is that initiated by school committee? Is that initiated by the district?
[Erika Reinfeld]: And the population is changing a lot in Fulton Heights.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, I would love to see that committee of the whole meeting happen this fall once those numbers are presented.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Well, I would like to motion that the capital planning subcommittee in an upcoming meeting dedicate an agenda item to identifying a scope and timeline for coordinated electrification across the district, because we can't keep doing this on a one-off as things fail. Oh, this one's too expensive. And they all end up being too expensive. We have to do this look big picture. This was the last one to fail, but what's next? Second.
[Erika Reinfeld]: The capital planning subcommittee. Thank you. Do you need more language? I got enough. Great, thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I'm just curious why this wouldn't go towards other transportation related costs. If it is a parking fee for vehicles and a. Yeah.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reichelt? I'm just curious whether we get any remuneration from these companies that delayed our process. You said they accepted full responsibility. Is that just an I'm sorry?
[Erika Reinfeld]: No, it sounds like the project is going as smoothly as it can. And I just want to thank the McGlynn Elementary. I know, right? Thank the McGlynn Elementary community for their patience on this.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reindell? Quick question. The priority on local produce, I absolutely see it reflected in the lunches. Can we also expect to see it reflected in the breakfasts? which I think tend to be a little more carbon packaged.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I love the efficiency of this. I just want to make sure we're being aware of the effect that certain LED lights can have on headaches, migraines for the student health reasons.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Right. So just something to keep in mind proactively. Sorry.
[Erika Reinfeld]: there any other motions associated with this policy motion to waive this is this the sort of thing where we can waive the second reading because this is very much aligned with the massachusetts association of school committee recommendations so motion to waive the second reading i don't think we should do that no all right withdraw the motion okay so this will be on the agenda again next week for a final reading got it
[Erika Reinfeld]: I had a question. Sure. So my only question is if this is something that we need to hear from the department that's requesting the field trip or we need to acknowledge the grant by some terms of the grant, we would then just sever it from the consent agenda to do that. Great. I motion to approve.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld? I have a quick question and then I'm happy to make a motion to approve. I'm curious what collaborative budgeting looks like to you. Like how do you work with other people on the leadership team and in the administration and schools? Like how does that play out?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you so much.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Motion to enter executive session.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes, thank you. I don't want to repeat the questions from Member Ruseau and Member Olapade. I do want to say I've worked with a number of programs in this sort of thing, and I have found that City Year is one of the more supportive, providing the support to employees than some of the other similar programs and even those as part of the AmeriCorps program. I found City Year to be really a solid partner. The question that I have maybe is for the administration more than you, Ms. Roberts, it's around what this looks like in terms of planning coming into the school year. I think we've, anyone who has been in education or well really many, many jobs, it's not exclusive to education, has had a student teacher, an intern come in and that can often be more work for the person supervising, obviously for great benefit. I really, really support programs that are teaching these skills and giving these community collaborations an opportunity to grow. So it's not about that, but what kind of foundation and conversations would we be having with the teachers and the administration in the schools, particularly noting that we are now in the summer period and many of the staff will be coming back right before school starts and moving in. So it's a question about onboarding and the commitment for what it looks like on the ground for really being able to get this going. I appreciate what Member Olapade said, that this is an and, not an or, but even adding ands to the top of already very full jobs is a lot of work, and I'd love to hear about how that is managed.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I'm sorry, the other part of that was making sure the teachers and support staff that are being worked with have the opportunity to express that this is our specific need in this specific year.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes, I could, I apologize, this might have been said already, but is the third, we're talking about an elementary school and a single classroom, is the third grade a fixed point? Because I think the schools that we're looking at, particularly the Mississippi is where we've had a lot of concerns about the average class size being a lot for a single teacher. And that's not necessarily in the third grade, for example, so. What kind of, how does this intersect with our class size questions? We're having another adult in the room.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So it's not fixed for a particular grade.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Branley, you're muted.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yep, I think these are all really valid concerns. But I also think this is an opportunity to pilot what community partnership looks like. And that's something we should be doing. That's a way forward in making Medford a great place to learn. And so I can hear concerns, maybe two programs is too much for a pilot, given the uncertainties. But I think I think this is something we can learn from, and it will lay a foundation for being able to have more partnership, more community support, training people to be in education and make a difference in students' lives. I think it's a valuable pilot.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So versus tabling the motion versus tabling this until we see that plan.
[Erika Reinfeld]: No.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes, thank you, Mr. McHugh and everybody who contributed conversations both within the administration and within the community. These were not easy conversations, and I appreciate the clarity of the story. One thing that this story doesn't tell that I think it's important to say on the floor in this meeting is that this whole process has revealed a lot of important conversations that need to happen. It has the potential cuts from the initial budget proposal have revealed the challenges in the high school schedule, the middle school schedule, the enrollment and distribution of students across the schools, particularly the elementary schools. It's raised questions about the stipend rates and then the timing of the budget cycle itself and how it coincides with non-renewals and everything. So I think that is really important to keep in mind. It's not immediately germane to the approval of the budget at hand. But the one thing that I would like to do, I would like to make a motion that the school committee receive a report by December 7th describing the implementation and impact of the position reductions that were not related to enrollment, just to understand how the intended and unintended consequences of the decisions are going to affect next year's budget request. Because what I hate seeing in budgeting is when a position goes away, and I will say I'm particularly concerned about some of the middle school positions, but when it goes away and then we never go back to say, how did that pan out? Things just disappear and fall off the budget. So I would like to see a report to inform the next budget cycle of how those impacts affected.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes. So I had phrased it, the report describing the implementation and impact of position reductions between the previous and current year budgets to understand the unintended and the intended, sorry, the intended and unintended consequences of these decisions will affect the budget request for the upcoming fiscal year. I'm happy to send that to someone.
[Erika Reinfeld]: That's all I have to say for now, yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Quick clarification, are the kindergarten teacher numbers based on projected enrollment or current actual enrollment?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay, because I was curious and I will say, I'm more familiar with the Roberts just because that is where I have a student because the projected enrollment is the same as the current enrollment, but the number of teachers in the budget is less than the current number of teachers. So that is an increase in class size that we're expecting, we're not sure if we're gonna need
[Erika Reinfeld]: Does the housing market play a role in that in terms of, you know, I know there are neighborhoods where we're seeing a lot of younger families move in unrelated to birth rates.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Right, okay, thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: That's contractual.
[Erika Reinfeld]: It's in the teacher's contract. All the stipend rates are there.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Motion to approve.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: OK, in phase 2.2c, the capital projects not eligible for community preservation or net school spending, those just get incorporated into the plan itself and don't need any kind of special call out for funding requests, correct?
[Erika Reinfeld]: And so then following on that, it's presumably out of the scope of this policy to request from the city that they respond to the phase five here, the approved, go forward it to the city of Medford with the funding request. we're going to assume, hello, we're going to assume that we get that information back, but that's outside the scope of the policy, correct?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, I just wanted to make sure this is this communication is coming both ways and we're seeing in a timely manner I think the way that city council and school committee can work together on this and of course the mayor's office. And then I was curious how this interfaces with our consent agenda where we are approving purchases. If it's in the capital plan and in the budget, we still need to approve the actual spending of the money when appropriated. Okay. And then my very last thing, I also did not find any typos, but I think that phase seven, number one, I think the two sentences should each be their own item.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Phase 7, 1, net school spending, and then the attachment should be a separate motion to amend it in that way, if I have to make a motion.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I'm happy to motion to waive the second reading this feels, but I was, you know what, I was on this, I was on the committee in the room when this was made. So let me turn it over to colleagues who are not on the strategic planning, capital planning subcommittee.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Motion to approve.
[Erika Reinfeld]: All right. Thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I was going to ask about targeted follow-up, because we know that response rates tend to be low among some of your invited populations. My other question is, how are you going to be measuring the success of the institute? Is it comparing the people who did it and didn't, who were all issued invitations? How do we know that this program worked?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Second.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Motion to approve.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I'll amend my motion to include those dates.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Motion to approve.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yep, I don't have a lot to share. This was really a foundational meeting. We had a great crowd of people who gave us an overview of what was happening and we're moving forward towards phase two.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Motion to waive this reading.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Sure.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I'm wondering. I know.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Motion to waive the definitions reading.
[Erika Reinfeld]: have another minor text. I think it was in section eight, part D. I can just send this to you, but to move that phrase to approve the proposed reconciled budget to after meeting, so special school committee meeting to approve the proposed reconciled budget will be scheduled no less than five business days. You stumbled over it when reading it the same way that I stumbled over it at home. And I did have a question on this. So you talk in phase two about discussing the budget needs with the principals. I was wondering about the department heads and potentially that's part of the presentations we get regularly from the departments. I don't know if that's part of the budget process, or if it's part of the updates. This is what we've been doing, this is where we are, and this is what we anticipate needing for next year. So build some of that strategic planning into those updates that we're already getting, or if not, make sure it's in the process of crafting the budget. I think one of the big questions that people have had, that I've seen from people is, who exactly, how are we getting these numbers? Why are we, what is the plan for this department and that department and what are their needs? And I know it's allocated by school and the principals are really important, but thinking about the departments and giving us a better sense of where those numbers and allocations are coming from. Because I think that also informs how we spend our money and what our priorities are.
[Erika Reinfeld]: My question was how do we make transparent those priorities, not just in the individual schools, but across the areas, the department areas,
[Erika Reinfeld]: Then maybe what I'm asking is if that budget presentation can be tied more closely to the strategic plan and the direction that we're headed.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you. Yeah, I don't support doing the same work over and over, to be clear.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you. All right, how many years have we been Zooming? All right. So please be advised that there will be a meeting of the Curriculum, Instruction, Assessment, and Accountability Subcommittee of the Medford School Committee on Tuesday, May 28th, five o'clock p.m. This meeting can be viewed live on Medford Public Schools' YouTube channel or via Medford Community Media on your local cable channel, Comcast channel nine, eight, or 22, and Verizon channel 43, 45, or 47. The meeting is being recorded. and since the meeting will be held remotely, participants may log in using the link below. The Zoom ID number is 926-407-5749. So we will start with a roll call. Do I do the roll call as the chair or does Paul, okay. Member Branley? Present. Member Ruseau?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld, present. Three, present. Zero, absent. And we are joined by members of the administration. And I believe some members of the public as well. Thank you all so much for coming. So this is the follow up on the resolution I don't actually have the resolution number in front of me, but be it resolved that the Subcommittee for Curriculum Instruction, Assessment, and Accountability meet with the Assistant Superintendent of Academics and Instruction and other relevant staff to discuss the development of a process to review and assess recently adopted curricula and assessment tools across the district and to identify the key stakeholders, timelines, and protocols to be involved in these reviews consistent with the policies described in Section of the Medford School Committee Online Policy Manual. So by way of context, we've called this meeting because in recent years, the Medford Public Schools have adopted a number of new curricular materials through a robust process of review and input and stakeholder input. And we would like to have the ability to assess whether our goals for adopting those materials are being achieved and what that looks like in terms of the materials themselves, as well as the instruction and the student. And by way of further context, in the Medford Public Schools strategic plan, item A1 is to establish an ongoing process of curriculum review. So I'm happy to pull up that document with the details of that, but I've asked Dr. Galusi to give us an update on where we are, because phase one is slated for 2021 through 2024 and here we are in 2024 and we'd like to get ahead of the process. So I think if we start with an update on phase one and then discuss what phase two looks like. Is it useful to say who's in the room here from the schools before we do that?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Hi there, Jennifer Skane, Principal of Andrews Middle School.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I don't think we should dive deep, but just to get a sense of what that looks like.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Ruseau, did you have any questions, particularly as someone who's seen a lot of these curricula come in? No. No. OK. All right, so I think what we want to do, so this gives us a really good foundation for what's been done, what's in progress. I think one of the goals in calling this subcommittee at this point in time is to say, so some of these things are due to be evaluated regularly, and that process is in place. But one of the things I want to be really thoughtful about is, that there are a few different stages of assessing these. And I know this is ridiculous for me to say with this many educators on the call. But one of the things that I've been thinking about in regards to this is that didactic triangle where the content is one piece of a triangle and the students and the teachers are the other points and assessing the content. isn't just about the content itself, but it's about the relationship that that content has to the teachers and the students. I think the review process isn't necessarily a conversation about the teacher-student relationship, but it is to the content and the into the teachers and the students. And so some of that looks like, for the content and the teachers, that looks like the implementation. And is this doing, is this working? Are these things being implemented with fidelity and in a way that the teachers are adequately trained to teach this? And then that seems to me something that needs to come earlier than the process of assessing whether the students have mastery of the content or whether they're in well hopefully the engagement with the content is coming sooner and to be able to assess that through observations through test scores whatever it is and what that process looks like so it's not just we're looking at everything all together once we hit the six years or the curriculum expires in 2029. So we're just deciding if we're gonna renew it. I'd like to make sure that we have a process in place to review that in a strategic targeted way at selected points. And you all on the call know far better than I do what is feasible, because as we all know, the more time you spend talking to people about what they're doing, that's less time that they're actually doing it. So figuring out what that balance is, is something that I'd like to kind of lay out in terms of the timeline, who the stakeholders are, and the role that different people are going to be playing in a review process.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah. And I would love to hear from the folks on the ground there as you know, is, is map testing giving you the information you need and what other information do you need? What are, what are the ways to get that? Because I think as we all know, we, we don't all want it. We don't want to just make test scores the measure of success. What are the, what are the metrics we need here?
[Erika Reinfeld]: And I just don't want to lose sight of. So the scope of this meeting is about assessing the curricula, not necessarily student gains. Obviously, part of the goal of these curricula is to reflect student gains, but to make sure that we're measuring something that tells us whether the goals of adopting a given curriculum are being met. But I see hands in the air. So I think Ms. Demos was first. Oh, did we lose her?
[Erika Reinfeld]: And sorry, Mr. Tixera, the list that we just saw from Dr. Galussi of the curricula, how many of those have the built-in ELA support? I know it was included versus a separate curriculum.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you. That actually, if anyone else has comments, I welcome them, but that seems like a reasonable transition to identify.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes, that is. And that speaks to the other kind of takeaway I wanted to get from this, which is the timeline of when that, it sounds like MAP provides a lot of flexibility for doing a lot of that in real time. And if that is embedded in the process, I don't know how much more explicit it needs to be, but I'm interested in kind of identifying who are the stakeholders in making those decisions and getting that input. I know when curricula is chosen, it's done with community input. from families, obviously a lot of, most of the folks in families are not educators or curriculum developers. So, but they can speak to the experiential component of things. And of course, the teachers who are teaching it saying this is working, this is not working anecdotally, qualitatively. So identifying who those parties are and when they come into the review process. I think would be a useful exercise for this call.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Are there thoughts from the group on that? And also giving some attention to non-MCAS subjects as well. I know we've been talking about NWEA MAP, but a lot of the math and the literacy is baked into things where there's a little more. I don't want to say leeway in other programs, because it is they're absolutely rigorous and to standards, but how can we make sure that's being included in this process and that those programs are getting what they need.
[Erika Reinfeld]: That's great. And that speaks to another question I had for this group, which is the cross-departmental influence, right? I see Mr. Cieri is on the call. Do our students taking advanced science classes have the advanced math skills that they need to do that? And what room in reviewing curricula saying, The next grade is getting students are coming in with the knowledge that they need to succeed at this grade and with this curriculum or looking at across you know do a piece does the statistics department have the statistics students have these math skills or these critical thinking skills that come from a humanities program. And so I'm wondering what cross-curricular opportunities there are to say this is a program that speaks to multiple needs, and certainly at the elementary school level, foundational math, foundational reading, but being able to make those connections across areas.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Do either of you wanna? And particularly in terms of being able to review curricula with that in mind, not just are the students getting these things, but.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And that taps into a question that we had brought up earlier of, is it the material? Is it the implementation? Is it the instruction? And really being able to assess it out, because we don't want to throw out a curriculum that has a lot of potential and would be doing well if there were more training. But we also don't want to keep hammering away at a curriculum that isn't working. So I saw two hands go up, although one of them, I think, just went down.
[Erika Reinfeld]: That's another great point that I think is not quite this meeting, but when a teacher brings a curriculum to the district and how that gets adopted and assessing that. So that's a great point as well. Nicole?
[Erika Reinfeld]: It does. And I think that was kind of the goal of this of getting this group together to have this conversation is to say, what does that process look like? And what is the timeline for that? So I don't know if that becomes a question with with the strategic plan for the district. As we said, the phase one is coming to Coming to an end this year and knowing what that phase two is, is something that I can speak for myself. I hope the rest of the subcommittee agrees we'd like to know what, as we approach the end of phase one, what does phase two look like, who's involved, and what's the timeline?
[Erika Reinfeld]: That makes sense. I'm noting that it's six. I would love to see this draft. Oh, yeah. But I do notice it is the time. And I think, especially in those instances where we're looking at, I don't want to call them Frankenstein curricula, but to say there's a gap in this published material that we need to supplement with either something homegrown or some other published material.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, although I will say I love the reasons for initiation. I think that's really important to make explicit that some of it is scheduled, some of it is emerging.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And some of it is external.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah. And do you have a target timeline for this process from adoption to?
[Erika Reinfeld]: For these stages, you said we could spend a few years in implementation and monitoring. Is there?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I think it's five, my daughter was in second grade and my other one's in third now, so.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And I don't think it's fully up to date.
[Erika Reinfeld]: That's right.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's useful for this, if not the subcommittee or even the entire school committee to know when is it reasonable to say, all right, into readings been in place now, we need this up, we need an update on whether it's achieved its goals or not. Cause I know school committee approves. We don't teach, we don't tell teachers how to teach, but we do approve major investments in curricula. And so knowing when it's reasonable to see those updates, that data, those data.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah. And so mapping out where those are for the various curricula.
[Erika Reinfeld]: have anything to add. Did. Anyone else have anything to add? I know this was kind of a preliminary meeting, and it was for many of you laying out some of the things that you've been already working on for a couple of new school committee members, but it is very much appreciated, especially after hours. Um member Brandly or member member Ruseau. Did you have any other
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you. So I think I am. Oh, go ahead. So I'm excited. I'm excited to see this, this next stage of the process laid out and to understand where we are with the various curricula so that we can We can come to you when it is appropriate and not make extra work asking questions and when they're not, when the answer is forthcoming.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you. Brandly, Member Ruseau, is there- Can we go to a door? Motion to adjourn. Is there a second? Second. All right. Roll call. Member Branley? Yes. Member Ruseau?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld? Yes. Thank you all so much, and I look forward to continued conversation on this.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah.
[Erika Reinfeld]: No, my question is how this intersects with the building and grounds subcommittee, but I think your question was more directly related to it.
[Erika Reinfeld]: No, that makes sense. So the other thing I was going to say, when you said it's time for the school to take this back and make the decision, absolutely. But I think we need to build into whatever our procedure is, a regular like report out according to the city or according because we need to be in their plan in their capital planning.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Their presentation is not intended to be at that level of detail, which is why I like what they're doing, you know, they're turning all municipal roofs to solar right like we want in on that we've got a part of that right.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Round opens July 31st. Eligibility forms due September 10th. Full applications due October 8 and 22nd. Application presentations to the committee. That's for this year.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I love that. In special circumstances, off-cycle applications may be considered. Applicants must demonstrate an emergent public need and evidence of seeking alternative funding to the grant.
[Erika Reinfeld]: way ahead of the game and like here's the list of things and we're just sitting around waiting for you know the the free cash certification city's budget picture to come become clear yeah okay um in response to your comment about the principles and i think we need some threshold guidelines on what constitutes okay little project i like that yeah i
[Erika Reinfeld]: All-day refrigeration, no. ADR systems automatically adjust HVAC.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I'm so sorry. Does anyone have nut allergy? No.
[Erika Reinfeld]: To what extent does Waterheed's failure at the Brooks predict Robert's?
[Erika Reinfeld]: They already failed. Okay.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I live in an old high school.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Maybe the condo conversion in 84.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I just want to be able to put that on our board. That was eligibility. So you should be submitting a letter before you do a poll. Oh, OK.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah. And what year was that in? That's like early when we started. Yeah. Wow.
[Erika Reinfeld]: We made a to-do list for Peter of things that he was going to look into. Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: That's not why.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay, do you need any, do we need to include any information about the relationship with building and grounds and or the road?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Is it worth making a presentation on this to the MSBA building committee or not yet or, or, I mean, I know, I know, I know that she did the podcast. Yeah.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I believe I signed up for Thursday. Yeah. I'm waiting for the official. calendar you're good yeah at least you just said she was gonna send one so yeah okay but it's in my calendar i'm skipping another meeting for it sounds great sounds like better than whatever meeting that was yeah um okay is there a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn so seconded by right bill all those in favor aye
[Erika Reinfeld]: Motion to sever the public hearing minutes and the behavioral and special ed.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I'd like to amend the minutes to the Special Education and Behavioral Health Subcommittee to include a link to the meeting recording, because I believe that the feedback provided by the representatives from Curtis-Tufts should be easily accessible with the record of the votes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And I'd also like to strike from the public hearing minutes the home address of the students who provided public comment for privacy reasons.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And just put the- Just put their names that they spoke. I don't think their home address should be on public record for students.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, we would like to give the administration and school councils a chance to confirm that this works for them.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Withdrawn.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Rheintald? Yeah, I have a question about the survey. So I was also incredibly encouraged by the numbers. I am wondering if there's gonna be any effort to break down particularly cultural awareness and action and diversity inclusion, those questions by some of the more vulnerable populations to see whether the average across the student population may not be representative of those people who are often targeted by some of these challenges. So I'm wondering if we can look a little more closely to see what that sub data looks like there.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you. And then this might be a question for the superintendent so the Welch report had a lot of focus on the high school on there was also some of this mentoring for other schools in the district and looking at climate, kind of, more broadly across the district. And so I'm wondering what's happening on that front.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, absolutely. I agree completely. And I just want to make on record the comment that our, you know, our middle school students are the next high schoolers and elementary. So this all this work really has to be district wide. And I'm so encouraged by this. So thank you. And thanks to everyone who made it possible.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Are we going to need a break in the middle do we need to take our, like, two minute break now or if you want a motion to recess for five minutes, that's fine.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you. Thank you member on top of for summarizing some of those emails because we all got them. So, these numbers didn't change since the last meeting. So I will also repeat myself from the last meeting, which is to say there are no good solutions here there's only least bad. But what I want to know is what are the other options here, we you know we. This looks terrible. Having no money and shutting down the schools is also terrible. What other things were considered what can we, what can we expect here what if this is the best what, what did we not do to make this happen. And then, particularly in terms of the extenuating circumstances numbers I think we've done a great job of presenting the big picture and how much money is here, but we got a lot of information about what those on the ground numbers are how many appointments are happening how many. IEP is how many particular needs are happening at the Mississauga across health services. And I don't see any of that here to understand what makes this the least bad solution. So we're going to have to figure out with the money. And I know it is the role of the district to do that. Jerry, thank you for absorbing these comments. You did the numbers, but that's not where You took the data that was given, but I feel like I just don't have any of that information about other than hearsay what people have sent me and knowing that this was sat down and said this was the possible course of action, and it wasn't feasible because of this, but this is feasible and I want to know that it really is I need to know. that there's a plan, you can say this, this person is going away again I'm going to repeat myself because this is the same presentation, the work isn't going away and so who's going to be doing it right if you're cutting the person who's leading the effort to roll out our new health curriculum. Where is that happening now? What will this look like in practice? Because these are the numbers. So I don't know that we have time to get into those nitty gritties, but I would really like to see some information, not just on numbers, but the on the ground numbers, the qualitative reasons that this is the least bad plan.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Ruseau, is there any history that we need to know about about how this has been done in the past other than inconsistently or in terms of timeline where the administration this year we got a packet full of policies slash draft policies with the final draft forthcoming?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Let's say it's about arrival and dismissal.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So... Because if they have a concern about a school committee policy, that would be raised outside of this process.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So would I be so on. I don't know how you wanna discuss this, but since we were just talking about this phase three, step three, sounds like we're talking about approval of handbooks as a whole once all of the discrepancies. So if there's an item that needs discussion in subcommittee, that handbook is not approved rather than everything approved except for this section. I think that's a cleaner way to do this.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I mean, I think it's just an added sentence around each handbook will be approved. Actually, let me ask. I assume we're approving handbooks one at a time. Can we approve one handbook at a time?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Right, but to say, you know, approved by the school committee committee will be her handbook.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Well, that was the question I asked on April 8th that sent us down a little spiral, and I just walked it back as it was late.
[Erika Reinfeld]: We'll be in whole.
[Erika Reinfeld]: All right. Is there ever a scenario when we send a handbook back to a school saying, fix this? Or is that a, you are invited to this subcommittee meeting to discuss this handbook?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I mean, it seems to me the main thing, the role that school committee has here, or possibly the superintendent, I guess this is my question at the end of at the end of phase two here, this point three, the second part, or the first part of it, the school council will send the handbook and memorandum to the superintendent for review. Do we need to specify what that review entails? I mean, I guess it's just sign off, but maybe it's the question about in one and two, because The only time the handbook becomes a problem, and I've certainly received questions from parents about this, is if they perceive that an enforcement of a policy, which is kind of what the handbook lays out, is in conflict with the policy itself. Who's doing that reconciliation? Presumably it's happening in one... Or is that just what needs to happen in that first review and then the memorandum of changes says, we need to make sure that this section, I guess I think there are relevant sections of the handbook that relate to new policy, law, regulation, et cetera. And that's what the memorandum is meant to do is to say, we changed the, I had this, we changed the discipline to match the new bullying. policy, or when the out-of-school suspension, when the suspensions policy changed, to say we changed the discipline section of our handbook to comply with this, who checks it?
[Erika Reinfeld]: But are we asking them to do that before they send it to us? Yeah, I'm not asking them to do that.
[Erika Reinfeld]: The memorandums, I think, is perfect. You need to know what's changed. It's your track changes of the.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Right, so I think one thing that we do need the superintendent's office to do unless this is us, but is to confirm consistency across elementary schools right if one elementary school makes a change. To something. that affects the other ones or the two middle schools. Like I might've missed it, but one of them seems to have a homework policy and the other doesn't. And that seems like a problem in equity for students that making expectations clear. I might just have missed it in this as I flipped through this large binder that we got.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Because I do think, if you get a memorandum that says you need to change this to comply with that policy and one school changes it in one way and another changes it in a different way, or is this first memorandum saying, no, no, this needs to change in this specific way. Yeah, I mean, I think- We're to say that all handbooks have the, you know, I think there's an important, there's a useful conversation to have. We don't have to have it this year about should each elementary school have, should there be a Medford Elementary Schools expectations and then school-specific procedures? Should there be one elementary school handbook with an addendum for the Roberts, for the Missittuck, for the McGlynn? But I do think there's some consistency that, needs to happen.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah. I mean, those are the three things I think we hear about consistency on levels, consistency across schools, consistency between school protocol and official policy, and then consistency between what parents are told verbally in the moment and what's written down in one or another location. So this process can't address all of that, but it can address the consistency across schools with alignment with official policy.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I just wanted to double check that there were tables of contents and everything, which there aren't. Can we mandate any parts of handbooks that every handbook must have this section or?
[Erika Reinfeld]: But I don't know if that's part of this policy.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Well, I do know people are looking and saying, look, this says right here.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Absolutely at the end, but I don't.
[Erika Reinfeld]: It's interesting, because some of these have federal laws included. Some of these say, we've included the policies we think are most relevant to elementary school students. I think nobody says, here, go to this website, which who would want to, knowing that website where our policies live?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Well, and the one that they gave us has a bunch of yellow highlighting that says, this is changing. Yeah.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I mean, I will say when it comes time for me to review, I like having it in hard copy, but.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, but is that, and then I guess in phase three here, we haven't said, so it says the school committee will receive copies and we will approve it, amend it or discuss further. Does that mean everyone is reading every handbook?
[Erika Reinfeld]: So is maybe is so is that I guess is that a separate question in terms of onboarding new members is you should have the handbook so you know what's happening in the schools on paper.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Sorry, I didn't mean to take us quite so far off topic. So in terms of this policy, I think the staging is good. The dates seem reasonable to me. I'm sure the people carrying out phases one and two have opinions on that.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I think, I mean, I only know about the Roberts because Mia said, Oh, yes, I'm on this. Right. Sorry, former member of stone.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Do we need to say in phase 1.1 the superintendent or their designee Was there a designee within central administration? I mean, I think it needs to be clear that they're not designating it to... Yeah, so it always is or designee.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay, so that is implied kind of across the board. Cause I know we've had things saying, well, we didn't mean that you should do it. We meant that your office should do it. Right.
[Erika Reinfeld]: All right. Can you just put this up on the screen so I can read everything, I think?
[Erika Reinfeld]: There we go. It was, yep, that's great for me. No, I don't need the, that magnification that you had before was great. Oh. 125. Yeah, I just needed it scrolled. Yep, I can see the end of three. I don't need to see the policy information section.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, mandatory.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Because I'm right in thinking that, because the handbooks have to be final and approved for students to receive at the end of August when school starts, because I know they sign off.
[Erika Reinfeld]: May has been terrible and with our very wise decision to push, bring the budgeting process forward. it just may, it compounds may. But I'm not saying push budgeting back because knowing all this early is great. Is there a disconnect? This is my pedantry on display here, that the digital versions being created in phase 1.1 is what becomes the draft digital handbooks.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I mean, what you're asking is for the superintendent to duplicate the current year's handbook and update that to create the upcoming year draft. The upcoming school year.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay, if the superintendent notices an inconsistency and makes an update, do then they need to have, is there a third memorandum? I don't want this many memorandums, but do we need to know that the superintendent updated the Brooks handbook to match the Roberts handbook? Or do they do the superintendent have to go back to the school council and say hi for consistency reasons I'm making this change I.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Provide the memorandum to whom? To school committee and the school council, or? Sorry. Yep, sounds good. Just remove the provide before create on the second line of number four. Backseat typing.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Mandatory.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I would call these mandatory changes, but that'll just confuse things. Do we then, we're in subcommittee, do we motion to send this to full committee? Passing it by the administration first.
[Erika Reinfeld]: What comes after the word? I can figure out words in context, but I don't have enough of it for this one.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Getting administrative, getting the approval from the administration and or principals.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Is that part of this conversation for this meeting or is that the follow-on motion once this is reported out?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: No, but I mean, do we need, do we just need to approve these as is once we get the?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Because the current policy is we don't have a policy, just they have to be approved. Correct. Until this policy goes into effect, we are not breaking our own policy.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Is it too late to amend this policy to say this policy will be effective as of August 1st, 2024?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Oh, I thought our rule said it's effective immediately unless indicated otherwise. I swear I read that somewhere.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, I've got the page open. I'm sorry. I know I'm dragging this out. And no, that's not it. Governance. I wish this tab could move.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I'm taking your word on that.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I think my only question is, when we bring this to the floor, do we need to talk about this year's handbooks?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Or I guess maybe I'm asking if it needs to get added to the agenda.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Alright, so, but that's not a motion of this subcommittee that we review handbooks for approval by the end of the school year.
[Erika Reinfeld]: All right. Well, then I guess we didn't have that conversation.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Second? No, I'm sorry. member motion second. Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Hi, hello. I just have a couple of questions regarding the proposed budget. So on slide 15, there's two positions being proposed. It says payroll slash HR new positions, capacity and supervision. So with the current proposed budget cuts, could you just elaborate on what these two positions being added with considering they cost roughly $150,000 annually?
[Erika Reinfeld]: And then I just had another question on slide 19 for the proposed general ed class size from schools. Yeah, for 2025 for the Brooks it'd be up to 19.9. The McGlynn 22.2, Mr. Tuck 22, and then the Roberts 20.5. Do you have any data about the possible negatives of increasing classroom sizes to that size as that could potentially put a lot of strain on teachers and educators in classrooms?
[Erika Reinfeld]: All right, I'll start with what I like, which is I like the transparency and the clarity here. So thank you again for that. And I really like that this reflects the past year of spending. So that's incredibly helpful. And that moves into my first question. I'm just gonna go in numerical order. Slide seven, this didn't appear on the slide, but you mentioned that there was 500K for undistributed. Was that used for its intended purpose last year or did that end up being flexed?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you. Slide 14, you mentioned new technology. Is this coming with added security concerns or costs to maintain safety, privacy, all of that?
[Erika Reinfeld]: But that's one of the positions that is potentially?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Right, but there's a director position as well.
[Erika Reinfeld]: All right, I'm always gonna have this question on slide 15. I see a lot of contract services listed. What assurances can you give me that contracting these things out is more cost efficient than doing it in-house?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes, building.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay.
[Erika Reinfeld]: All right, on this same slide, you mentioned the supply budget. Is that going to reduce the, I'll call it an unspoken burden on individual staff members for supplies?
[Erika Reinfeld]: In terms of, are those for individual classrooms, or are they for school-wide?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I'm glad that we are providing more of that. Member Graham already asked about class sizes and offerings. I would love some more information on the McGlynn position, the consolidation of the administrative position there, given that those are two schools and each of the other schools has its own administrative assistant and also given the particular vulnerabilities in that school's population.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I'm sure we'll hear about that. Yep. All right. And then my, my very last question was actually building a little bit on member Graham's question about the DPH minimums. We, my questions were, when are they, where are we and how do our health needs and this, the health needs question might be for some of the people out here compared to other districts with their ratios.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you, I understand that, and I will have questions for the administration at later dates about what the plan, if these changes are accepted, what the plan is, because just because you take people away, the work doesn't go away either.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I just wanted to ask a follow-up question. I'm not sure, I may have missed it in Member Bransley's questions, but if the secretary positions are being cut at the McGlynn and other schools, I just wanted to ask a question if, because I'm not sure, it may have been clarified already, if APs were on the, being considered for being cut, because if the workload is being put onto the secretaries, I may be mistaken, but for the McGlynn, it's roughly, for the elementary school alone, it's 500 students per one secretary, and at the high school, based on the cuts proposed, it's gonna be 600 students per secretary, so if AP, AP assistant principals are cut in the future, then who's going to do the workload? Because the workload from the secretary is going to go down to the AP unit. If that works, someone's got to do the work.
[Erika Reinfeld]: hear from I just so I'm encouraged by the long-term prospects I want us to not be in this situation next year or any year after and then as we open this up to public comment I this you know this is what not just underfunded but deprioritized education looks like to be in this situation and so this year is terrible we are in a position where We're not going to find good solutions. We're going to find the least bad solutions. So please work with us to help us figure out what we can do to not cause irreparable damage.
[Erika Reinfeld]: from speaking with teachers, they've told us that it is an open-door policy, and we've also been working with Ms. Cabral to get in the new handbook provisions to explicitly state that Medford High School is an open-door policy to allow for school committee members to visit the high school.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I just wonder if I could present a letter on behalf of the Student Advisory Committee drafted to the school board. On behalf of the students of Mefford High School, we the students of the Student Advisory Committee, expressing a consensus opinion of the committee for the school year of 2023 to 2024, are writing this letter to express our opinion on the planned budget cuts to the Mefford Public Schools positions and budget. The Mefford Student Advisory Committee acknowledges that the city of Mefford is presently experiencing a budget deficit. This deficit has put a great strain on city services provided to the citizens of Mefford. One place where these budget constraints are already felt is in the Medford Public School Districts. Some of the major issues the Student Advisory Committee would like to highlight to the Medford School Committee include the lack of running water in the teacher's break room, a lack of heating and cooling in classrooms during the summer and winter respectively, as well as asbestos remaining inside of the facilities in Medford High School. The school committee has proposed the budget cuts to the 2024-2025 school year budget of the Medford Public School Districts. These cuts, if carried out, will have an immediate and long-term detrimental effects on the quality of educations for the students in the Medford Public School District. As a result of these budget cuts proposed in the fine arts positions, as well as numerous other positions, student activities that are essential to the school and culture of Medford High School, as well as the community of Medford as a whole, will be put at risk. Furthermore, this will lead to a drop in education quality and opportunities for students, which could lead to a decrease in the number of students attending Mefford Public Schools. Furthermore, these proposed cuts will raise the workload of Mefford Public Schools faculties, further increasing the already large burden on Mefford Public School faculty members. Additionally, the proposed 2025 proposal would increase the average class size across the board from nearly 20 pupils per class, with McGlynn and Missitook pushing a proposed average of 22 students per class. The Student Advisory Committee believes that when it comes to student education, there should be no compromises. Students deserve the right to receive the highest quality of education possible. While the deficit does pose a considerable concern, the Student Advisory Committee would also like to point out that these proposed cuts are affecting teachers and lower echelon administrative staff who do most of the day-to-day paperwork and operations. While the School Committee does not have the authority to make the budget, They can request that the City Council propose a new budget to account for the needs of students and teachers in the Medford Public School District. Students deserve a quality environment with well-paid teachers and faculty and a safe, operable facility. And before I end off, I would just like to add a personal opinion. As a lifelong student of Medford Public Schools, a student representative for the Student Advisory Committee, as well as a student government official, and someone who has performed in the fine arts, I can say without doubt that these cuts will result in an immediate and long-term, long-lasting negative impact for students for generations to come if these cuts are made. Thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Motion to approve. I had a question. I'm so sorry.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Don't say that out loud. So last week we heard comments about roof replacement. This isn't gonna mess with that, or this won't get uprooted immediately with- No, no.
[Erika Reinfeld]: But this won't get in the way of that.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Motion to adjourn?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Motion to go to executive session.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes, I just I just wanted to say that I would like to see the default to be to consider the non fossil fuel solutions for our building projects. which I think is a reverse of kind of historically what we as a society has done. I'm, and I think provision three here in particular is about bringing these decisions to the school committee so we can evaluate the language in terms of the climate goals that we have for the city the sustainability goals. And, and not just the financial goals looking being able to look comprehensively at upfront costs and then sustained maintenance costs, and I think that's really important that we're not just making the decisions based on what it costs right now to do this, but also to maintain these systems and make them sustainable for the future, because we know a lot of our buildings are about to experience some major stresses with age. And this right here right now is the time to be planning for that.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So I had two questions. So to confirm, we're looking at this coming out of the city budget rather than the school's budget?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Just wanted to say it. Then my question, Dr. Cushing, you alluded to this, what does compatibility look like for future projects in terms of what equipment we're going to need and being able to make the connection move transition into the next stage of renovating this what is more, and I guess maybe I'm asking what is Moore's law for HVAC equipment.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Because, in all honesty, provided the transition I was expecting them. Yeah.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I would love that, sir.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay, and then will the, do you anticipate, I know nobody can see the future exactly, but do you anticipate there will be more climate friendly, more low carbon options.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And that's kind of what I want to anticipate. I don't want to be in a cycle of replacing things with what we have, just because it's the only thing available.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Or member, I'm sorry, this is just to approve the pool
[Erika Reinfeld]: I have some questions about the athletics and theater, but that's still under discussion. So we'll see that at another point.
[Erika Reinfeld]: All right. And I'll motion to approve. Motion for approval. Pool and facilities rates.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Would you like to speak, Member Reinfeld? I'm happy to answer questions, but it's late. Basically, we've had a lot of new curricula come on in the district. We have a pretty robust process for introducing the curricula and also our top goal or the number one on our strategic plan is to develop this cycle, so I'd like to get that process moving.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I believe member Graham is also in transit.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Present.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I have a question about how things get recorded if someone abstains a vote, because we have it listed as 7-0, but it was 6-0 and one abstention on last week's meeting.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes, I am.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes, but thanks.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes, and thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld? Yep, thank you, Dr. Galussi. I have a couple of clarification questions, which is to note, so the table of substitute coverage, this school year, these numbers are over eight months, whereas the previous year is over 10 months, right? Yes. Yeah, okay. But the number is still higher. Was school year 2022-23 particularly high in absence, or are we... or was this year particularly low? Without more context on either side, I can't quite tell.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, I'm just trying to figure out how we can project ahead as to what the need is going to be and what's typical here. Are things actively going down because the needs are changing? or not?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Great, so and then one little question, do long term subs attend planning periods and team school grade level planning? Is that part of the long term sub responsibility?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, and then I just wanted to confirm, I think you introduced some information that may have shifted my numbers, but it looks we're spending 50 to 60% of the spending on substitutes is in-house, but in-house folks are covering about 86% of the need here. So if we are shifting away from in-house coverage, we're going to see that percentage change. Although I do want to say, especially noting that there are a lot of teachers here, thank you for this coverage. It is much appreciated.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So I definitely want to second what Member Branley said about understanding where the, what coverage, where the services are being sacrificed in these situations. Thank you. And then I also wanted to ask, you mentioned a few of the things that the staffing company would do in terms of onboarding. I always have this question when we bring in consultants. What is the added value of paying a staffing company to do this work versus things that we've thought of in-house, such as just raising the rates of pay? Why are we bringing? What else would the company add that would make that better?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Does that make sense? That makes sense, yes. I'm just trying to understand where that money is gonna go to hire someone outside versus to the people doing the substituting, doing the coverages.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Oh yeah, okay.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I just in regards to point number two. Our policy. I see I see a, uh, lists this as although as awareness day, so I think that's a pretty easy motion to amend that policy. The question of putting it on calendars is a little different because we have the public calendar that is the closures and then there was a that we recognize Awareness Acceptance Advocacy Month. And so I'm wondering if that is part of, in terms of distribution to the public, is part of the longer conversation about the calendar and how it's published. But absolutely, I think we should amend the policy as it currently exists, that line there. And then my question on number three, I wondered if it would make sense, although possibly not with the suggestion just approved, for the subcommittee to sit down with CPAC, the Medford Family Network's autism spectrum parent support group and then the conversation around procedural safeguards and FERPA and all of those screening things and then prepare something that the full committee might be able to approve with a concrete step for the administration. I wonder if that information gathering might be well suited for subcommittee with members of the community.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I'm sorry. You could potentially share the agenda on screen and not read it all.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes, so in the initial approval to set up this committee, we had identified various subcommittees, such as communication and community engagement, sustainability, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, finance, and then others as needed. Does this composition have the ability to form those subcommittees along with the non-voting members. I see you nodding. The other question is, looking at the broad range of expertise that we got, this committee was also designed to, I've been pushing very hard for advisory committees throughout the process. Are there particular advisory committees that you anticipate needing based on applications who were unable to be seated as voting members or general expertise that we need?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you. I'm looking forward to receiving the initial report so we can confirm that those things are moving and are as inclusive as we can. Yes, absolutely. I will now defer to Mr. Guillen.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Can I motion to approve the community members? It sounds like we feel comfortable moving forward with that vote now.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Or from like alternating for the non-voting member Rousseau, or?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, I thought Member Ruseau had done that. Roll call, please.
[Erika Reinfeld]: To be represented and voted on at the next meeting as to who they are.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: There's a question about this. The ad hoc committee, when created, was about developing the process for review. I was told it wasn't about doing the actual review. Sorry, I just got a zoom error message. So I want to confirm that. Is this ad hoc committee doing the review as well? Because I am concerned about my time. I will say that is my bias on this.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And just to report that we because this committee changed, we do not have the final process in place.
[Erika Reinfeld]: For the record.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Follow up on that. You said every school is required by whom? Is that a school committee rule? Is that a state rule?
[Erika Reinfeld]: So it's- I guess I'm looking at it from this side for the first time. So I was curious. Yeah.
[Erika Reinfeld]: What are we approving that they'll be presented at the next meeting?
[Erika Reinfeld]: And we're sending comments, feedback, further requests to you, Dr. Edward-Vince.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I'm unmuted. Motion to approve. Thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And if he can't, my wife has been involved with this group, so I can speak to it. And I spoke with Ellery as well, but I'd love to hear where the district is coming from on this. But it is a three question survey. I can pull it up, actually.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I had reached out to the Safe Routes to Schools people to say, hey, is there anything you'd want us to keep in mind? And they said, oh, actually, this thing that has been kind of chugging along slowly is set to launch tomorrow. So it was, yeah. So the The survey itself is run by Safe Routes to Schools, which is a statewide group that does local advocacy and assessments. And it is a very basic survey, right? So if you click on where you live, whoops, and then you answer questions about your child. How do you get to school? How do you get from school? And this is it. So it's not comprehensive. I know this group is interested in getting more data about what stops people from active transportation, walking, biking, rolling this. But this survey is just this assessment. I believe it goes to the state organization of Safe Routes to Schools. They do the data and provide a report. I have the report from the Roberts from 2018. It used to be done by school, and I think they're pretty excited. Hi, Kitty, about having a comprehensive approach from the district on this, but it's really focusing on alternative transportation.
[Erika Reinfeld]: question. I think I'm right, though. Yes one meta question I have is whether we're looking to have an assessment and understand. The what are the obstacles to participating in district provided transportation or alternative methods versus what could the district do differently? That would shift your transportation behavior because those are kind of two different approaches to
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld? So I will note that Member Ruseau and several other members sat in on the Student Advisory Committee or Student Advisory Council meeting last week, and they raised some challenges with the busing. Some of it was around how it is implemented at the schools in terms of stopping points and lines and crowding, and some of it was around timing. Was this? The high school high school.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, so I would echo what member Ruseau said earlier that getting student feedback certainly at the high school level and I think the middle school level as well I think my question is, to what extent is this survey about the quality of the experiences of the services being provided versus the. the, the, which services should be provided and are going to be used because, you know, the things that we keep hearing about, about overcrowding on the buses or lack of bus monitor or vaping on the middle school bus, those sorts of questions, as you say, distinguishing fact from fiction, how prevalent are these issues? I saw Megan's hand go up.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I mean- I think my question there is to, is it, can we phrase those things in terms of obstacles? Are people not putting their kids on the bus because of X, Y, or Z reasons? So I think that phrasing is useful.
[Erika Reinfeld]: May I share a map of our school radiuses? Sure. All right. So these are our schools. Oh, my toolbar's in the way. There it goes. Right. And so this is within half a mile. And then the lighter shading is one mile. And then these dotted lines are the three miles. So, particularly when we're looking right Fulton Heights I know we do a bus at the high school here, but we've also got a lot of outside the radius for the high school and a lot of these neighborhoods. are a particular demographic and so there's a there's a huge equity issue and understanding I love Megan's idea of reaching out specifically to families right the elementary schools have this have these radii but even some of that is not being captured in this. And then there's also, I think, the stigma issue that needs to be talked about, right? Riding a bus, the kids who are able to park. Is parking free for high school students? Yes. OK, but that, of course, requires owning a car or having access to a car. And so I don't know to what extent stigma is informing. You know, we can ask about how would your behavior change if we made these changes? But some of it is not. Some of it is really rooted in, you know what, even if you give me these buses, I wouldn't take them. or even if I knew how to walk to school, I wouldn't, or my family, my parent drives past the school every day, and so they drop me off, and I'm never gonna switch to something else. So what we're hoping to accomplish, is there an ideal situation that we want to achieve here, or is it just, you know,
[Erika Reinfeld]: And that- And that was, that was actually their complaint that there are two buses and they're crowded.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, so they raised five concerns, and I just need to find that tab that has it. So there are five concerns. Where did it go? Wait, nope, that's your document. This one's my document. All right. Was. Oh.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, it was the student safety in the bus lines, the setting designated arrival and departure position positions to reduce crowding more buses for North Medford and other underserved areas. five and 10 minutes, and it wasn't consistent as to when the arrival time was, and it wasn't time to accommodate people staying late, so that's your late bus question. And then the 95, either comes very early, very late, the early bus is very crowded, the late bus doesn't get people to their jobs on time. Member Ruseau, did I miss anything?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Well, I think a potential setup is just the baseline. What do you do now? What would you like to do? Or do we have questions about getting fewer people taking buses, more bike pool, more walk pools? But what do you do now? What would you do if the options were there for you? And what are the obstacles to getting to those ideals, whether it's walking, biking, buses, carpools, parking? I think that is how this is shaking out for me in assessing what you do. What would you anticipate doing? And I want to recognize Megan's point that there's some education around that. I think we could absolutely aim to have fewer cars in the school drop-offs and pickup lines. That's going to be some education. There's going to be some resistance in the community. But understanding what the barriers are for walking, biking, carpools, busing. is important, so where you're going, and that's specifically what the obstacles are, or as I asked in the beginning of the call, what could we do to facilitate your ideal situation? But I think obstacles is probably the way to go on that. That's what people are experiencing, is they're saying, oh, I'm not doing this because X, Y, or Z. Okay.
[Erika Reinfeld]: For whatever it's worth, the city, I spoke to Todd Blake, city engineer, and they're saying they're in the process of mapping the school addresses of students who take the bus and kind of looking at which roads are getting the traffic and what kind of shape they're in. So there's some coordination with the city once we have these results as well. But they're interested in understanding that. especially since I will note that a lot of these neighborhoods have changed since I imagine the last time we did any kind of transportation assessment.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I'm noting Megan's comment in the chat here about asking families to sign up for the bus in May this year. Does that mean there's content you'd like to have ready with that sign up to say, you're not asking for a preliminary survey response or we shouldn't try to push things to meet that? Okay. Because if this is the moment when everyone's ready to talk about their transportation needs, I don't want to miss an opportunity.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Graham, do you know if this kind of assessment for a new high school, would this be a separate effort to understand the needs there?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Because I know building and grounds are separate, separate entities for people.
[Erika Reinfeld]: All right, I guess we'll go in the order that you called us. So hi everyone, I'm Erika Reinfeld. I am talking to you right now from MIT. I teach science communication here. I've worked in a lot of museums. I have background in astronomy and theater and museum education. all of the disciplines. I am interested in that. I'm also a Medford mom. I have a seventh grader and a third grader, and I am very excited about having all of these voices in our conversations about what our schools are going to look like in the future. So thank you for taking up time after school to be a part of this council. It is amazingly appreciated by us on the committee and also by your fellow students and teachers and administrators. So thank you so much.
[Erika Reinfeld]: All right, well, let me, can you hear me before I go on? Can you hear me? That's a yes. Excellent. Oh, hello there. All right. So again, I am Erica Reinfeld. I am talking to you from MIT today where I teach science communication, but I have also worked in museums for the Smithsonian and for MIT's Cancer Research Center. I have a background in astronomy and theater and museum education. So I am about all of the things that you study. I am so excited about the curriculum components, and I am so grateful to all of you for volunteering your time to be on a part of the school committee in a student advisory capacity. I'm also a Medford mom. I have a seventh grader and a third grader, and I just really appreciate this, and I know your classmates, your teachers, the rest of the committee does as well.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And I think the other part that needs to be a part of the conversation is understanding some of the motivation for why the policy exists. Cause I've, I've heard certainly some concerns around, you know, is this, are we just talking about backpacks, but what about large totes? And there are some equity issues where some student populations are more likely to carry a large tote and some are more likely to carry backpacks and are those being treated the same way. But is this about the devices that can distract people in class? And so this is, an opportunity to not have those devices. And so how can we make sure that a new policy solves the problems that the initial policy was intended to have? So I think that's the other component. We see the burden that the policy can place on students, but then taking that away, what are the consequences of that for being in class, for being between classes? I think there are different concerns during passing than there are in class. So just making sure that conversation includes not just the impact on students, but on the entire class.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, sounds like you all have a fairly good idea of the issues and the reasons that we want this. So I wonder if rather than doing another survey, you might think about once we, you have a proposal for what this would look like, asking people to respond to that specific proposal rather than having another open-ended feedback that comes in, but make it more of a feedback than an input response situation. I'd say here's what we think would solve the problems we know about, what have we forgotten?
[Erika Reinfeld]: If this is the if this is the same Google Doc that was shared in the last meeting, I believe I have that.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Sorry, am I sharing the one that that we had last time?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay. Close that window.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you. This was very thoughtful, very well researched, and I appreciate what's gone into this. Can I ask, have you spoken to any of the school, the faculty, teachers about the alignment, any of your advisors about the alignment with their, with learning goals and course goals?
[Erika Reinfeld]: What would you most like to get from the school committee members who are in the room right now? I'm aware of the time and that there are more things on the agenda and obviously as an educator I have a lot of thoughts on how this all plays out and I don't think this is the moment to go into depth in every point because there's a lot to be discussed and Um, hashed out, but you know, is this something that we would want to schedule a subcommittee meeting with the curriculum? Subcommittee and instruction to, to talk about this with teachers and students in the room. What would be most useful at this point with limited time for, in terms of either in this meeting or next steps that you would like to see?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you. That's really helpful because I think school committee can set policies and obviously that does take some time. There's a limit to, especially with open meetings, of how fast a fast track is. But also there's the stipulation that the implementation falls to the schools themselves and we can't tell teachers how to teach, but we can set some of those parameters, whether it's about the homework, about the expectations per syllabus. A lot of this seems to be about laying out what are the expectations and knowing what's coming over the course of a year. But thank you, that's really helpful. I see how urgent this is on many levels.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I have one question and one comment. One question is, are these conditions exacerbated during inclement weather? I ask because I personally am a most seasons biker, and so I'm curious about alternative transportation in terms of biking as well. Are there more people riding buses? Does the weather affect these issues?
[Erika Reinfeld]: That's good to hear. And then the other, the comment that I wanted to make is that this is really good timing to have this meeting because we have a strategic planning subcommittee meeting scheduled for Monday about a district-wide transportation survey. And so if there are particular questions that you think we ought to be asking more broadly in the community. I would certainly love to receive those from you in anticipation of this meeting on Monday. Absolutely. And that can happen over email. I'm not trying to put anyone on the spot, especially at 331.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes, it was protected. I was in that meeting that that those protected bike lanes went away because a lot of people spoke out against having bike lanes on Winthrop Street and the compromise was that the bike lanes not be protected. And that was because people showed up and fought against protected bike lanes. So if this is important, please do continue to show up at meetings to advocate.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you for the work in putting it together and for presenting it. I'm gonna ask again, so what are you hoping to get from this group at this time in regards to this document?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I asked member Ruseau and Mr. Dalton what kind of protocols need to happen for something like this to be reviewed and put up as an official. This is my new member hat going. How would this work?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Second.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I just wanted to know if this is the first, when, is this the first time these awards have been offered? Are these inaugural or are they continuing?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I think we have a motion on the floor. Didn't we have a motion to request? I don't think we voted on. I think, I think we did take a motion.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you, Member Ruseau. Member Reinfeld? Yep, I had two questions. One, and I know this was in the old policy as well, what if the Secretary is a new member? Is that, I mean, a new member can't, and the Secretary's elected during that first meeting, at which point the duties have started. So I'm a little confused about the logistics, but I know this has stood as is for quite a while, so I don't know what to do about that. And then my second question is, there was a phrase removed about non-discrimination, that there's membership on a school committee is not limited to race, color, sex, religion, national origin, or sexual orientation. Member Ruseau?
[Erika Reinfeld]: This is covered by the non-discrimination.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So some of this used to exist, and then when we moved to Zoom, that became the only online access that was announced in meetings. This is just to say when people go to look at the minutes, they should be able to get to the videos quite easily. I realize that it can be difficult to post the individual video links. I did talk to Tom about whether or not this would be possible. He said it would be fine. But in the absence of that, I would be completely fine with just the link to find previous recordings here. It was suggested that there might be some policy changes required on this. I went and I looked at the policies, and they really just describe what's in the minutes and what's in the announcements about time and place. It doesn't need to be, doesn't seem to be needing an amendment on the videos. I have that language if we need to add them, but it kind of changes the name of the resolution. So I'm happy for questions. This is just about making these things available to the public.
[Erika Reinfeld]: No.
[Erika Reinfeld]: To post, yes. So we have the agenda and then we have... And then we have the minutes are posted. Once the minutes are approved, the minutes go up and it would be easy enough to just add that Zoom link or so I'm told. I would be perfectly happy with just a here's where to go and find it.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And that's one part. The other part was about letting people know where they can watch it on cable and through live streams, which, as I said, used to be the case. And as somebody who would often tune in and listen to these meetings while I'm dealing with dinner or children, it was helpful to have those links with the meeting info.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes, I think you can just strike and that individual recording links through the end of that sentence there. Just archives recordings of Medford Public School Committee meetings.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Because these are the education channels and there's a separate local access. And is it not consistent?
[Erika Reinfeld]: All right, so the live stream to Zoom, though you're saying that our Zooms do get pushed to YouTube.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And that link's the same, right?
[Erika Reinfeld]: But that's fine. Yeah, I was looking at that as the minutes and the notification, but Sure.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I don't have a strong preference on this. My sense is that the people who aren't watching it online want the channel numbers, but... I would, not to be difficult, but I would make a motion to amend to
[Erika Reinfeld]: I would say channel numbers and YouTube.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I will also say that these meetings, sorry, the notice is posted to the website where we have agreed to put that link. So that link exists where meeting notification exists. So I don't need that link on the agenda. I think the channels make sense on the agenda. Okay, so no YouTube link, just the channel numbers. Member Ruseau.
[Erika Reinfeld]: incidents with the police report or the number of police reports? Because my understanding is there are sometimes multiple police reports filed around a single incident or is an incident defined as one student?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I had a question. I'd like to offer an amendment that the rate cards be accompanied by a historical perspective for these funds or history or for those that are recommending a rate change. I don't know which one is more appropriate here, general history or just those with a change in mind.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Here.
[Erika Reinfeld]: That's it. Great. Member Reinfeld? I was just going to thank Jerry again for being proactive and say, don't be embarrassed. We'd rather get the information sooner. Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you, Jerry. So I am curious when the lags will catch up. So when we'll know whether these numbers are lasting or temporary. And then I guess my other question is what ability do we have to see what the trends are? Because I'm seeing a lot of net losses and I'm curious how many of those are perpetuating from year to year and how many are anomalies.
[Erika Reinfeld]: For this cycle or for what's the timing on looking at that?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld. Yes, I was just wondering what's happening with potential budget presentation by Tracy Novick. That's a math school committee.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you. I think it's super key.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Motion to approve.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Sorry, I had one more question. I see in here that meals are the responsibility of the travelers. Is there a plan in place if there are students for whom that could pose a hardship to cover that in a sensitive, discreet way?
[Erika Reinfeld]: And how many, yes, how many students are on the team here in Medford?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I think we can move ahead.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld? Yes, I'm wondering how our programs compare. I love that you've had this meeting and that you're moving forward with the other programs in the city. I tried to do a little bit of research and I see that our rates are on par. Do they also have waitlists of similar sizes?
[Erika Reinfeld]: And then are there other, so you said in the current schools, you're using the cafeterias, the libraries, the gyms, yeah. And so I'm a museum educator by training, so I'm familiar with the informal or unstructured learning environments. What are the options elsewhere in the district, kind of beyond elementary schools? What would we need to run that sort of program somewhere else or for someone to?
[Erika Reinfeld]: And I recognize staffing is certainly an issue. Are you competing with these other programs in Medford for staffing? Is everyone trying to hire the same people?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes. Sorry. Yeah. Could you give us a sense of how the waitlist has grown, what the trend is here? Is it getting, I assume it's getting bigger or is it leveling off?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, I'd be really curious to see that as long as along with the numbers of percentage of people who are declining waitlist spots. I mean, I think if that's changing as well, that tells us something about how people are filling their needs.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, because I think you're absolutely right that the raw numbers don't tell the whole story. And so what are the key metrics here to understand how we are or are not meeting the need? Because we hear a lot of anecdotes and what, what's true across the district or in specific schools be really helpful.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And then one more, you may not have this answer until the end of the year, until next year. So Ready, Set, Kids is a new program that was kind of formed in response to some of the challenges. Has it helped?
[Erika Reinfeld]: And I know that's one difference in between, I know you said these problems are not unique to Medford, but I think there are communities around us that have many more options.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I live next door to that one. I see the space.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld. Yep. I was wondering if we could reorder things in the definition section. The rest of this protocol does a great job of going from progressively, introducing progressively more extreme conditions and I found myself jumping around and reading it backwards. With the definitions that the outlook is kind of the first stage and then we're looking at the watches or the advisory.
[Erika Reinfeld]: But I think if we flip them, it'll make it more... I think the goal here was perhaps to make the excessive, the most extreme thing first, so we see that first, but it felt really inconsistent with... I'm happy to flip it. Thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Um. Or refer. This. To, um. To Medford's Office of Sustainable Sustainability. I know our climate action plan. References lead only, um, but either or invite. The sustainable someone from the sustainability office at the city to comment on that as a
[Erika Reinfeld]: It's CHPS. I can put that in the document, I think, if that's useful. I got it. Yeah, I didn't have time to do the research, but from what I've seen, it seems like there are some really important milestones for schools that we should be thinking about as people using the building.
[Erika Reinfeld]: That's fair. I think that's perhaps then included in one of the consultancies that the next section is gonna refer to to make sure that we have that consultancy in submitting our application.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, the or was simply because I haven't, I didn't have the time to do the research, but I'm going to trust the experts in the inboxes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Or I accept your revision to my amendment.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld. Yeah, I support the idea of alternates. My big question on that is, if we lose committee members, we're going to need to, for the most part, replace that particular expertise. I think this is a little bit what Member Ruseau was referring to. And so being really thoughtful about what that means. because the building committee is we're choosing this not by lottery not we're choosing it very much based on expertise and I but I think it could certainly be added. I guess my question to the superintendent is this for specifically for the members of the public or are we thinking about the designated voting members who are actively fulfilling particular roles because I think if it's for the public, we can add a question to the application saying, would you be willing to serve as an alternate. And then we would need to specify that the alternates are essentially a non, are they a non participatory but non voting member during the meeting. and they move into a voting role, or is it they're observers for the whole process? So what does it mean to be an alternate?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Do we need to put into this document the procedure for filling vacancies that arise, or is that something that the committee, the original appointed committee will say, if we lose members, this is our replacement plan?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, and I because I agree with the process that member Ruseau out. I think it was member Ruseau outlined if we go back if that expertise is there we take it there or give that first refusal, and then put out a call for specific expertise if needed.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes, we did not address the question of Ms. Hodgkin. Yes. So I would certainly support putting her as a non-voting member in the same capacity as Principal Fallon. It does bring us to an even number, which may or may not, although not voting, not on the voting, just in the room, I guess it's just pushing the numbers up. Are we like, and I was also looking back, is MEEP represented in Medford Family Network? How are those, when we're talking about all the programs in the building, how are those represented here?
[Erika Reinfeld]: And thank you for being here, how you come in.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Fantastic, thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yes.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld? We need to add email address or phone number. How do we contact these people? Whoops.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you. And then do we want to know if they are a teacher or staff at a different school in Medford? We have high school. I was torn on this, and so I... I guess that's a good question.
[Erika Reinfeld]: If it were me, I'd be putting it in other relevant or Yeah, I want to be there. And just to make sure, just to confirm that Medford High School encompasses vocational actually, and I suppose Curtis Tufts as well, because we are looking at whether or not this becomes one facility.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Not to the application, I just want to make sure that the application is posted with the necessary context of the goals of the committee that I think is outlined early on, right? It can't just be a form. Perhaps it's a resolution and that explains what our goals are and who they're joining.
[Erika Reinfeld]: before I think I think the goals that we outlined are really helpful to say this is this is what this committee is looking to achieve. And yeah, I agree. I agree.
[Erika Reinfeld]: And the shifting of the numbers with the addition. Yes. Motion to approve.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I worry a little bit about getting all community members up to speed on Robert's rules of order, but if that's how open meeting has to be, that's how it has to be.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I have a question for Dr. Dr Edouard-Vincent. I'm wondering what the status of the project website is. As per the last resolution to set that up.
[Erika Reinfeld]: It wasn't when we wrote it.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So this is partly a procedural question. Do we ask comments about the job description that's written, or is this just a pass? Has this been posted?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I had a couple questions. Just a question around the practice of salary measure of experience. Do we ever post salary ranges for things? I'm curious. Measure it for with We don't post salary ranges. Okay. So that's a, that's a different conversation then about practices around that. Um, and then I was, I just wanted to ask about it's in the knowledge of progressive approach to enhance student dining experiences. And I'm curious what that means and whether that means culturally inclusive or culturally sensitive.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So I'm wondering if that language, can be added. Progressive feels very big to me.
[Erika Reinfeld]: or to add culturally inclusive in that.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Reinfeld. The question about community vote. Is that part of a regular election cycle? Is that a special election? What does that look like?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I was gonna motion to approve, but I'll second, that's why.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Oh, sorry.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Are you not done, Member McLaughlin?
[Erika Reinfeld]: I am curious what expertise we already have here. Like I pretty sure we don't have people in the district who have been through a new construction process and that feels for new construction in a school. So I'm curious what the expertise is and where our gaps are. And then the other thing that I wanted to say is I think Defining the committee, I like the idea of starting with what we need and being really clear about the process. So I think putting that in addition to the committee, just the process of here are some key milestones for that community input at these stages is really going to be essential. And these are the points when we will evaluate. Is the committee shifting? Are we rotating? this position or that position, but I would like to know what expertise we currently have. The requirements say one principal. I feel like if we're talking about the Medford High School vocational combination, we actually need two principals there. So that kind of conversation. How big is our committee of people that we already have?
[Erika Reinfeld]: And then what are the gaps there that we would need for the core committee? What needs to be filled in?
[Erika Reinfeld]: So, to be a little bit clearer in terms of my saying what are our gaps, I think we should potentially be looking to fill particular functions and roles on the committee. I think absolutely representation is important, but what is it that we need to do to get this done. This is a very logistical process, and particularly at certain stages and in terms of educating the community about what this is, I would hate for us to run around finding all the things we could tell them. I think an FAQ would be really helpful. What are the frequent questions we're getting and put together an answer on that? I do think there should be absolutely points for community input throughout the process, but perhaps in this initial stage, what are the key things that people are asking and that they want to know similar to what we did around I hate to make the comparison to COVID, but there was a very soliciting input and then hopefully answering those questions. Thank you. Member Ruseau?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Second.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I second. That was my question.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I am willing. I defer to a member who is willing. If anyone is gung ho, they can have it, but I'm absolutely.
[Erika Reinfeld]: That's going to be your excuse for everything now.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Motion to adjourn.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Mayor. Member Reinfeld. Thank you so much. So I'm new to school committee, so I haven't seen the presentations other than in passing. So I have a couple of questions and I'll start with the accelerated math. Yes. So my big question here is what is differentiation gonna look like in the seventh grade now that there's going to be a broader range of skills and abilities and comfort with math? And how are teachers going to be supported in meeting those wider needs without the trust?
[Erika Reinfeld]: And they have the opportunity to do some of the vertical integration talking to the grade below and the grade ahead.
[Erika Reinfeld]: So I have questions about the integrated math, but if any of my colleagues have things on the middle school, I want to make sure we can keep that together.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you, Member Redfield. So, Member Graham touched on my questions about education for families. And so a small question is, what kind of support is going to be available for students coming in from other districts who have had who were coming from the traditional path into the integrated?
[Erika Reinfeld]: And I will say, I love the spiral model of education. I think it's much more effective than the latter. So my next question is around that kind of interdisciplinary perspective. So I know you've had a lot of conversation within the math department and digital learning, and how does this intersect with, say, the science courses, you know, chemistry, physics, where a lot of these concepts are coming into play, and at the vocational school, things like metalwork and carpentry, where that geometry foundation, and as much as I hate to reference standardized tests, academic milestones like the SATs, which lean really hard into the geometry. So how is that being integrated kind of beyond the math department and making sure that those intersections, those alignments are matching up?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Great. And will they have the opportunity to do that peer-to-peer professional development in this? This is what worked for me. This was my challenge. How can we help each other?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Well, thank you so much. Thanks to your work and thank the committee as well. I know it's a lot on top of teaching to be thinking about that at this level.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Hi, Dr. Cushing. So most of my questions were addressed particularly around the triggering of, you know, is this predicted heat for three days or is this actual because after three days it's already been excessive heat. I almost can't believe I'm asking this and this is to Member Ruseau's point about conversations we keep having over and over. Encouraging hydration bathroom policies. Is there something built in there? I know this has been controversial across the district about access to bathrooms, but when we're encouraging hydration, this is going to impact that. Is there something we need to be considering on that front?
[Erika Reinfeld]: At the high school. And I haven't heard problems at other schools, but I do know frequency of students using the bathroom. I've heard it disruptive. I mean, I know it's disruptive. Anyone trying to leave the house with a child knows it's disruptive, but just what that looks like in the policy. And then my other point is the acknowledgement of the services that school provide, but also perhaps an acknowledgement that many home environments are also unsafe in excessive heat.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, I see it. I'm sorry.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Thank you. Member Reinfeld. I don't know if this is a point of information. I think our policy is that we don't meet in August unless there's an emergency. So I don't know if there are implications there in terms of a policy. So I think my question is, I would really like to know the schedule. It sounds like there are school updates in September. I know budget season is June. I'd love to see budget conversations happen earlier. And so are we looking at mapping out what a typical year looks like or what a specific year looks like here. Member McLaughlin. And then my other question was just how does this intersect with the meeting we're having in two days? So I would certainly favor it. looking at this after I've kind of seen what a report cycle, what that looks like. Right, because the reports and the presentations.
[Erika Reinfeld]: The email was sent on January 19th from Lisa requesting, I got an email on January 19th requesting the Committee of the Whole for January 31st at 5 p.m. Specific to this? And then I got the calendar specific to this to discuss requested reports for the remainder of the year to be held on January 31st. And then I got the calendar invitation on January 22nd.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Can we can I I'm not sure if this is an amendment to it but I have some things that I think would also like to see in this? Member Reinfeld, yes. Yeah, so I would like to see an assessment of how many or how much time full-time and part-time staff are spending covering when we don't have subs. You know, we just heard about an assistant principal who's coming in to do things. I've heard of co-teachers being pulled into another classroom. So I would really like to understand what services are not being provided or what work isn't getting done when we are cobbling together a substitute situation. And the goal of, and I don't know if that's one of the key questions in the beginning, but the goal on that is to, I really appreciate the specificity of what is the need, what is the cost, what's it going to cost us? This to me is, what's it going to cost us if we don't fix the problem? So I'd like to see that. And then I don't have a great sense of what our history as a district is in terms of long-term subs and building subs. And I think that has fallen in and out of existence as people have and have not become available over the years. I know I had a student whose teacher, we had two maternity leaves in the same year and one of them had a long-term sub and the other had a cobbled together situation. And then our building, an elementary school had a building sub and then they didn't and so understanding what that looked like when those things were in place and when they haven't been, or even just what dates.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Graham.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Member Graham.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Yeah, I was curious, is there on our, I think there's a shared Google Drive that we got access to today, is there, does that have the archive of the meetings and kind of agendas of what these committees have done?
[Erika Reinfeld]: Okay, great. Thank you.
[Erika Reinfeld]: You did tell us our first meeting we attended.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Motion to sever the minutes from December 18th.
[Erika Reinfeld]: Second.
[Erika Reinfeld]: I motion to approve these with the correction of the spelling of my name.